Research proves value of award winning campaign

 Dorset County Council commissioned the Market Research Group at Bournemouth University to undertake focus group research on the effectiveness of the award-winning “No excuse” marketing strategy.

Recommendations included:

• Continue to provide covert and overt enforcement measures.

• Create new ways to promote the campaign in the local papers. Participants suggested that newspaper stories associated with the campaign needed to be more hard hitting and that the current excuses used for promotion made road safety seem like a bit of a joke.

• Continue to use road signs as a main tool for communicating and promoting the ‘No Excuse’ message. Use road signs to promote the number of prosecutions..

• Consider discontinuing the radio adverts; very few people had heard them and their effectiveness was questioned.

• Ensure prosecutions happen and are promoted. Media reports focusing on people who have ‘got away’ with their offence on technicalities such as calibration of equipment or a wrong road name have had a negative affect on the campaign.

The full report is available on the Road Safety Knowledge Centre.