Notes on Road Safety Advertising Research

AAA Road Safety and Young Australians

The following characteristics are often cited as contributing factors to the increased risk of
young drivers: o late teen and early twenties years are often associated with
experimentation, impulsiveness and risk taking. These traits sometimes lead to young
drivers overestimating their own abilities and underestimating the risk associated with
driving. The research has repeatedly found that young drivers, particularly males, are
more likely to speed, race and drink alcohol than other drivers; o young drivers often have
not yet developed the skills necessary to handle complex traffic environments or judge
risky situations properly. This can lead to situations like driving too fast for the conditions,
following too closely behind other vehicles and running red lights; and o young drivers
frequently travel during high-risk hours (late night, early morning and weekends), and
often with passengers in the vehicle. Passengers are associated with increased crash risk
because they can distract the driver and because young drivers are typically more
susceptible to peer pressure than older drivers.

Delaney A Review Of Mass Media Campaigns in Road Safety

This report investigates the effectiveness of road safety public information campaigns
conducted through the mass media. The differing roles of publicity in the fields of brand
advertising and public health promotion are identified and discussed in the context of
theories of behaviour change. A number of widely used micro level models of social
persuasion are presented and the prior use of such models in the development of mass
media campaigns is discussed. The discussion of successful public health campaigns
conducted outside the field of road safety in Australia introduces the examination of key
elements of mass media campaigns conducted in a public health setting. The type of
appeal used (rational/emotional/fear), the use of supporting activities (such as
enforcement or incentive) and the duration, intensity, timing and exposure of media
placement are identified as key variables in the effectiveness of mass media campaigns.
Health advertising usually involves attempts to persuade an individual to change their
behaviour. Central to health advertising is the issue of relationship between attitudes and
behaviour. The literature is divided as to whether mass media campaigns change
behaviour and then attitudes, or whether an individuals attitude changes and then their
behaviour. Furthermore, road safety mass media campaigns often are linked to an
enforcement component, further complicating the relationship among the potential
elements of change. In order to conceptualise the changes that occur in behaviours and
attitudes (regardless of the order in which these processes take place) a number of models
of behaviour change were reviewed. The theories focus on changing knowledge, attitudes
and/or behaviours. They are sometimes described as social persuasion models, and are
particularly applicable to the area of road safety mass media campaigns. Theory of
Reasoned Action Theory of Planned Behaviour Health Belief Model Social Learning /
 Cognitive Theory Rogers Protection Motivation Theory Risk Communication/Fear
Appeals Extended Parallel Process Model General Deterrence Theory.

