My health campaign focused on the danger of distracted driving, with a specific focus on phone use while behind the wheel. My target audience was teenagers from about sixteen years old to young adults. The overall success of my campaign, based off of the print advertisement and six-sided brochure, could be analyzed from a few different perspectives. The issue of phone use while driving has been a difficult problem to fix for many years. The information I had to present was not groundbreaking or brand new. The issue has become worse and more prevalent in recent years, with the introduction of the smartphone.
The topic itself has also been addressed numerous times, whether from campaigns brought to you by major brands, or by targeting students in the classroom on an educational level. The major problem is the immunity teenagers and young adults feel when texting and driving. This mindset is what my health campaign aimed to remedy. However, I do believe the campaign, if actually distributed, would produce very little change in behavior, if any at all. I would like to further analyze this claim using various models and theories we learned in this course, illustrating my predictions for the campaign’s successes and failures.
It is important to first acknowledge that a low percentage of my target audience will actually take the messages to heart. Not many teenagers or young adults would pick up a brochure about texting and driving, let alone read the entire title when coming across such a brochure. Let alone the fact that today, campaigns are much more successful when they are distributed in a more accessible manner, like television or the internet. Taking that into consideration, it’s likely that those in my target audience who do pick up and read the brochure are interested in at least being education about the issue. The print advertisement also may not be taken very seriously; just simply due to the fact that anti-texting and driving campaigns are widespread. Most everyone has seen at least one ad for such a campaign, and has been accustomed to seeing messages warning about the dangers.
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The extent of the campaign’s effect is also important to take into consideration. This is why I mainly chose not to use a fear-drive, because the majority of people have become almost immune to these types of advertisements. Those campaigns and videos leave their audience with a pit in their stomach, but that feeling doesn’t last for long. A person may avoid distracted driving for maybe a week or month after viewing the fear drive video, but it usually doesn’t last much longer than that.
When high school students take driver’s education, they are exposed to a huge amount of devastating statistics regarding death and injury due to distracted driving. They are also shown these videos, either staged or real-life, where people are killed or injured due to someone’s distracted driving. The immediate effect of this type of persuasion is strong. After being educated of the serious, real danger, many students vow to never text and drive. Yet, years later, they end up doing it habitually. Why does this happen? The effects of the persuasion, however strong they may be at their initial impact, are not lasting for this type of issue. It’s a shame, but it’s true for a majority of my target audience.
With my print advertisement image, I hoped to overcome this problem by going about the center image differently. Rather than focus on a direct fear-drive, I chose to create an image that featured the point-of-view of looking out a windshield, with various phone notification icons blocking the view. I attempted to create a sort of busy image, which draws attention to the fact that phone use while driving really does impair your ability to focus on the road in front of you.
In doing this, and using familiar images, I hoped to create something that people would remember the next time they were in the driver’s seat and think about grabbing their phone. I hoped that it would make them think twice about just how much their phone activity blocks their view of the road and hinders their ability to drive. If I had an actual opportunity to make this advertisement the way I wanted it, I would have used a much more professional image with the same motive.
I originally wanted the windshield to reveal an accident about to happen, with a bunch of text bubbles popped up in the way of the driver’s view, much like the icons are displayed in the image I used. Despite the attempt at being unique, I do not believe the print-ad or brochure would have produced major behavioral change for my target audience. As Charles Atkins discussed, the percentage of people who are affected by health campaigns is very low, and even at that low percentage, the amount of change is minimal.
An internal factor I was aiming for was a sort of needs appeal. When you look at the image of the cluttered windshield, it should make you nervous or anxious. The idea of things blocking you view should stress you out. I think the image itself would spark a needs appeal with my target audience when they see the image, because to drive, you need a clear view of the road and a focus on what you’re doing. The campaign overall does not really address a needs appeal, because those who already text and drive feel that they do not need to change. They are set in their ways and probably do not see a problem that needs to be fixed.
References
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – Distracted Driving
- Distraction.gov – Official US Government Website for Distracted Driving
- National Center for Biotechnology Information – Distracted Driving and Cell Phone Use
- AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety – Distracted Driving
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – Traffic Safety Facts: Distracted Driving
- PubMed – The Prevalence and Consequences of Texting While Walking in College Students Perception &
