Scottish Government

ISBN 0 7559 2771 0 (Web only publication)
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Campaign overview

• The Scottish Executive launched its first Domestic Abuse campaign in December 1998.
• Through an on-going programme of advertising and other publicity measures, the campaign aims to strengthen public opposition to, and condemnation of, domestic abuse as totally unacceptable behaviour and to promote the national domestic abuse helpline.
• This Wave 8 research follows the seventh phase of this campaign, and used TV advertising and was supported by 2 radio adverts and a press advert.
• This was the first time radio had been used as part of the Domestic Abuse campaign.
• The campaign budget was reduced by £73,000 from the previous year to £276,656 in financial year 2004 -2005. Budget limitations meant that an existing TV commercial was re-used, rather than a new one developed. As Dolls' House had run in the previous 2 phases of the campaign, Behind Closed Doors was chosen as the most appropriate.
• During this phase of the campaign, TV advertising was only available on Channels 4 and 5 and not on Scottish, Grampian or Border as previous campaigns have been.

Highlights

• In line with research findings in previous waves, those who have seen the advertising hold stronger views on the subject of domestic abuse compared to those who have not seen any advertising. Furthermore, these attitudes are in line with the campaign objectives.
• The level of respondents perceiving domestic abuse as affecting all age groups has steadily increased over recent waves (46% Wave 6, 47% Wave 7, 48% Wave 8), whilst the level of those perceiving domestic abuse as affecting all social classes has fluctuated (63% Wave 6, 67% Wave 7, 64% Wave 8). However calls to the helpline increased by over 1000 on the previous year. This suggests that domestic abuse has a lower profile in the minds of the general public, but that the message of where to seek support is getting through to those who need it.
• There was a slight drop in overall unprompted awareness of the advertising (from 74% in Wave 7, to 72%). However, bearing in mind that ITV was not available as a medium this year (as it had in previous years), and also the expected lower impact of using a previously run TV advert, the stable level of awareness actually may reflect positively on the effectiveness of the campaign.
• In terms of prompted awareness (or campaign reach), TV fell from 70% in the previous year to 47%. However due to a very strong radio performance (awareness of 45% awareness) and press (17%) the campaign reach overall grew by 2%, delivering reach of 72%. Therefore the advertising appears to have been effective, despite reduced media spend.
• Of those who has seen Behind Closed Doors, 18% were aware of the message No excuse - Zero tolerance and a further 18% that Help is available. These were the intended messages of the advert. A third of respondents were unsure of the main message the advert was trying to communicate, however, it should be noted that the majority (around two-thirds) of the respondents either were aware of a general message related to the campaign, such as 'happens to anyone', or of one of the more specific messages noted above.
• Attitudinally, there were very few movements over recent waves. The main movement was the decrease in those agreeing that Domestic abuse of one partner by the other is a common occurrence in Scotland (from 74% at Wave 7, to 67% at Wave 8). The lower level of TV reach may have contributed to this decrease. Positively, the level of agreement amongst those who had seen or heard an advert was higher then amongst those who had not.

Implications

• Press and radio performed well, with radio in particular recording high levels of reach. This suggests that radio is a good medium for this campaign, with a much higher return on investment than TV.
• TV advert awareness was significantly lower than in previous years. This is due largely to the unavailability of STV, Grampian and Border channels, but also due to the re-running of an old commercial. Should TV be used in future phases of the campaign, consideration will need to be given to developing and producing new TV advertising and the costs of this, in addition to the possibility of running advertising at a higher frequency and across all commercial channels.