II. The Impact of Publicity

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II.THE IMPACT OF PUBLICITY

In each of the inquiries made in 1946 informants were asked whether they had noticed publicity about road dangers and through which media this publicity had come to their notice. First of all a general open question was asked: “Have you noticed any advertisements or publicity about road dangers in the last few months?”Those who said they had noticed publicity were then asked a further open question: “Where have you seen or heard about it?” The particular media used in the publicity campaign were not mentioned at this stage of the interview, so that the informant was required to call to mind without any help the channels through which the road safety publicity had reached him.

These two questions were asked in all three inquiries, and they were followed by more specific questions about publicity media. In the inquiries made in January and May people were asked whether they had seen any advertisements about road dangers this question because informants had already mentioned newspaper publicity spontaneously in answer to the previous open question. It was found that more people were able to remember seeing advertisements in newspapers when asked this specific question than recalled seeing them as a result of the open question.

In the inquiry made in March informants were asked whether they had seen the film about road safety and were asked to describe it, and in the inquiry in May a separate question was asked about posters.

These are briefly the questions dealt with in this section. The results of more detailed questions asked about particular newspaper advertisements are given in the next section.

(1) THE PROPORTIONS REMEMBERING PUBLICITY

Table 1

Have you noticed any publicity or advertisements about road dangers in the last few months?

	Jan. 1946 %	March 1946 %	May 1946 %
Yes	74	79	79
No or doubtful	26	21	21
Sample:	1997	2014	1978

It was not to be expected that people would remember exactly when they had noticed publicity. In the January inquiry they were asked whether they had noticed any “in about the last two months”, and in the subsequent inquiries the periods “three months” and “four months”, were mentioned as examples of the sort of time the question referred to.

The difference between the 74% and 79% saying “Yes” in January and March respectively is statistically significant though small. There is no difference between the figures for March and May, than in March when a specific question about newspaper publicity was asked(see Table 10).

Analysis by Sex and Age

Table 2

Have you noticed any publicity or advertisements about road dangers in the last few months ? (May 1946)

Age	% saying Yes	Sample		% saying Yes	Sample
Men Under 35	88	278	Men (all ages)	84	817
35-54	88	378	Women(all ages)	75	1161
55 and over	70	160	Age (both sexes)
Women Under 35	84	467	Under 35	85	745
35 - 54	75	460	35-54	81	838
55 and over	60	233	55 and over	64	393
(2 unclassified by age)

A higher proportion of men than of women remembered noticing publicity, though the the difference between the sexes is not very marked. More noticeable is the difference between age groups, the proportion of those aged 55 or over who said they had seen publicity being considerably lower than the proportions in the youngest and middle groups. This is so with both men and women.

Similar differences between the sexes and between age groups were found in the inquiries made in January and March.

Analysis by Economic Group

Economic group was classified according to the basic weekly wage rate or salary of the chief earner in the informant’s family. (In some cases, of course, this was the informant himself. Otherwise informants were asked who the chief earner in the family was and what was his occupation and wage rate). The lower group includes those in families whose chief earner had a wage rate of £4.or less per week, and the limits of the middle and upper groups are respectively over £4.to £5.10s., and over £5.10s. When there was no earner in the family the pension or other source of income was considered.

Table 3

Have you noticed any publicity or advertisements about road dangers in the last few months ? (May 1946)

Economic Group	%saying Yes	Sample
Lower	70	448
Middle	81	640
Higher	87	445
(38 not classified by economic group)

More of those in the higher than in the lower economic groups had noticed publicity. A similar difference between the economic groups in this respect was found in the earlier inquiries.

Analysis by Region

For the purpose of making regional analyses Great Britain was divided into four regions from north to south. These regions are best described by showing the Civil Defence regions included in each of them.

	Civil Defence Region
Scotland	No.11
North	Nos.1,2 and 10
Middle	Nos.3,4,8 and 9
South	Nos.5,6,7 and 12

Thus broadly the Middle region includes Wales, the Midlands and East Anglia, the North includes Yorkshire, Cheshire and Lancashire and areas north of this, and South includes London and the whole of the area to the south and south-west of Midlands. Scotland was dealt with separately. This is a satisfactory sort of division because it provides fairly large numbers of interviews in the different regions and because the interviews made in each region are scattered in a fair number of towns and rural areas. Since it is possible that variations in the amount of publicity given to the subject of road danger is covered in each region for which separate results are given.

