Process evaluation of the advertising campaign for the NSW Get Healthy Information and Coaching Service (R)

Issue addressed: Introducing a new and free population-wide telephone service to assist adults to be more active, eat healthier and achieve a healthy weight requires large-scale marketing. The challenge is to understand the pattern of advertising that is effective at generating public awareness and interest in using the new service. Methods: A mass media campaign, consisting mainly of television advertising, was launched in March 2009 to promote the NSW Get Healthy Information and Coaching Service (GHS). This included GHS-specific and re-badged National 'Measure Up' campaign television advertisements. The number of calls and website visits to the GHS were monitored during the first 10 months of the initiative. GHS participants were also asked where they heard about the service. Results: Paid television advertising shows a dose-response relationship with contacts to the GHS. The 30-second GHS-specific advertising was significantly more effective at generating contacts compared to 'Measure Up' advertising, and compared to GHS advertising that involved the 15-second advertising. Participants were significantly more likely to report television advertising as their referral source during periods of GHS advertising when compared to 'Measure up' advertising. Conclusions: On-going marketing of state-wide prevention initiatives is necessary to achieve population-wide engagement. On the whole, specific GHS-promoting messages were more effective in recruiting participants than the re-badged national 'Measure Up' Campaign advertising. The relevance of the creative execution, the call to action and the length of time a viewer is exposed to the GHS details have an impact on the numbers of calls to the GHS.