CWC HIV PREVENTION MASS MEDIA CAMPAIGN SURVEY(2007) Conducted by Earle & Earle Associates

Terms of Reference To evaluate the CWC HIV prevention mass media campaign

Scope of Work Explore unprompted and prompted recall of the 'It’s your wicket, Protect it” advertisements and the other components of the media campaign Explore unprompted and prompted reactions to the campaign Explore retrospectively reactions to the media campaign as a whole, including perceptions of the campaign's credibility and impact and the appropriateness of the overall campaign style (i.e. the graphic portrayals of sexual attitudes) To assess whether change in sexual behaviour was achieved Measure the level of campaign penetration within the target audience Identify further areas in which the campaign approach could be developed Make the appropriate recommendations required to successfully implement a further campaign in the future Provide evidence that the campaign was effective in reminding persons participating in cricketing events that they should behave responsibly by using condoms every time they engage in sex

Background According to the National HIV/AIDS Commission, it was very important given the state of the HIV epidemic in Barbados, to develop an HIV prevention campaign, during Cricket World Cup 2007, which targeted individuals – cricket spectators/fans, players, as well as the Barbadian public in general On February 28, 2007, the National HIV/AIDS Commission launched an HIV prevention campaign, with the slogan “It’s your wicket. Protect it”. The campaign ran for approximately 10 weeks The goal of the campaign was to remind persons participating in cricketing events that they should behave responsibly by using condoms every time they engage in sex The Commission was also seeking to communicate the message that anyone can be infected and that everyone should seek to and can protect themselves

Components of media campaign A jingle Three television ads: a female cricketer; the older man and his son; the young man who is not sure if to buy a condom Two radio ads – featuring a female cricketer; the older man and his son Two newspaper ads – featuring a female cricketer; the older man and his son (published in both the Nation and Advocate newspapers) Two community billboards – featuring a female cricketer at Bay Street and a condom on cricket stumps at Constitution Road To complement this campaign the Commission also produced the following which were distributed throughout Cricket World Cup: Posters of both billboards T-shirts – red and white Drawstring bags - orange Stress balls - red Aprons –red and white Fortune cookies Bandanas

APPROACH Our approach was pragmatic in nature This pragmatic approach is in line with health campaign evaluation principles: “evaluation is an iterative process designed to enable stakeholders to make decisions to improve a programme”

Methodology Client Discussion Review of documents, systems and processes Development of discussion guides for depth interviews & focus groups Depth Interviews Focus Groups Report on Focus Groups and Depth Interviews Development, Fine Tuning and Pre-Testing Of Questionnaire Sample Size – 300; 50 cricketers; 50 cricketing fans; 200 members of general public ages 18 to 35 Training of RAs Administration of questionnaire and quality control Data entry and Analysis Draft and Final Report

Executive Summary Focus Groups & Depth Interviews The results obtained from the focus groups, showed that the jingle “It’s your wicket. Protect it” enjoyed the highest level of unprompted recall when compared to the other components of the media campaign The television advertisements featuring a female cricketer and the young man wearing the Mohawk hairstyle were also high on the top of the minds of the participants While some of the focus group participants were generally complimentary about the media campaign others deemed it to be ineffective One positive comment was that the HIV/AIDS Commission successfully blended the HIV prevention message into Cricket World Cup The criticism about the media campaign spoke to the unrealistic and impractical scenes depicted in some of the advertisements; the presentation of the condom as the only solution for HIV prevention and its failure to incorporate abstinence as an alternative; the poor acting and the suggestive nature of the advertisements

Executive Summary – Quantitative Research Findings The majority of the respondents were male, and single with fifty percent of them employed on a full time basis and ten percent unemployed A significant number of participants reported that sometime during the previous four months they had heard ( 84%) or seen ( 83%) a mass media promotion on HIV Prevention on the radio or television respectively, with a lesser number (58%) indicating that they had seen such a promotion in a newspaper The most frequently recalled mass media promotion on HIV prevention was the “It’s your wicket. Protect it” advertisement or some aspect of a scene in the said advertisement The most frequently held views in relation to the aims and objective of the media campaign was that it was either to promote greater condom usage or practice safe sex Respondents perceived the campaign to be aimed at peoples of various ages, sexual orientations and sexual practices It was also held that persons of various ages, sexual orientations and practices positively received the message of the mass media campaign

