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(1) THE NUMBER OF ADVERTISEMENTS REMEMBERED

In both inquiries informants were shown photostat copies of the advertisements and asked to say which of them they remembered seeing. In the table below the proportions remembering different numbers of advertisement are shown. In the January inquiry the maximum that could be remembered was nine. In May the maximum was twenty-two.

It will be remembered that 82% of the sample said that they had seen advertisements in newspapers or magazines when asked a direct question about this, when people were shown the advertisements more people remembered seeing them, and 91% indicate that they had seen at any rate one.

The proportions remembering various numbers of advertisements are of course considerably higher at the time of the May inquiry when more advertisement had appeared for people to see and when a longer time had elapsed in which it was possible for them to be seen.

The figures do not however indicate that more advertisements were remembered relatively, when these differences in the opportunity to see advertisements are taken into account.

The 1997 people interviewed in January remembered between them 8007 advertisements. If all these people had seen and remembered all advertisement, the total remembered would have been 17,973, and 8007 is 45% of this figure. The 1978 people interviewed in the May inquiry remembered between them 12,168 advertisements, and if all twenty two had been remembered by all of them the total would have been 43,516. 12,168 is 28% of this figure It should be remembered of course that the last few of the twenty advertisements had appeared only very recently at the time of the inquiry and had probably not been shown in very many newspapers.

It is difficult to interpret these figure as so little basic research into precisely how it is that advertising achieves an effect on the public has been done. One might suppose that as more advertisements on a subject appear less attention is paid to individual advertisements although the total result of the campaign is to increase the public’s awareness of the subject advertised. Thus when only a few advertisements have appeared people may tend to see and remember all or most of them, but when a larger number appear fewer, relatively, are remembered. If this is so the difference between the 45% and 28% of possible advertisements remembered, as shown above, may not indicate any diminution of interest in road safety problems but rather an increased awareness of the problem resulting in less attention being paid to individual advertisements. Furthermore, intensive work, including basic research into the effect of advertising, would need to be done before any conclusion about this can be reached.

Some analyses of the result given for May in Table 19 are shown below. Result have been tabulated separately for men and for women, for three age groups and three economic groups. No regional analyses were made of this more detailed information. The figures given previously suggest that there is not any very marked differences in the impact of the campaign in different broad regions, and it was not possible in an inquiry of this sort to investigate smaller areas separately.

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(2) COMPARISON OF INDIVIDUAL ADVERTISEMENTS

In the May inquiry two methods were used to obtain comparisons between the effects of different advertisements

Before the photostat copies of the advertisements were shown informants who had said they remembered seeing advertisements in newspapers or magazines were asked to describe one of those they had seem, namely the one that had made the strongest impression on the memory. They were asked to describe the picture or tell the story of what happened and the interviewer tried to identify the advertisement from this description. As some of the advertisements are similar there was a possibility of the interviewer being unable to identify the advertisement described even though a full description was given. In such cases interviewers were told to show the photostat copies of the two advertisements concerned and ask the information which of them he was trying to describe.

About half the people who said they had seen advertisements were not able to describe one in sufficient detail for it to be identified. They form 42% of the whole sample. 40% were able to describe an advertisement so that it could be identified. This was about the same proportion as was able to describe an advertisement sufficiently clearly for it to be identified when a similar method was used in the January inquiry.

Of all the advertisements described, 76% were in the old series and 24% in the new. Of the twenty-two advertisements concerned six, or about 27% were new ones. Whether the new advertisements have appeared more recently and would therefore be fresher in people’s minds, the old ones have had a greater chance of being seen because they have been shown for a longer period.

6% of the sample described “I couldn’t see him for the fog mister”, and 4% “I’m rather new to driving”. 3% described “I’m not used to all this traffic”, and each of the other advertisements were described by 1 or 2% of the sample only.

It is of interest to note that two advertisements most frequently described were the two that were remembered by the highest proportions when the photostat copies were shown (see Table 24 below).

It is possible that these advertisements are in themselves more striking than the later ones. On the other hand it seems more likely that more people remember them because they were the first to appear and therefore were regarded as something new.

The proportions of the different groups able to describe one advertisement so that it could be identified do not reveal anything new. They confirm the results of other questions, namely that some groups - men, the young and middle aged, and the higher and middle economic groups, - have been rather more interested in the campaign than others.

The percentages of different groups able to describe an advertisement are shown in one table below.

As the proportions describing individual advertisements were in any case very small, comparison between different groups in this respect is not particularly informative.

On the whole more useful results were obtained on showing informants the advertisements and asking which of them they had seen and these results are given in rather more detail below.

Table 24 shows the proportions saying they had seen each of the advertisements in January and in March.

It will be noted that the proportions remembering the earlier advertisements in May are in general rather lower than the proportions remembering them in January. This might perhaps be expected as if the advertisements no longer appeared frequently people would tend to forget about them.

The more recently published advertisements do not appear to have attracted any more attention that the earlier ones. In fact the proportions mentioning the last seven of the old series and the six new ones in May are in general lower than the proportions remembering the first nine advertisements in January.

