Best Practice Campaign Profile: BreastScreen NSW
December 2003
BreastScreen NSW is a population-based breast screening program that aims to reduce illness and death caused by breast cancer through the early detection of the disease. Research has found that regular breast screening for women aged 50 to 69 can reduce the number of deaths caused by the disease by up to 30%. BreastScreen NSW have developed extremely well researched campaigns for different ethnic communities. Intelligence reviews the 2003 campaign for the Italian community.
A Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) Task Force was formulated early on to encourage greater participation by women from migrant communities. Data available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that there were 14,337 women in the target age group (50-69) whose country of birth was Italy. The NESB Task Force determined that recruitment of Italian-speaking women would be a first priority.
FORMATIVE RESEARCH: Before undertaking a campaign in Italian, a reference group of Italian women was set up to determine the key factors of the campaign: message formulation, content and communications channels.
Some of the themes and findings arising from the research were:
1. GPs, friends and family members were influential in decision-making about health issues.
2. High-profile spokespeople may not be convincing.
3. Channel Selection: It was found that a large proportion of the target market listen to Rete Italia, the main radio station in the Italian Community.
SBS Radio and La Fiamma, the NSW’s Italian newspaper were also selected.
As BreastScreen NSW had invested a lot in research and the creative material development, it was decided to extend the campaign to all community stations in NSW where there was Italian programming. Including the community broadcasters enabled BreastScreen NSW to truly partner the Italian media outlets with a State-wide campaign.
SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT: The campaign revolved around Rosanna, the central character for four radio scripts produced as role-plays between Rosanna, her family, friends and local GP, and her decision to have a screening mammogram. Five complementary newspaper advertisements were produced.
PRODUCTION: An Italian Theatre Director was used to oversee the production. Italian voice-over professionals were used. The professional production process ensured the advertisements sounded credible.
PRE-CAMPAIGN PUBLICITY: A feature article including a supporting photo of the reference group was published in La Fiamma. This first story served to raise interest in the subsequent campaign.
EXTENDED USE OF THE MEDIA: Editorials were produced in Italian to accompany the paid advertising. These reflected the issues that arose from the reference group and also served as talkback topics for radio. Some of the issues identified were:
- Embarrassment of undressing for the appointment
- Myths associated with breast cancer
- Fear of pain and fear of the diagnosis.
Tegan Usback of BreastScreen NSW has praised the media, in particular La Fiamma for their willingness to run editorial support and ensure the maximum impact of the advertising. Overall, BreastScreen NSW was able to achieve significant bonus exposure for the campaign because of the excellent creative, the social goals of the campaign and the willingness of the media to get the best possible outcome.
TIMING OF THE CAMPAIGN: The campaign was run as a split campaign over four weeks in May ‘03 and again in September ‘03, allowing for some evaluation of phase one and fine tuning before the start of phase two.
EVALUATION: Monitoring and evaluation costs were built into the campaign budget. BreastScreen NSW undertook a research questionnaire with the media that asked for feedback on the quality of the creative as well as any feedback that the media had received from audiences. The two-phase structure permitted some modification of the campaign before phase two, based on this survey.