Downtown Amsterdam
Some people say that scare tactics don’t work, others swear by it. I’ve spent the last 2 years getting people’s opinions on what would be an effective sexual health communication strategy to reduce the transmission of STIs and get more people through the clinic door, and the answers are inconclusive.
- It takes 2 to tango
The audience or members of the public have a dialectic relationship with the campaign messages. In other words, they all come with their own baggage i.e. “pre-existing beliefs, attitudes, experiences and knowledge”. This in turn affects the “interpretation and acceptance of the message”.
- There is never a campaign message that fits everyone
Refine your target audience before developing your messages. Have multiple target group and multiple ‘mini’ campaigns instead.
- Test and tease before you launch, please.
Given the fact that as health professionals we acknowledge the plethora of existing health beliefs and attitudes amongst the various target groups, it is essential to gain a solid understanding of the group. The messages need to be pre-tested in order to filter out the possible misinterpretations and counterarguments. Pre-testing also ensures that a certain message aimed at a specific group does not have a negative effect on another.
- Choose your battles wisely
Goals can also be set to increase awareness, change attitude and/or affect intention. If you’re campaign aims to change behaviour then it should be well coordinator with other environmental factors coupled with health public policy and having a supportive environment. The process of changing attitude and intentions for example, requires less communication intensity (than communications raising awareness) but more coordination of environmental factors.
- Good campaign invade from all directions
Different delivery channels of the campaign message will be more effective than having just one source. This does not mean that I am recommending having the campaign messages printed on t-shirts, coolers, caps and posters. I would instead recommend using different form of media (mass and social media) i.e. newspaper, radio, television, cinema advertisement, social networking sites, events based marketing, campaign promotion in schools and higher education institutions, workplaces and sporting clubs.
- Message must create a buzz
A good campaign should be able to generate enough buzz around it so as to stimulate interpersonal communications on the campaign messages. The more people start talking about it, the higher the message penetration rate, the easier it becomes for those who find it hard to accept the message to process their feelings about the campaign.
- Long intervals between campaigns losses it’s sting
Certainly, fear of public fatigue over campaigns may sometimes force us to create gaps between campaigns; this may sometimes backfire in that you have lost your captive audiences who have become engaged by a previous campaign. The recommendation from me is to plan 2 campaigns from the start or break campaigns down to phases. Apply creativity to the campaign design and make sure between phases, your team is out there doing monitoring, evaluations and conducting focus group discussions with as many people as your budget permits.
- Apply Evidence based Health Communications
Form a core multidisciplinary team of a behavioural researcher, monitoring and evaluation expert, a designer/social marketer and public health practitioner with clinical experience. The core team can then consult with as many stakeholders as they like, present their findings and make their final decision based on evidence and consultations.
Reference
1. Robert Donovan and Nadine Henley: Social Marketing Principles and Practice 2003.
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