Scottish Government

VOLUNTEERING 2006 POST-CAMPAIGN EVALUATION - SUMMARY

Campaign overview

• A new Volunteering advertising campaign was launched in January 2006 (a time when many people wish to 'do something new or worthwhile' as part of a new year resolution).
• The campaign aims to help increase the number of people within the target audience (adults aged 26 and over in socio-economic groups C2DE) getting involved in volunteering, as part of the Scottish Executive's volunteering strategy.
• The campaign was developed to convey the benefits and range of voluntary options available as well as volunteer centre contact information.
• A combination of press and radio advertising was chosen as the most effective way to target this audience within the budgetary constraints. Press advertising was designed to appeal to the subsets within the target audience whereas local radio advertising portrayed the range of volunteering options available.
• This first wave of quantitative post-campaign research was conducted in February 2006, via an omnibus survey throughout Scotland. The evaluation aims to examine awareness of the first phase of the campaign (running 9 - 30 January 2006), assess general attitudes to the campaign among the target audience and act as a benchmark against which to measure success of any future campaign activity.

Highlights

• Spontaneous awareness of the campaign was 7%. Prompted awareness (which involves visual/audio prompting therefore can be directly attributed to the Scottish Executive campaign) was almost a fifth (19%). This is a positive level of recall, given the limited media channels used, particularly as no television advertising was used.
• A main source of recall was radio (40%), which was the main medium used in this campaign.
• Message recall was high with 24% of those spontaneously aware of the advertising describing the radio advertising scenario, 13% recalling the campaign slogan and a further 11% identifying the main campaign message.
• Overall, around half of those spontaneously aware of the advertising recalled a core campaign message.
• Spontaneous awareness of local volunteer centres as a source of information was low, though awareness rose to around a fifth (18%) once prompted.
• In terms of attitudes to volunteering, 40% perceived there were no drawbacks to volunteering, however time constraints were raised by 36% as a drawback. Such attitudinal figures will be used as a benchmark against which to measure effectiveness of future campaigns.

Implications

• In addition to the research findings, the effectiveness of the campaign should also be measured by the success of the campaign's response mechanisms:
  1. SMS text response (which provides respondents with the address of their local volunteer centre) generated 274 responses over the campaign period and were prompted by radio advertising, PR activity and press advertising. Early morning and weekdays generated the most text responses which coincides with peak radio listening times and press coverage respectively.
  2. Visits to the Volunteer Centre Network internet site (which provides information on volunteering as well as a search facility of volunteering opportunities) increased significantly (156%) during the campaign period.
• Good text responses and increased internet site visits show that the campaign has been successful in achieving the objectives of encouraging the target audience to become involved in volunteering. Though it can not be directly attributed to the campaign, it is also encouraging that the number of people motivated to register an actual enquiry into volunteering opportunities (on the Volunteer Centre Network website) has increased from 303 in January 2005 to 701 during the campaign period of January 2006.

• Future advertising messages should address the perceived barriers to volunteering, such as 'taking up too much time'.