Table 4

Have you noticed any publicity or advertisements about road dangers in the last few months? (May 1946)

	% saying Yes	Sample
Scotland	79	221
North	83	571
Middle	75	564
South	78	622

About the same proportion in each region remembered seeing publicity, and it appears that there is no considerable unevenness over broad regions in the extent to which the campaign has been successful. It is possible of course that there would be considerable variations between different towns, but by and large the publicity seems to be reaching people in similar proportions all over the country. The same was found in the earlier inquiries.

Other Analyses

As in the previous inquiries it was found that a higher proportion of people living in urban than in rural areas had noticed publicity, the proportions being 82% and 68% respectively.

Analysis by occupation showed that 88% of non-manual workers had noticed publicity compared with 82% of manual workers, 72% of housewives and 63% of the retired and unoccupied.

(2) THE MEDIA THROUGH WHICH PUBLICITY WAS NOTICED

Those who said they had noticed publicity about road dangers were asked how it had come to their attention. In considering the figures given below it should be noted that these represent the proportions of people mentioning different publicity media spontaneously in answer to this question. More people remembered noticing publicity when asked direct questions about particular media.

Table 5

Media through which publicity was noticed
(mentioned spontaneously in answer to open question)

	Jan1946 %	Mar 1946 %	May 1946 %
Newspapers or magazines	41	50	55
Posters	39	51	53
Films	5	13	13
Radio	5	12	11
Others	2	3	4
Can’t remember	3	1	1
Had not noticed publicity	26	21	21
Sample:	1997	2014	1978

Some people of course mentioned more than one medium and the percentages add to more than 100.

There is a substantial increase in the proportion mentioning newspapers and magazines. This is fairly marked between January and March. The difference between the result for March and May, though small, is statistically significant.(S.E. of difference = 1.6%). The proportions mentioning posters, films, and radio were higher in March than in January but about the same in March and May. It should be noted that “films” includes any film about road safety which may have been shown and not only the film made by the Central Office of Information.

Analysis by Sex

Table 6

Media through which publicity was noticed (May 1946)

	Men %	Women %
Newspapers or magazines	60	51
Posters	61	48
Films	12	13
Radio	11	11
Others	5	4
Can’t remember	1	1
Had not noticed publicity	16	25
Sample:	817	1161

It was found, as in the previous surveys, that higher proportions of men than of women mentioned newspapers or magazines and posters. The proportions of men and of women mentioning other sorts of publicity media are about the same.

Analysis by Age

Table 7

Media through which publicity was noticed (May 1946)

	Age
	Up to 34%	Age35-54%	55 and over%
Newspapers or magazines	55	57	49
Posters	62	53	37
Films	18	11	6
Radio	9	12	11
Others	44	5	4
Can’t remember	2	1	1
Had not noticed publicity	15		37
Sample:	745	838	393
(2 not classified by age)

Films were mentioned much more frequently by the young than by the old. It is known from the results of other inquiries made by the Social Survey that young people more often go to cinemas and so this difference might be expected.

The proportion mentioning posters is also considerably higher amongst younger than amongst older people.

Only a slightly lower proportion of the oldest than of the middle and youngest groups mentioned newspapers. The radio reached as high a proportion of the oldest group as of the others. Newspaper and radio publicity are thus relatively more successful than publicity through other media in reaching those aged over 55.

Similar differences between age groups were found in the inquiries made in March and January.

