CASE STUDY: FOOLSSPEED

Background

Speeding on the UKs roads is a major contributor to accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicle users. While speed cameras and police vehicles are used to enforce speed limits, educating and convincing drivers to slow down, especially in urban areas, are common social marketing goals. The Foolsspeed campaign was created by Road Safety Scotland, working with the Centre for Social Marketing in Stirling, Scotland, and is one of few that explicitly incorporates behaviour change theory to design, implement and evaluate a campaign. In this case, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was used because, as the researchers point out, there have been surprisingly few attempts to use the TPB to design actual interventions.86 This case study describes the Foolsspeed promotional campaign which ran in Scotland from 1998 until 2005, and aimed to reduce the use of excessive and inappropriate speeds on Scottish roads. This was the first attempt in the UK to use TPB to develop a large-scale intervention for driving behaviour. It was targeted at drivers in Scotland, but focused upon the sub-group of those most likely to speed i.e. males aged 2544, social classes ABC1 (professional, white-collar and clerical workers).

Role of theory

Previous studies about speeding indicated that TPB could account for significant variances in intentions to speed, with attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control (PBC) being particularly indicated as contributing to an intention to drive over the speed limit.87, 88, 89, 90 See Figure 6.4 to identify these on the model of the TPB. In terms of attitudes, those who speed rate the chances of a crash or other negative event as a result of driving as less likely than non-speeders do, and they think the consequences would be less serious.91 Speeders also see more rational benefits to speeding, such as getting to their destination more quickly, and also get more of an emotional buzz from speeding.92, 93 Meanwhile, speeding is generally considered more acceptable than drink-driving, and is somewhat legitimised as a behaviour, so driving above the speed limit becomes the subjective norm.94 Finally, people tend to believe they are better drivers than they actually are. They feel pressurised into undesirable behaviours in certain driving situations, which contributes to their driving faster, and indicates that they have high PBC in terms of maintaining control while having low PBC in terms of resisting external and internal pressures over driving.95, 96 Researchers therefore used these three main predictors from the TPB to start developing messages for television commercials. This was supported by local focus groups (with male and female drivers aged 1844) to explore beliefs and norms about speeding and feelings about road safety advertising.

The intervention

Though initial ideas were generated from the TPB, the early focus groups also indicated that road safety campaigns needed to be more credible, featuring realistic, non-extreme driving behaviours and events that drivers encounter regularly. Drivers wanted empathy for the pressures of driving: congestion, time pressures and hassle, rather than to be patronised or told off. As a result, well-known streets in Glasgow were featured to emphasise the relative localness of the advertisements, using a softer, more empathetic approach than the usual fear campaigns. Ten short ads were used to establish brand awareness of the campaign, while three television/cinema ads were developed: one each to target attitudes, subjective norms and PBC. The attitude ad was the first to be aired and ran the longest. It features a male driver in his 30s driving through residential streets while his alter-ego/conscience appears in the rear-view mirror, commenting upon the foolishness of speeding when the car he overtook only catches him up at the next lights. The driver responds that hes a better driver than most moments before he needs to brake suddenly and noisily to avoid ploughing into a car stopped at a school crossing. The strapline reads: Take a good look at yourself when youre driving. See the ad for yourself at http://www.road-safety.org.uk/resources/video/ foolsspeed-advert-1take-a-look-at-yourself-whilst-driving/. The second ad, about subjective norms, shows the passengers view on a mans driving, as first the female partner and then his male best mate comment to camera on his driving style. His partner describes how he becomes totally unrecognisable behind the wheel, and protests as their young son is jolted along on the back seat. His friend accuses him of becoming a boy racer as he spills juice as the driver races away at traffic lights. The strapline reads: Put yourself in the passenger seat. If you dont, others wont. See the ad at http://www.road-safety. org.uk/resources/video/foolsspeed-advert-2put-yourself-in-the-passenger-seat/. The final ad focuses on perceived behavioural control, using a childs voice-over of the nursery game Simon says as three different drivers are pressured by normal driving circumstances: being in traffic at 40mph in a 30mph zone, being late for work and a white van man driving close behind. This final driver almost hits a cyclist as a result. It encourages drivers to be your own man rather than give in to these common external and internal pressures. See the ad at http://www.road-safety.org.uk/resources/video/ foolsspeed-advert-3be-your-own-man/. The Foolsspeed campaign developed from these three initial television/cinema commercials to a five-year mass media campaign through a process of careful development, testing and feedback to improve the campaign. In addition to advertising, public relations in the local press and corporate sponsorship were used. The more recent Doppelganger version of the attitudes ad can be seen here http://www.road-safety.org.uk/resources/ video/foolsspeed-advert-doppleganger/.