Harman, Murphy The Application of Social Marketing in Reducing Road

Speed is the single largest factor contributing to road deaths in Ireland. More than 40% of
fatal accidents are caused by excessive or inappropriate speed. The higher the impact
speed, the greater the likelihood of serious and fatal injury. For car occupants in a
collision, with an impact speed of 80 km/h (50mph), the likelihood of death is about 20
times that at an impact speed of 30km/h (20mph). A 50km/h (30mph) impact is equivalent
to dropping a car from the top of a two storey building. A 100km/h (60mph) impact is
equivalent to dropping 11 storeys and a 150km/h (80mph) crash is equivalent to 30
storeys.
Drivers under 25 years of age account for 27% of driver fatalities in the OECD (Note 3),
despite representing only 10% of the population in these thirty countries (JTRC, 2006).
Social marketing refers to the application of basic marketing principles to the design and
implementation of programmes and information campaigns that advance social causes
such as alcohol misuse, drug prevention, traffic safety, etc. Walsh et al (1993) used social
marketing programmes to address the issues of excessive drinking, unhealthy diet, lack of
exercise, or the use of tobacco, etc. Social marketing programmes have been designed to
address a whole host of issues including alcohol and other drug problems on college
campuses (Zimmerman, 1997) and traffic safety among broader communities (Hastings
and Elliott ,1993). The use of fear appeals is perhaps the most common tactic for social
marketing, with threats of physical harm including injury and death used more frequently
than social threats. One common problem with fear appeals aimed at young males aged
17-25 years is that they underestimate their own risk of injury (be that from excess
drinking, smoking, drug use, unprotected sex or dangerous driving).
It appears that the moral argument has been won in relation to seatbelt wearing, with
participants in all focus groups accepting the necessity for both front and back seatbelt
wearing. However, much work remains to be done in socially engineering young driver
compliance with regard to drink driving and speeding. Advertising aimed at young drivers
should focus on these areas. The focus groups revealed that speeding in particular is still
very socially acceptable in Ireland. Road safety advertising should attempt to undermine
the climate of acceptability that surrounds speeding in particular. Continuous and creative
interventions are needed to proactively promote the highest possible overall levels of road
safety. Given that road safety budgets are finite, it is important to produce adverts that
are both relevant and credible to the target audience. Adverts must focus on the core
motives of the target audience and take into account the perceptual landscape that young
drivers inhabit.
Drama based adverts that depict human pain and emotions such as remorse and guilt,
have the potential to stimulate attitude change. The focus groups generally revealed that
high threat advertising can be effective in hammering home a road safety message.
However, they also found that high threat physical fear appeals cause some viewers
 distress. The focus groups produced evidence of defensive behaviours such as channel
switching among respondents. This is a cause for concern.
Television and cinema adverts can undoubtedly be effective in stimulating attitude
change. However, in-car communications such as radio advertising perhaps merits more
attention. Focus group participants mentioned adverts from Red FM (Note 7) which they
considered to be persuasive. Other in-car communications such as signs and stickers on
the steering wheel or on a key ring could also be used as a cognitive trigger to remind
motorists to drive safely. However, as yet, there is a lack of research in this area. More
research is needed to assess the effectiveness of in-car ambient advertising.

Hoekstra, Wegen Improving the effectiveness of road safety campaigns

In 2004 the World Health Organisation concluded that road safety campaigns were able to
influence behaviour when used in conjunction with legislation and law enforcement.
However, the report also states that when used in isolation education, information and
publicity generally do not deliver tangible and sustained reductions in deaths and serious
injuries
The above discussion is based on the results of a meta-analysis. For such analyses, the
results of multiple evaluation studies are combined, which allows for comparisons
between different types of media campaigns alone and media comparisons in conjunction
with other measures. For the evaluation of individual road safety campaigns, however, it is
often quite difficult to isolate the effects of the campaign component from the effects of
the measures the campaign is combined with. [EL TRABAJO DE ELLIOT VA EN ESTA
CORRIENTE].
One of the things that are reflected by the meta-analyses into road safety campaigns over
the years, is that the effectiveness of such campaigns vary considerably depending on the
type of behaviour that is targeted [5,9]. Campaigns aimed at increasing seat belt use, for
example, have been very effective in promoting its usage.
s. The ultimate goal is the effect the campaign has on actual behaviour and, by extension,
on the number of road accidents, and on that count the jury is still out. Because the fact is
that although fear can motivate people, it can also have the opposite effect. It may in fact
lead people to employ so-called defensive responses. Such responses may take many
forms, for example with people discounting the veracity of the claims in the campaign, by
them saying that the campaign bears no personal relevance to oneself, or even by
avoiding exposure to the campaign altogether [16,17]. Indeed, from a scientific point of
view, fear appeals are rather controversial, in the sense that research into this approach
shows a mixed bag of results. In some cases, fear appeals seem to generate promising
results in terms of perceived severity, susceptibility and message acceptance, while in
others the approach seems to engender the aforementioned defensive response.
Another possible explanation for the diverging results is that the effect of fear appeals
may be dependent on cultural differences. In the Netherlands, for example, there is a long
tradition of road safety advertising with an emphasis on humour rather than fear. This in
contrast to countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Great Britain
that often show explicit pictures of crashes, casualties, injuries and blood, and the related
 emotions of pain, sorrow and grief of traffic victims and relatives [18]. Using such methods
in countries where the people are not used to them, may cause a controversy which might
detract from the impact of the campaign.
Tay & Ozanne [39] find that a fear-evoking drink driving campaign resulted in a reduction
in fatal crashes in the group of women of all age categories and in older men (3554 years
old), but not in the target group of young men ages 18 to 24. As young males in general
have a higher crash rate than others, the implications of the differing effects of gender on
the effectiveness of fear appeals seem highly poignant.
heir social standing than on their general health and longevity. All in all, the mantra if you
scare them, they will change is not as easy as it might at first glance appear to be. Even
when all the pointers above are taken into account, people may react differently to a
fearbased campaign than expected. Therefore, careful pretesting is in order, not just in
terms of how people experienced the imagery, but rather of what most road safety
campaigns are actually trying to accomplish, namely, a change for the better in terms of
behaviour or behavioural intentions.
Evidence that human decision making is decidedly not always the result of rational
thought, is bountiful. On the contrary, many of our actions are the result of our habits,
feelings, biases, circumstances, and so on and so forth [23,24]. In fact, many behaviours
are so much the result of such things that conscious rational thought does not play the
signifi- cant role that many seem to attribute to it. As such, many behaviours have come to
be considered as automatic: behaviour that is performed unintentionally and without
conscious knowledge and control.
One way to overcome this is to break a habit by either timing your message to be
delivered at the precise moment when people are prone to revaluate their habits (e.g.,
change of job or address, having children, etc.) or by aiming the intervention at stopping
bad habits from forming [26,27]. Another way to deal with the fact that many behaviours
are in fact automatic, is by simply embracing that fact. That is, rather than ignoring this
insight and holding out hope that people must eventually succumb to our carefully
reasoned arguments, we propose the following: if you can't beat them, join them. What
we of course mean by that glib little idiom, is that when we cannot overcome people's
inbred habits and inclinations with cold hard logic, why not try to make use of the very fact
that many behaviours are, at least to some extent, automatic in nature.