Analysis by Economic Group

Table 8

Media through which publicity was noticed (May 1946)

	Economic Group
	Lower %	Middle %	Higher %
Newspapers or magazines	45	56	64
Posters	43	55	64
Films	11	14	13
Radio	9	12	13
Others	3	5	4
Can’t remember	2	1	1
Had not noticed publicity	30	19	13
Sample:	638	790	512
(38 not classified by economic group)

Those in the higher economic groups more frequently mentioned newspaper advertisements and posters than did those in the lower groups. Otherwise there are no statistically significant differences in the proportions mentioning different media. The surveys made in January and March showed similar differences. It is known from the results of other inquiries that people in the higher economic groups tend to read newspapers more than those in the lower groups. One would expect therefore that the higher economic groups would mention newspaper advertising more frequently. It is not so easy to see why posters should also be mentioned more frequently by people in this group. Possibly they are in general more aware of current publicity campaigns than are the lower economic groups and tend to notice posters more for this reason.

Films and radio publicity have reached about equal proportions in all groups.

Precisely the same pattern is shown when the results of the earlier inquiries are analysed by economic group.

Analysis by Region

Table 9

Media through which publicity was noticed (May 1946)

	Scotland %	North %	Middle %	South %
Newspapers or magazines	57	62	54	48
Posters	43	62	49	54
Films	17	18	8	11
Radio	10	16	10	8
Others	10	8	2	1
Can’t remember	-	1	1	3
Had not noticed publicity	21	17	25	22
Sample:	221	571	564	622

Rather lower proportions mentioned newspaper advertising in the South than elsewhere, and the figure for posters is relatively low in Scotland. Films were mentioned considerably more in Scotland and the North than in the middle southern regions, and the same is true of forms of publicity other than those specified separately. The figures for the North are in general rather higher than the figures for other regions.

It is of interest to compare the results of regional analyses in different inquiries. The northern region shows a marked increase in the proportion mentioning some sorts of media. Thus the proportions in this region mentioning newspaper advertising were 37% 46% and 62% in January, March and May respectively. The corresponding proportions for radio were 3%, 12% and 16%. In other regions there is in general a marked increase between January and March and no considerable increase between March and May.

It should be stressed once more that there may be wide variations between different localities within each of the regions for which results are given.

Other Analyses

All publicity media with the exception of radio were mentioned more frequently in urban than in rural areas. Radio publicity was mentioned by the same proportion in both types of area.

Analysis by occupation showed that a relatively high proportion (74%) of those in professional and managerial jobs mentioned newspaper publicity. Posters are mentioned less frequently by housewives and by the retired and unoccupied than by other groups, the proportions being 40% and 34% respectively. Films were also mentioned less frequently by housewives and by the retired than they were by others.

(3) NEWSPAPER PUBLICITY

In Section (2) above, the proportions of different groups of the population who remembered where they had seen publicity about road dangers, when asked an open question on this point, were shown . The open question was followed up by a specific question, “Have you seen any advertisements about road dangers in newspapers or magazines?” More people said they remembered seeing such advertisements when this question was asked.

Table 10

Have you seen any advertisements about road dangers in newspapers or magazines?

	January 1946	March 1946	May 1946
%	%	%
Yes	71	77	82
No or doubtful	29	23	18
Sample	1997	2014	1978

It will be seen that there is an increase in the proportion that remember seeing newspaper publicity over the whole period. The proportions who mentioned newspaper advertising spontaneously in answer to the open question dealt with above (see Table 5) were 41%, 50% and 55% respectively in the three inquiries. Thus from 25% to 30% of the sample remembered seeing this sort of publicity when asked the specific question although they had not mentioned it spontaneously in answer to the open question. The open question was more difficult for people to answer, and if one particular medium was called to mind by this question it is likely that other media through which publicity had also been noticed might be overlooked.

In section (2) the result of the May inquiry were given and some comparison was made with those of the earlier inquiries. In this section the result of all three inquires are given and are compared in more detail.

Analysis by Sex and Age

Table 11

Have you seen any advertisement about road dangers in newspapers or magazines?

			% saying Yes			Sample for each period (approx.) +
			January 1946	March 1946	May 1946	Sample for each period (approx.) +
	Men	%	77	81	86	800
	Women	%	67	74	79	1100
	Age
	Up to 34	%	75	78	83	700
	35 - 54	%	73	79	85	800
	55 and over	%	60	70	72	400
	Sex by Age
Men	Up to 34	%	79	80	85	270
	35 - 54	%	79	84	89	370
	55 and over	%	67	76	78	160
Women:	Up to 34	%	73	77	82	450
	Up to 34	%	67	73	81	450
	35 - 54	%	54	62	68	200

+ To avoid making the table too cumbersome the exact sample figures for each period are not given. The numbers were similar in the case of each inquiry. Details of these are given in Appendix (I).

