Monitoring of the effectiveness of the Land Transport Safety Authority's drink driving advertisement campaign: a theoretical approach

Abstract

The Land Transport Safety Authority (LTSA) implemented the Road Safety Package (SRSP) in 1995. Following a similar footstep to the Victorian in Australia, SRSP aimed to change social behaviour on drink driving by means of advertisements and policing.

The issue of SRSP's effectiveness, in particular the advertisement campaign, was first challenged by Macpherson and Lewis (1997). In response to the critics of the advertisement campaign, LTSA employed Cameron and Vulcan (1998), the experts on the Victorian model, to evaluate New Zealand's SRSP performance. The review by Cameron and Vulcan (1998) indicated that SRSP was effective in changing social behaviour. These contradictory findings have created strong debate amongst researchers.

This research introduced a theoretical approach of using a fear appeal model to monitor the effectiveness of LTSA's advertisements. The model used in this research was modified from other fear appeal based models to allow a more accurate monitoring of the advertisements' effect on perception change in its audience. The model is called the Acceptance and Rejection Model (ARM).

The findings based on the ARM, however, cannot claim that there was a significantly favourable change in the surveyed population's perceptions, with regards to drinking and driving. Additional analyses indicated the success rate of the advertisement campaign was about 1:5. That is, for one student to respond favourably to the advertisements, five other students would respond unfavourably. The respondents seem to indicate that they acknowledge the anti-drink driving advertisements have at least raised their awareness of drink-driving consequences. The respondents also indicated that they perceived the advertisements to be more effective in changing other people's perceptions as opposed to themselves. Another finding is that there is no significant difference between the way males and females answered the questions.

Recommendations are provided to improve the design and progress monitoring of the advertisement campaign. Suggestions are also given for the future research directions so as to better the progress of the drink driving advertisement campaign.