Lewis Humorous Health Messages A Fresh Approach for Road Safety Advertising
Campaigns
Recently, throughout Australasia, humorous appeals have become implemented
increasingly in health advertising despite limited evidence regarding the persuasiveness of
different types of humour. Of those studies available which have examined the
persuasiveness of humorous messages, the type of humour is often not defined so it is
unclear what type of humour is being examined. Specks (1991) typology includes five
types of humour; comic wit, sentimental humour, satire, sentimental comedy, and full
comedy. Each type of humour is based on one or more humour generation processes;
namely, incongruity-resolution, disparagement humour, and arousal-safety. It has been
 acknowledged that more research is needed to determine the relative persuasiveness of
these different types of humour and to identify those types which may be most effective
for health advertising. The current research explored individuals thoughts about, and
their responses to some different types of, humorous messages addressing the serious
health topic of road safety.
The findings revealed that, irrespective of age and gender, humour that was clever,
incorporated something unexpected and contrasting with the everyday, was a preferred
and relevant approach, thus aligning with incongruity-based theories of humour
generation and humour types, such as comic wit and satire. As a persuasive function,
humorous messages were considered likely to be talked about (and relatively more so
than traditional fear-based approaches). Participants also felt that humorous messages
would need to be used cautiously as humour that was considered inappropriate and/or
associated with serious occurrences, such as a crash, would be unlikely to persuade.

Putten, Jones Why the Australian public believe the ends justifies
Road safety, the general community believe that the value of the message overrides any
other unacceptable consequences of the advertisement, such as the effect graphic
campaigns may have on children. Understanding the reasons why the public feel that the
messages and graphic content of these campaigns is acceptable can assist in ensuring that
future social marketing advertisements for road safety are relevant and acceptable to all
members of the public.
The EPPM (extended parallel process model), is the most utilised model to explain
responses to fear appeals, states that it is threat that motivates action, however it is
efficacy that determines the nature of that action. When threat levels are low, there is no
response to the message, however when threat levels and efficacy are high an individual
will take the recommended action to control that danger. Finally the EPPM states if the
threat is high but efficacy is low, an individual will take action to control their fear and
avoid the message (Jones 2005). In order for fear appeals to be successful, it is imperative
to take into consideration the impact it may have not only on the target audience, but also
the effects it may have on unintended audiences (Hastings and Stead 2004).
The research did find that the groups were somewhat divided on their opinion on the
impact these graphic fear appeals may have on children. There were some who believed
that these campaigns should be used as an educational tool for all, including children,
whilst others thought that the campaigns were too distressing and it was imperative that
they were only shown outside of 87 childrens viewing times.