A somewhat higher proportion of men than of women had seen publicity in newspapers or magazines, and people in the youngest and middle age groups more frequently said that they had seen it than those in the oldest group. The difference however are not very large, and it is clear that the campaign has reached a substantial proportion in all groups.

The increase in the proportion seeing publicity over the period is shown in all groups and is not significantly more marked in any group than in any other.

It is known from the results of an inquiry made into newspaper reading habits that rather more men than women read newspapers and that the middle-aged read papers rather more frequently than the old. Taking this into consideration it seems that the campaign has had success with men and women of different ages.

Analysis by economic group

Table 12

Have you seen any advertisement about road dangers in newspaper or magazines?

		% saying Yes
Economic Groups		January 1946	March 1946	May 1946	Sample for each period (approx.)
Lower	%	60	68	73	500
Middle	%	75	78	84	800
Higher	%	79	89	89	600

Greater proportions of those in the higher economic groups than of those in the lower had seen the advertisements and this is found in all inquiries. In the highest group there is no noticeable increase in the proportion seeing advertisements between March and May, but a large increase between January and March. Between January and May there is an increase in this proportion of those seeing advertisements in all groups.

Analysis by Region

Table 13

Have you seen any advertisement about road dangers in newspaper or magazines?

		% saying Yes
Region		January 1946	March 1946	May 1946	Sample for each period (approx)
Scotland	%	72	84	83	100
North	%	70	72	83	550
Middle	%	71	78	78	550
South	%	73	77	83	600

There is very little difference between the different regions in respect of the proportions seeing newspaper publicity. In all regions there has been an increase over the period as a whole. In Scotland there is a marked increase between January and March but none between March and May. A similar pattern is shown by the Middle region.

Other Analyses

The proportion seeing newspaper advertisements was slightly higher in urban than in rural areas (May, 83% urban, 76% rural. January, 72% urban, 66% rural). The difference is only a small one.

There is little or no difference between the proportions of workers in different occupation groups who saw the advertisements. 79% of housewives had seen them, this being hardly below average, but only 69% of the retired and unoccupied had seen them, which figure is well below average.

Summary

In summing up this section it may be said that the newspaper advertisements have reached a wide public, that there is on the whole little difference in the extent to which they were seen by different groups in the population and that there was a statistically significant but small increase in the proportion of the public seeing them between January and May.

(4) POSTERS

The Social Survey was not asked by the Ministry of Transport to make a detailed study of the public’s reaction to the posters that have formed part of the Road Safety campaign. No specific questions were asked about posters in the inquiries made in January and March. In the May inquiry, however, informants were asked simply whether or not they had seen them.

71% of the sample said that they had seen posters about road safety and 29% said that they had not seen them or were doubtful about it. The proportion of the public reached by the posters is thus rather lower than the proportion reached by advertisement in newspapers and magazines.

Analysis by Sex and Age

Table 14

Have you seen any posters about road dangers? (May 1946)

			% saying Yes	Sample
	Men	%	78	817
	Women	%	67	1,161
	Age	%
	Up to 34	%	81	745
	35 - 54	%	71	838
	55 and over	%	52	393
	Age by Sex
Men:	Up to 34	%	83	278
	35 - 54	%	79	378
	55 and over	%	64	393
Women:	Up to 34	%	80	467
	35 - 54	%	65	460
	55 and over	%	44	233
(2 not classified by age)

The proportion of men seeing posters about road dangers is higher than the proportion of women who saw them. It will be remembered that a similar difference was found in the case of newspaper advertisements.

There is a very considerable difference between age groups in respect of the portions seeing posters , and this is very much more marked than was the case with newspaper advertisements. 81% of those aged under thirty-five had seen posters as compared with only about half of those aged fifty-five or over.