Evaluation

While it is difficult to link actual driving behaviour to watching and recalling these advertisements, the campaign was evaluated for its success in achieving communication goals and changes in the targeted constructs of the TPB (attitude, subjective norms and PBC). This was assessed both qualitatively and quantitatively, and both as a means of providing baseline data, feeding back into, and improving, the campaign, and to summatively assess it. Qualitatively, six target audience focus groups were conducted each year for three years. Quantitatively, a 2040-minute face-to-face questionnaire was used to assess response to the campaign from baseline and over the next three years. This was a longitudinal survey with a cohort of 550 drivers aged 1754 who were recruited door-to-door in an area where the local population was typical of the wider Scottish population. The baseline survey established respondents demographic and driving characteristics before the intervention began. It also measured aspects of the respondents attitudes, norms and PBC (i.e. the TPB constructs) at baseline. Three more surveys over the next three years asked the same questions and assessed response to the advertising. They measured awareness, recall, comprehension, identification, involvement and perceptions of key messages to assess success against communication goals.

Results

The attitude ad performed particularly well: people liked it, found it easy to understand and did not find it patronising, though it prompted them to think about their own driving behaviours. Frequent speeders felt the ad was targeted at them and tended to agree it made them feel like they drove too fast. Significant changes were seen in desired communications outcomes, e.g. recall (74% recalled the attitude ad in year 1 and 86% in years 3 and 4). Attitudes also shifted towards anti-speeding, on items such as finding it difficult to stop in an emergency and driving at what you feel is a comfortable speed. Similar responses were recorded for the other two ads but were less pronounced. The TPB could be used to predict 4753% of the variance in intentions to speed and 3340% of variance in actual reported speeding behaviour (speeding on a 30mph road). The elements of the TPB that contribute to the psychological underpinnings of driving behaviour were also observed to change, as changes in attitude to speeding were significantly associated with awareness of the attitude ad. Beliefs about the rational consequences of speeding, and the emotional benefits and drawbacks, changed over the course of the campaign. The evidence for changes in subjective norms and PBC was less clear, which may be attributable to the fact that the attitude ad was screened earlier and for longer, or perhaps was more creatively compelling, all aspects that are difficult to measure. Reported speeding decreased significantly from baseline by the third and fourth surveys, but it is difficult to establish a link to seeing the ads, and intentions showed no change.

Conclusion

As one of the few interventions to rigorously attempt to measure theoretical constructs, and their links to behaviour, this is a promising start to the use of theory in developing, implementing and evaluating interventions. This campaign showed that it is possible to design advertising and other interventions based upon theory, though clearly the ads need to be creative and stand out to be noticed (see Chapter 12). There was an additional finding that low-key, credible and empathetic advertising can be as effective as the emotionally charged, fear-based advertising that typifies road safety campaigns. But, most promising of all, this ad seemed to cut through to those who we most want to influence: frequent speeders were amongst those that identified most strongly with the campaigns messages, and were most challenged to reassess their own behaviour.

Questions

1. Identify and briefly discuss the elements of each theory used in the Foolsspeed Campaign

2. Analyse whether all were equally useful explain why or why not.

3. Explain Reactance Theory

4. How might you use Reactance Theory to design another Social Marketing strategy for Foolsspeed

WRITE A REPORT ABOUT 3,000 WORD TO ANSWER FOUR QUESTIONS DETAILS (+/- 10%)

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