Musselwhite Understanding Public Attitudes to Road-User Safety

Un sumario de las principales actitudes asumidas por el conductor en depedencia de su
entorno cultural
Robertson Road Safety Campaigns What research tells us
Las campaas de seguridad vial se sustentan en tres tipos de teoras: teoras de cambio del
comportamiento, teoras de persuasin social y campaas basadas en el temor.

Stead, Eadie A social advertising strategy to reduce speeding

Foolsspeed was a five-year campaign to reduce speeding in Scotland. Although it focused
solely on the promotional P, it was informed to some extent by social marketing
principles. The campaign was guided by the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), a model
that uses psychological determinants to explain and predict behaviour (Ajzen, 1988).
Speeding is a major road safety concern in Scotland and most offences occur within built-
up 30 m.p.h. speed limit areas. Being young, male, in a higher social class and income
bracket, driving a powerful car, and doing higher mileage are characteristics associated
with speeding (Manstead, 1991; Stradling, 1999).
Social norms. Compared to drink-driving, speeding attracts less stigma and may be seen as
a normative and majority behaviour (Stradling, 1999). Beliefs. Speeders, in comparison
to non-speeders, rate adverse speeding consequences as less likely to occur and less
undesirable (Stradling, 1999). Emotional factors. Speeders are more likely to associate
instrumental benefits (getting to a destination quicker) and emotional benefits (the
pleasure in driving fast) with speeding (Stradling, 1999). Exaggerated feelings of control
and confidence. Many speeders have an illusory sense of control over their driving (Simon
and Corbett, 1991).

Suckfull, Reuter Emotions elicited by a road safety campaign

The presupposition that other emotions may also play a role has been largely neglected in
this field of research. However, one recent study has shown that often not only fear is
elicited, but also disgust, and that disgust can itself increase the effectiveness of the
message (Morales, Wu, & Fitzsimons, 2012). In addition, the authors of this study assume
that fear appeals may elicit other emotions of negative valence besides disgust, and that
those emotions might also influence the persuasive effects of health communication.
The processes that occur in the emergence of an emotion are defined by Scherer (2001) in
his ComponentProcess Model. He proposes that the experience of an emotion is not
based on an event itself, but depends on how an organism rates an event for his well-
being and survival. The main criteria for the evaluation process in Scherers model are
called Stimulus Evaluation Checks (SEC). These include an appraisal of the relevance of an
event and the implications this event may have for an individual. Besides further Stimulus
Evaluation Checks (e.g., the implications of an event for an individual), the normative
significance of an event may also be evaluated by an individual.
Physiological Measurement. To the knowledge of the authors, in fear-appeal research only
one single study exists that uses physiological measurements: Ordoana, Gonzlez-Javier,
Espn-Lpez, and Gmez-Amor (2009) measured skin conductance (SC) and heart rate
(HR), to analyze the relationship between self-report and physiological reactions to fear
 appeals. The measurement of physiological parameters, such as HR and SC, provides very
valuable information.
Facial expressions. The facial expressions of an individual contain information about their
cognitive and emotional states. Ekman (1987) postulates that the expressions of so-called
basic emotions in human faces are biologically determined and therefore universal. The
results of numerous studies proved this assumption to be correct (Ekman, 2007). The basic
human emotions are anger, surprise, disgust, fear, sadness and happiness.
The stimulus material included a four-minute commercial block with a total of nine
commercials which included one of the three spots of the road safety campaign Runter
vom Gas! (in each condition the next-to-last spot). The participants were randomly
assigned to one of the three experimental conditions.
The results indicate that the commercials which tell a story and use unexpected
resolutions (Picture-Frame, Family-Day) provoke more emotion regulation, are better
remembered, and are more positively evaluated. The distinctive facial expressions,
observed at the end of these spots, refer to the resolution of the small narratives. Future
research should investigate the relevance of surprise (in terms of narrative), and contempt
and disgust (in terms of morality).