Amongst the advertisements in the first series the first two and “He ran out from nowhere” seem to have attracted more attention than others. Of the new series the first advertisement was remembered more frequently than others, possibly

because it had been shown more. It is likely that the last three advertisements in the new series had not appeared in the papers very much by the time of the inquiry.

In considering these results it should be noted that they are likely to be influenced by three factors (1) the order in which the advertisements were published, (2) the frequency with which they were shown in newspapers, and (3) the quality of the advertisements themselves.

Information about the frequency with which the different advertisements have been shown is not available in a form which could be used for this report. The order in which they were published is that in which they are shown in the table, and the quality of the advertisements, in so far as this determined the proportions of people remembering them, is what this inquiry is designed to reveal.

Assuming that the different advertisements were shown with more or less equal frequency it will be noted that the first few to be shown in each of the two series attracted more attention than others. A likely reason why the later advertisements in the series attracted less attention is that the novelty had worn off by the time they were shown.

A conclusion that might be drawn from this is that it is desirable to change the type of advertisement shown fairly frequently, having several short series of different sorts of advertisements rather than a few long series of the same sort.

In comparing the two series it will be noted that the proportions remembering advertisements in the second series were in general lower than is the case with the first series. This might be because they had not been shown for so long a period by the time at which the inquiry was made. On the other hand it seems likely that the process of the novelty wearing off has some influence on this also. Although the second series of advertisements was markedly different from the first, when this series appeared people had to some extent become accustomed to seeing advertisements about road safety, but the first series were completely new to them as no advertisements about the subject had appeared in the papers before.

One particular advertisement stands out as being remembered by a high proportion of people. This is “He ran out from nowhere”. If this advertisement was not shown more frequently than the others, when its position, seventh on the list, is considered, it seems to have achieved outstanding success. It was remembered by 45% of those interviewed in May and by 53% of those interviewed in January. These proportions are considerably higher than those for the previous four advertisements and are second only to the proportions remembering the first two advertisements to be shown.

It has already been noted that some groups in the population remembered more advertisements than others. When these differences are taken into account it is found that the different advertisements were remembered by different groups in the population in fairly even proportions.

Table 23 shows the proportions of the different groups for which analyses were made that said they had seen each advertisement. It will be noted that the figures in some columns are in general higher than the figures in others.

The first and third advertisement of the first series and first two of the second series were remembered as frequently by women as by men, although in general the percentages for women are rather lower than for men. The same is true of the last advertisement of the second series “Only a few hours to live” and “My wind-screen wiper stuck”. In five of these six advertisements the central figure is a woman and in one it is a child. Amongst the twenty-two advertisements there are only six in which the central figure is a woman and it is perhaps significant that five of these were remembered by a relatively high proportion of women. The sixth one, which was not remembered by a particularly high proportion of women shows a woman who has run over a child and killed him. This is more “horrible” than others and the fact that it was not remembered so frequently by women may also be significant. Information as to the papers in which the advertisements were shown is not available. If the advertisement about women were shown more than others in women’s magazines this might account for the difference.

In the case of “I’ve been working late” : and “I’ve had it chum” the percentage for men is notably higher than the percentage for women.

Analyses by age and by economic group do not show any noteworthy difference in the case of particular advertisements.

It might be thought that the general tendency of some groups to remember more advertisements than others might obscure differences between the groups. To obviate this difficulty the total number of advertisements seen by people in each group were added and the number accounted for by each advertisement expressed as a percentage of this total. The result of these calculations did not reveal very much in the way of new differences. The advertisements were then grouped. The first twelve of the first series, which show people being injured, were placed in one group, the last four of the first series, which show people being killed, were placed in another, and the second series of advertisements formed a third group.

Table 26 shows the percentages each of these groups of advertisements account or of all the advertisements seen by men and women, people in the three age groups, and people in the three economic groups

The proportions for different age groups and economic groups are almost exactly the same. There is however a difference between the results for men and women, although it is only a small one. The advertisements showing deaths form a slightly higher proportion of these remembered by men than of those remembered by women, whereas the new series account for a slightly higher proportion of those remembered by women than of those remembered by men. The difference is perhaps of some interest although it is not large enough to have any practical consequence.

Another way of grouping the advertisements was tried. In one group were placed all the advertisements in which the road victim was a child and in the other those in which the victim was an adult. No differences were found in the proportions these groups formed of the advertisements seen by men and women or by those in different ages or economic groups.

When advertisements showing women were grouped together in the same way it was found that these accounted for 31.9% advertisements seen women as compared with 62.6% of those seen by men.

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(3) OPINION ABOUT THE OLD AND THE NEW SERIES

After they had been shown the advertisements informants were asked whether they thought the new type of advertisement (the second series) was better or worse with the purpose of calling people’s attention to road dangers than the old type.

Answers were as follows:

Opinion is more in favour of the old type of advertisement than of the new type.