We started with exploratory qualitative work (with the target and their influencers) to understand experiences of the maternity pathway. We also needed to identify motivations and barriers around specific health behaviours.

Stage 1 findings helped to sketch an audience segmentation. They also helped inspire some ideas for specific interventions within the maternity pathway to improve engagement and uptake of services.

This led to the Stage 2 quantification; testing the audience segmentation and the intervention ideas. Interviews were conducted in-street via a very short (because Mums-to-be can’t stand for long!) questionnaire. This was crafted to include only highly discriminating questions where next actions were clearly evaluated.

The method and sampling throughout this project were particularly challenging. Although the “pregnant and recent Mum” universe is relatively small in the borough of Camden, the target audience encompasses the extremes of high-wealth through to very low income individuals. As in any inner-city area, there were also specific ethnic minority populations to include as well as highly marginalised groups such as women in hostels.

New Alcohol Campaign:
The campaign by Wieden & Kennedy, the agency’s first since its picked up the business in October last year, features two TV ads that show children talking about the dangers that alcohol could pose to them in the future.
View the ad

New Sexual Health Campaign:
The Department of Health and Department for Children, Schools and Families has unveiled its latest sexual health campaign aimed at helping young people make informed decisions.
View the ad

DCSF press release:
Read the DCSF press release

In the public sector, we helped build a communications strategy for Defra and for the Welsh Assembly. Here our research established an audience segmentation to target communications and track change. The segmentation incorporated attitudes, perceptions and behaviours.

And for DECC and DfT, we developed products and specific communications designed to encourage more sustainable choices as well as concepts and propositions for general public advertising campaigns (Act on CO2).

Beyond governmental clients, our research with commercial companies (such as Arriva) has helped to drive up use of public transport through positioning it as a greener consumer choice. Our work with the Energy Saving Trust focused on revitalising their service for helping homeowners live energy efficiently.

To get inside the respondents’ worlds, we’ve used ethnography through to more standard focus groups. For Define, the important thing is to use the right methodology for the job in hand, so that we can find out if the consumers we hear from are “barely keen” or “really green”.

View the DfT ‘5 miles less’ TV ad (launched November 2009, look for ‘Watch the TV ad’ on the right-hand margin).

Click here for Arriva’s advice on greener journeys http://www.arrivabus.co.uk/greener-journeys/

Click here to find out more about saving energy at home or in your business http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/

Look into your own Carbon Footprint using the Act on CO2 Carbon Calculator at http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/actonco2/home

For the new Think! Road Safety campaign, DfT and Leo Burnett’s ambition was to use research as the basis for a radical, new creative that would achieve the “holy grail” of teen communications – exciting and engaging the target, whilst also providing them with the coping mechanisms they need to mitigate the road risks that they face every single day.

The huge challenge was finding ideas that are compelling and personally relevant to teenagers in territory which is exceptionally ‘dull’ and ‘not me’ for the majority of young people.

So we needed to move teen thinking into new territory: through Storyboard Depths, Galleries and Media Sessions. Stakeholders (parents, teachers, police, road safety staff) were also included to sense check elements of teen reportage. This successful first stage found a range of potential strategic directions for road safety advertising and inspiration for creative ideas.

The second stage has focused on creative development to inform decisions as to which route to progress, as well as guide executional development so that the campaign is as effective as possible in reducing KSIs.

Working with recommendations from the earlier research, we developed a number of materials including posters, leaflets, banner, booklets and location maps. Alternative designs were tested on-street with 16-24 year old, sexually active youth across the borough. The ‘Silhouette’ design researched well due to two key features: neutrality in relation to the perceived target audience, and implicit connection to the invisibility of Chlamydia.

The resulting print materials will be used through 2009 and 2010 across the borough, in an integrated marketing campaign to engage and build awareness with the target and increase uptake of sexual services provision.

>> View the campaign materials.

Wandsworth PTC has identified teenage pregnancy as a priority area where a Social Marketing approach could help. Our research sought to develop interventions and direction on communicating these interventions based on the creative ideas of the girls themselves.

Define used a range of methods to tackle the challenge including: online research using Facebook, workshops and peer-to-peer questionnaires where respondents became the researchers and spoke to their friends.

These methods built on each other over time to develop ideas in close collaboration with the girls and to increase the scope of the research from a small number of teenagers to their wider peer group. The insights generated allowed us to make recommendations that reflected the needs and priorities of a hard to reach group on a sensitive topic.