Prevention Research Collaboration, Sydney School of Public Health and Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
School of Public Health, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia.
PLoS One. 2024 Apr 16;19(4):e0294372. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294372. eCollection 2024.
Mass media campaigns are frequently used to address public health issues. Considering the considerable cost, there has been little analysis of why campaigns sometimes fail. This study used a sequential mixed methods approach to explore the mechanisms that can lead to failure and to identify what can be done to avoid or overcome common mistakes in campaign planning, implementation, and evaluation. We conducted interviews and a survey with 28 public health social marketing and mass media campaign experts over three rounds of research and analysed the data thematically, generating themes inductively. We identified four systemic factors that drive success: long-term strategic thinking and commitment, understanding the campaign context, doing and learning from evaluation, and fostering strong relationships. The factors did not operate in isolation, rather good (or poor) execution in one area was likely to influence performance in another. The experts also emphasised that a change of political context could drastically affect one or more of the identified factors. Our analysis showed that campaign failures are not simply individuals making mistakes. Systemic issues throughout the planning, execution, and evaluation phases need to be addressed if campaign outcomes are to improve.
大众媒体宣传活动经常被用于解决公共卫生问题。考虑到相当大的成本，对于宣传活动为何有时会失败的原因，几乎没有进行分析。本研究采用序贯混合方法，探索可能导致失败的机制，并确定在宣传活动规划、实施和评估中如何避免或克服常见错误。我们对 28 名公共卫生社会营销和大众媒体宣传活动专家进行了访谈和调查，在三轮研究中进行了分析，并对数据进行了主题分析，从中归纳出主题。我们确定了四个推动成功的系统性因素：长期战略思维和承诺、了解宣传活动背景、进行评估并从中学习、以及培养强有力的关系。这些因素并非孤立运作，一个领域的良好（或不佳）执行可能会影响另一个领域的表现。专家们还强调，政治环境的变化可能会极大地影响已确定因素中的一个或多个。我们的分析表明，宣传活动的失败并非仅仅是个人犯错误。如果要改善宣传活动的结果，就需要在规划、执行和评估阶段解决系统性问题。