Executive Summary Con’t The television ads featuring the female cricketer (86%) and the older man and his son (84%) were the most frequently recalled components of the HIV Prevention mass media campaign Most of the participants (84%) indicated that the radio and television ads were effective in getting their attention, clear and understandable (83%) and relevant to the National AIDS campaign (83%) While posters and billboards were said to be easy to read (77%)and effective at getting their attention ( 71%); the participants were not overly convinced that the posters and billboards were effective at encouraging people to practice safe sex (yes -61% ; no - 12%) They also felt that the newspapers were not effective at getting their attention (yes-43%; no-8%); encouraging people to practice safe sex (yes-41%; no-7%) The number one message received by members of the target audience from the media campaign was the encouragement of practicing safe sex (81%) Twenty-seven percent (27%) of the respondents reported that over the last four months they had seen newspaper advertisements as many as five times or more. Collectively a significant number of persons (81%) pointed out that they had seen the “It’s your wicket. Protect it” advertisement on television The findings also showed that the campaign was not heard on the radio as frequently as it was seen on television by respondents

Executive Summary Con’t Just under one third of the participants (30%) said they saw billboards with “It’s your wicket. Protect it” advertisements at two locations The results show that about nineteen percent of the respondents had made changes to their lifestyles as a result of Cricket World Cup’s mass media campaign Fifty percent of the respondents stated that the campaign was ineffective in making them change their lifestyles A number of respondents did not see the need for any change since in their opinion they were already in compliance with the aims and objectives as articulated by the campaign Persons stated that they liked the campaign for several reasons including the fact that the slogan was catchy; clear; informative and cricket oriented They indicated that among other things their dislike for some aspects of the media campaign was because of its failure to include abstinence as an alternative prevention method, poor acting and unrealistic scenes

Executive Summary con’t In the opinion of the majority of the respondents (77%), the HIV Prevention mass media campaign was successful in reminding persons who participated in cricketing events that they should behave responsibly by using condoms every time they engage in sex The greater part of the survey participants (80%)believe that the media campaign effectively communicated the message that anyone can be infected and that everyone should seek to and can protect themselves(83%) The majority of participants (70%) felt that the media campaign contributed to their making safer sex practices a priority health consideration The television, radio and the internet were identified as the top three most effective ways for communicating sexual messages to young people A suggestion was made to among other things, to involve actual cricketers, as well as the production of “Hard-hitting images of persons with full-blown AIDS in the final stages” in future media campaigns

Conclusion The evaluation provided valuable feedback and some indication as to the effectiveness of the various components of the HIV Prevention mass media campaign. It is clear from the results that the campaign achieved most of the stated aims and objectives Among the notable achievements is the fact that a significant number of the respondents indicated that they made changes to their lifestyle as a direct result of the messages emanating from the campaign The use of the television and radio to reach members of the targeted population appear to have been more effective than the newspapers, billboards, posters and other promotional materials The level of recall was generally high and this could be attributed in part by the ‘catchy’ nature of the jingle, the choice of the particular media that was used and the frequency with which the advertisements were aired Based in the feedback, some attention nonetheless must be paid to the quality of the scripts as well as the acting

Conclusion con’t The very strong recall and largely encouraging comments and positive response to some aspects of the relatively short mass media campaign is evidence of the effectiveness of social marketing programmes that are used to address health issues such a HIV Prevention The bottom line however in all social marketing campaigns must be the degree to which change was effected In this regard the Commission should ensure that future campaigns conduct baseline surveys prior to the mass media launches This approach will facilitate a more accurate measurement of the effectiveness of such media campaigns