Commentary on Simset al. (2014) and Langleyet al. (2014): Mass media campaigns require adequate and sustained funding to change population health behaviours

Abstract

Commentary on Sims et al. (2014) and Langley et al. (2014): Mass media campaigns require adequate and sustained funding to change population health behavioursHighly successful commercial brands understand that consistent ongoing bursts of advertising are necessary for maintaining brand awareness and sales [1]. Public health campaigns are rarely funded at the levels of commercial advertisers, yet the extent of campaign exposure while on air and the lack of an ongoing campaign presence (campaign duration) are rarely examined as determinants of campaign success or failure [2]. Research examining anti-smoking campaign intensity and duration has been vastly outweighed by research focusing on advertising content and style [3], perhaps because advertisement message attributes are more amenable to experimental study and/or more theoretically interesting to behavioural scientists, communication scholars and marketing researchers. Considering the influence of these critical factors in the success of tobacco control campaigns aired in the United Kingdom over the past 10 years, the recent papers by Sims et al. [4] and Langley et al. [5] are a welcome addition to the literature. Sims and colleagues' study [4] indicates that each person in the population needs to be exposed to approximately four anti-smoking advertisements per month to result in a detectable impact on smoking prevalence. These findings have a remarkably high degree of consistency with previous studies from Australia [6,7] and the United States [8,9], which indicate that moderate to high levels of intensity (i.e. exposure to four to eight advertisements per month per person) are necessary for campaigns to 'cut through' the competing clutter of commercial advertising. These levels of campaign intensity enable messages to be seen multiple times so they can be processed as intended and, thus, achieve population-wide influence. While research shows that part of the population-wide effect is generated by smokers quitting in direct response to such messages, another key effect is to increase community discussion [10] and to change broader social norms that reduce the social acceptability of smoking, leading to higher support for policy change and more social support and services to help smokers quit [11].Adding to this is Langley et al. 's paper [5], which shows a decline in the demand for quitting information and assistance after the United Kingdom's anti-tobacco campaign funding was cut. This study underlines the importance of smokers being exposed to regular ongoing campaign activity to inform and remind them of the importance of quitting and to re-energize their desire to quit, so that they put quitting at the top of their priority list. This is consistent with the relatively low durability of commercial advertising impact on sales [1] and with recent studies that indicate that anti-smoking campaign effects on behaviour last for just a few weeks or months [6,7,12]. Ongoing exposure to anti-smoking messages is especially important to counter an addictive behavi...

Association of the LiveLighter mass media campaign with consumption of sugar‐sweetened beverages: Cohort study

“…Subsequent airing of the campaign in the Australian state of Victoria (average 120 weekly TARPs) also yielded impacts on reported SSB consumption . Findings from the much more developed area of research on tobacco control mass media campaigns indicate that a TARPs level of at least 100 per week is necessary to promote behaviour change, with more favourable outcomes at higher doses . It is important to confirm this in the area of obesity prevention, given consumers face a daily barrage of advertising to the contrary from industry …”

“…41 These positive behaviour change findings extend the liter- 20 Findings from the much more developed area of research on tobacco control mass media campaigns indicate that a TARPs level of at least 100 per week is necessary to promote behaviour change, with more favourable outcomes at higher doses. 42 It is important to confirm this in the area of obesity prevention, given consumers face a daily barrage of advertising to the contrary from industry. 43 The study findings are limited by the relatively low follow-up rate, and differential loss to follow-up for some population groups has the potential to introduce bias.…”

Population-based evaluation of the‘LiveLighter’ healthy weight and lifestyle mass media campaign

“…LL is a relatively ‘immature’ campaign [ 70 ]. To be successful population campaigns require regular media activity over an extended period of time [ 7 , 80 , 81 ] in order to attempt to counter the significant environmental drivers precipitating and maintaining weight gain [ 82 ]. Campaigns addressing the complex behaviours antecedent to overweight reduction have commonly not shown direct and immediate impacts on behaviour at the population-level [ 10 , 32 , 83 , 84 ] and behavioural effects are more likely to be reported in the longer-term [ 85 ].…”

Immediate effects on adult drinkers of exposure to alcohol harm reduction advertisements with and without drinking guideline messages: experimental study

“…Also, drinkers received only brief exposure to advertisements within a single study session and our outcomes were assessed immediately after exposure. Effects of exposure decay rapidly, so repeated exposure would be important, as would be the case if advertisements such as these aired within a population-based mass media campaign [22,43,44]. Finally, we note that none of the STH advertisements were made specifically to carry a low-risk drinking guidelines message, whereas all the LTH advertisements originally carried a guideline message specific to their country of origin (which we replaced with our standard Australian long-term harms guideline message).…”

“…Eligible participants had consumed alcohol at least twice per month on average during the past year, were not currently pregnant or soon planning to become so and did not work in health promotion, market research, advertising or the alcohol industry. Quotas were applied to achieve approximately even numbers by sex and age group (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49) and 50-64 years). Participants were recruited through an Australian on-line non-probability panel accredited under the International Organization for Standardization's standards for Market, Opinion and Social Research (AS ISO 20252), where participants have opted to receive invitations to participate in research.…”