Tay, Ozanne Who Are We Scaring With High Fear Road Safety Advertising Campaign
Fear is an actual emotional response to the threat that can impel changes in attitude or
behavioural intentions, such as a change in the attitude towards drunk driving, and an
actual change in consumer behaviour such as a reduction in speeding (LaTour and Rotfeld,
1997).
Quinn et al. (1992) also found that female students experienced a higher level of fear
arousal than their male counterparts in a survey on the health consequences of smoking.
The authors attributed this difference to the "bravery of 'machismo' belief that they
(males) are not vulnerable". The result clearly showed that the same threat could produce
different results in male and female subjects.
The biggest surprise, nevertheless, was on the estimated impact of the advertising
campaign, which is the main focus of this research. The advertising campaign was found to
have no effect on its main target audience, the young male drivers. It is, however,
effective in reducing the number of fatal crashes experienced by young female drivers and
middle-aged male drivers.

This paper reviews theoretical and empirical evidence relating to the effectiveness of fear
(threat) appeals in improving driver safety. The results of the review highlight the mixed
and inconsistent findings that have been reported in the literature. While fear arousal
appears important for attracting attention, its contribution to behaviour change appears
less critical than other factors, such as perceptions of vulnerability and effective coping
strategies. Furthermore, threatening appeals targeting young males (a high-risk group of
concern) have traditionally relied on the portrayal of physical harm. However, the
available evidence questions the relevance, and hence effectiveness, of strong physical
 threats with this group. Consequently, further research is required to determine the
optimum way to utilise fear in road safety advertising, as well as the type of threat(s) most
effective with different road users.

Watson, White The role of fear appeal in improving driver safety

Generally, these newer models adopted a greater focus on the role of cognitive factors as
opposed to a specific focus on the role of fear. One of the first models to do this, the
Parallel Response Model [PRM; Leventhal, 1970) maintained that there were two separate
paths to persuasion: an emotional fear control response and a cognitive danger control
response. Of the two paths, the cognitive response, by controlling the danger or threat,
was more likely to promote protective behaviour (i.e., adoption of the messages
recommendations) as opposed to the emotional response which involved controlling the
fear by either maladaptive means such as mimising the threat (i.e., rationalising the risk)
or rejecting the message. However, the model failed to clearly specify the circumstances
under which danger control or fear control responses would be initiated (Witte & Allen,
2000). The Protection Motivation Theory ([PMT; 1975; 1983) developed by Rogers,
featured and even stronger focus on cognitive factors. The PMT2 incorporates four
variables: the perceived severity of the threat; the perceived probability that the threat
will occur (often referred to as vulnerability and/or susceptibility); the perceived efficacy
of the recommended response (more commonly referred to as response efficacy); and the
perceived efficacy of individuals to enact the recommended response (more commonly
referred to as message self-efficacy).
More specifically, if the threat is perceived as high (i.e., perceptions of personal
vulnerability and threat severity are high), then there is greater motivation to evaluate the
efficacy inherent in the message. If, in turn, efficacy is high (i.e., perceptions that the
recommendations of the message and their ability to enact them as high), then cognitive
processing and protection motivation is adopted. In other words, adaptive behaviours are
adopted and the appeal may be regarded successful. Alternatively, if the threat is
perceived as high (i.e., high severity and personal vulnerability perceptions) but
perceptions of efficacy are low (i.e., individuals do not believe that they could successfully
enact the strategies), then emotional processing occurs whereby an individual will aim to
control their fear through maladaptive strategies such as denial or avoidance. The final
outcome possible in the EPPM is where individuals simply ignore the message. This
outcome is likely to occur in instances where individuals perceptions of a threat are low
because it is regarded as irrelevant. Consequently, there is no motivation for continuing
with any processing of the message (Witte, 1992; Witte & Allen, 2000). It should be
apparent from the preceding description that coping appraisal determines whether
individuals will be motivated to control the danger of the threat or control their fear about
the threat, whereas threat appraisal determines whether individuals continue further with
processing the message.
Whilst, road safety has tended to rely heavily upon physical threats of injury and death
(i.e., commercials of death; Tay & Watson, 2002), threats may also be social,
psychological, or financial (Donovan & Henley, 1997). Evidence suggests that the frequent
use of physical threats in road safety advertising may be problematic given that such
appeals may not be regarded relevant, and hence persuasive, by those road users most
commonly targeted; namely, males and young males.