The difference between age groups is more marked amongst women than amongst men. About the same proportion of young women as of young men had seen posters, but of women in the oldest age group only 44% had seen them as compared with 64% of men in the oldest group.

Whereas 72% of people aged over fifty-five had seen the newspaper advertisement only 52% had seen the posters. [Text missing] It is clear therefore that newspaper advertising is an effective medium as regards older people.

Analysis of Economic Group

Table 15

Have you seen any posters about road dangers? (May 1946)

Economic Group		% saying Yes	Sample
Lower	%	61	638
Middle	%	74	790
Higher	%	78	512
(38 not classified by economic group)

Posters were seen by a higher proportion of people in higher and middle economic groups than in the lower group.

The difference between economic groups in this respect is in the same direction and of about the same magnitude as with newspaper publicity.

Analysis by Region

Table 16

Have you seen any posters about road dangers? (May 1946)

	% saying Yes	Sample
Scotland	67	221
North	66	571
Middle	66	564
South	73	622

About the same proportion in different regions had seen posters slightly higher in the South than elsewhere but the difference is very small.

Other Analyses

76% of those in urban areas as compared with 51 % in rural areas had seen posters.

Analysis by occupation showed the 86% of non-manual * workers had seen posters compared with 76% of manual workers, 58% of housewives and 49% of unoccupied.

[2] Those in clerical, distributive, professional and managerial jobs.

(5)” KEEP DEATH OFF THE ROAD “

Those who had seen newspaper advertisements or posters, (1 ,793 informants in all whole sample for May), were asked to repeat the slogan. In the inquiry made in January only those who had seen newspaper advertisements were asked if they could do this as in that inquiry no specific question was asked about posters. For the purpose of comparing the results of the two inquiries the answers given to this question by those who had seen newspaper publicity in the May inquiry were analysed separately.

Table 17

Do you remember the slogan?

	% those who had seen newspaper publicity
	Jan 1946	May 1946
%	%
Remembered slogan	32	43
Did not remember	68	57
Sample (those who had seen newspaper publicity)	1,422	1,611

There was thus an increase in the proportion of those who had seen the advertisements who were able to repeat the slogan. Such an increase might be expected since people had probably seen more advertisements by this time. The proportion able to repeat the slogan is however less than half even in May, and it seems from this that the words “Keep death off the road” have not the power of making a strong impression ofnpeople. Investigators reported that people remember seeing a slogan but had difficulty in recalling it when asked to.

Of the 1 ,793 people who had seen either newspaper advertisement or posters (May 1946) 41% were able to repeat the slogan.

There are some differences between the sexes and between age groups in this respect.

Analyses by Sex and Age

Table 18

Do you remember the slogan?

		% able to repeat slogan	Sample (Those who had seen publicity )
	Men	48	767
	Women	37	1,026
	Age
	Up to 34	45	701
	35 - 54	43	772
	55 and over	30	318
	Age by Sex
Men:	Up to 34	49	265
	35 - 54	50	364
	55 and over	38	137
Women:	Up to 34	42	436
	Up to 34	36	408
	35 - 54	25	181
(2 unclassified by age)

Men were more frequently able to recall the slogan than were women, and those aged over fifty-five were less frequently able to than younger people. The difference between age groups is more marked with the women than with the men.

Other Analyses

Analysis by economic group showed that 48% of those who had seen publicity in the higher group were able to remember the slogan as compared with 42% in the middle group and 33% in the lower group.

32%, a relatively low proportion, of those who had seen publicity in the southern region were able to remember the slogan. There are no very marked differences between the other regions. The proportion remembering the slogan was somewhat higher in urban than in rural areas.

Analysis by occupation shows that a relatively higher proportion, 61%, of those in professional and managerial jobs who had seen publicity were able to remember the slogan. Other non-manual workers (i.e. clerical and distribute workers) show no difference from manual workers in this respect. Only 32% of the housewives who had seen publicity were able to repeat the slogan.

Summary

In general those groups with higher proportions seeing publicity showed high proportions of those who had seen it able to remember the slogan.

Women, older people, and those in the lower economic groups seem to be less aware of Road Safety publicity than other groups.

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