Getting the message right

Justine is the newly appointed health promotion adviser with the National Diabetes Awareness Programme (NDAP).

Justine has been given the task of producing a nationwide campaign to help address this health problem and to promote the availability of a new technique of diabetes testing. Justine is well aware of the power of advertising. Ideally she would like to run a television advert in prime time to best capture her target audience.

Justine contacts ‘Primetime Productions”, a major media company who produce “Health in a Minute”; a magazine style advertising feature that appears each evening during prime time viewing.

She is offered a 30 second slot, but the company representative stresses that to take up the offer Justine will need to comply with the media company’s communications strategy which states that “it is not enough to just create an advertisement campaign based on scientific findings. It is also vital to create a message that the audience will understand and want to act upon”.

The rep points out that this means that in the advert Justine would have to exaggerate the risk of diabetes in general but also slightly exaggerate the effectiveness of the new test. He points out that on the upside more viewers from the target population may be persuaded to take up the screening test or at least adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Justine is tempted. Her own father suffered from serious diabetes and if the messages available to him had been stronger she feels sure he would have acted earlier and his premature death possibly avoided.

On the other hand, she is concerned that she portrays the health issue in a realistic and true manner.

What should she do?