Independent commercials outperform the federal government's attempts to promote vaccination aginst COVID-19, according to ad testing by the marketing science team at analytics and strategy advisory firm Forethought.
The analysis revealed a greater impact on likelihood to book a vaccination from the Victorial Council of Social Service's Back to the Good Things and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's Performance of a Lifetime’ ads, as opposed to the Federal Government’s Arm Yourself and Breathless campaigns.
Forethought says the Breathless campaign drove a 24% uplift in vaccination intentions.
However, the more positively emotive Performance of a Lifetime ad drove a higher likelihood (29%) to book a vaccine.
And the Back to the Good Things ad was found to be the greatest motivator for viewers, with those surveyed reporting a 43% likelihood of booking a vaccination appointment.
Canberra’s COVID-19 vaccine ads have faced widespread criticism both inside and outside the advertising industry.
The “arm yourself” vaccine commercial misses selling a strong benefit and hence motivation, lacks an emotional trigger and doesn’t lay out a story, according to industry comment.
Forethought says the findings frommits ad testing occur in context of a strong public perception of low vaccine availability, with 77% of Victorian metro and 76% of NSW Metro respondents believing the availability of their preferred vaccine to be less than ideal.
Diane Shelton, Forethought CEO: "Congratulations to the Victorian Council of Social Services and to the Victorian Arts Community for developing and fielding two strong positive communications that drive vaccine intention.
"The research shows clearly that to mobilise people communications must tap into emotions and that as we have seen here the positive emotional communication is the strongest."
Forethought founder Ken Roberts: ‘As an organisation that is testing the efficacy of creative daily, we are really surprised at the variability of the performance of these spots.
"The very negative elicitation of emotion last week from the federal ogvernment’s ICU spot was the most effective ad so far produced by the Federal Government.
"Over the years we have seen numerous instances of ads that elicit negative emotions working effectively.
"However, in this instance the Victorian Council of Social Services’ ‘Back to the Good Things’ ad elicits positive emotions wrapped up in a strongly positive rational message and substantially outperforms the negative ICU spot."
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