Alcohol: a customer focus

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DCSF Research Conference 2010
The Use of Evidence in Policy
Development and Delivery
Alcohol a customer focus
How the Department is using customer
understanding and insight to change behaviours
around alcohol
David Chater, Substance Misuse Team Sara Jones,
Customer Insight Unit Jackie Stevenson, Customer
Insight Unit
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Policy Context PSA 14 (More young people on the
path to success) NI 115 substance misuse
amongst young people
Early onset of drinking alcohol a factor in a
range of harms experienced by young
people Accident and injury, sexual risk taking,
drug use, involvement in crime and anti social
behaviour (including victimisation)
Primary policy interventions range across
enforcement (test purchasing and confiscation),
support (targeted services, specialist treatment)
and education (school drug education). Wider
investment in positive activities and childrens
services also key. High levels of public concern
about effects of binge drinking but limited
public appetite for government intervention in
what is seen as parents responsibility.
All data from Fuller et al 2008
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Policy Context The UK has one of the highest
levels of alcohol use amongst young people in
Europe
And young people in the UK are the most likely to
attribute positive effects to alcohol and least
likely to associate negative consequences.
All data from European Schools Project on Alcohol
and Drugs 2007
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The task
Project Background

• Commitment in the Youth Alcohol Action Plan to
  deliver a communications campaign about the risks
  of alcohol, focused particularly on young people
  (10-15 years) and their parents. Beginning of a
  long term cultural shift capable of achieving two
  behaviour changes
• Delaying the start of drinking
• Using alcohol (if at all) in a lower risk way.
• Scale of the challenge was daunting. For most
  people, alcohol and drinking are a part of
  everyday life.

Objective
To maximise the number of young people in England
who grow up to have a safe and sensible
relationship with alcohol
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The Process
Proposition testing with
parents young people
Quantitative research (usage attitudes)
Campaign development
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Exploratory qualitative research
Exploratory research

• 2 x stakeholder groups
• 7 x stakeholder Interviews
• 3 x expert Interviews
• 1½ hour duration
• 20 respondents - representative of range of roles
  perspectives

Stakeholder interviews

• 16 x in-home observations
• CYP / PC split
• 16 x Accompanied Shops
• CYP / PC split and combined
• 8 x Observed Drinks
• Range of regions, SEGs and drinking behaviours
  covered

Observation Sessions
Creative Conferences

• 10 x 2 hour conferences
• 239 respondents participated
• Split by age and gender
• 8 x CYP workshops
• 2 x PC workshops
• Range of regions, SEGs and drinking behaviours
  covered

• Split into two exhibitions ? CYP artworks and PC
  artworks
• Include CYPs, PCs, Stakeholders
• Pairs, trios, depths
• 78 respondents participated overall

Interactive Gallery
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Working through the issues

• Cross Government workshop to share findings and
  forward plan, led by DCSF and COI (Jun 2008)
• Youth Alcohol Action Plan launched (Jun 2008)
• Desk research by EdComs and synthesis of findings
  with qualitative research, resulting in
  typologies of 4 parenting types and 4 young
  people types in relation to alcohol (Autumn 2008)
• Linking typologies across to the large scale DCSF
  Families Segmentation
• Development of parent-specific advertising
  executions as part of DH Units campaign (Jan
  Mar 2009)
• Consultation on CMO guidance guidelines (Jan
  Apr 2009)
• Qualitative research with 2CV to explore
  communication of the guidance guidelines, to
  parents and young people (recruited using the
  typologies/ segmentation to recruit (Mar 2009)

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Key findings

• Parents and YP are operating under a series of
  myths about alcohol
• Four major myths form the spine of the argument
• Alcohol is not really a drug (its legal so how
  bad can it be?)
• Sticking to certain types of alcohol is safe
• The best way to learn is to find your own
  physical limit
• The risks are mild.
• Supporting myths include
• All kids will try it (part of growing up,
  rebelling against authority)
• Over-parenting encourages it (hands-off parenting
  is the safe alternative)
• Consequences are low-level, and manageable
• Brands are targeting young people, but theyre
  pushing product, not addiction.
• Parents are crucial to changing behaviour
• Adults either set poor habits or leave their
  young people uneducated and unprepared for
  alcohol
• Some actively encourage their children to drink
  from an early age continental model

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Who do we need to talk to?
Proposition testing with
parents young people
Quantitative research (usage attitudes)
Exploratory research and mapping
Campaign development
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Using the evidence to generate understanding and
identify target audiences
Strategic review of evidence base

• Review to take a fresh look at the evidence base
  - 55 documents, 2700 pgs of research. Evidence
  was assessed, grouped and summarised to help
  identify the core attitudes of parents in
  relation to young people drinking alcohol.

The evidence was then summarised and the specific
insights at the heart of the needs and issues
were identified
Information and evidence was gathered into
themes. Each piece of evidence is clearly
notated with the source document
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Axis 1 Do parents recognise the risk?
Risk to my family
Its a problem but parents are surrounded by many
serious problems its not the priority issue
Its a problem in society, and could be a problem
for their kids, so parents are dealing with it
their way
They just dont believe its a risk for their
kids, because of the way they live
Parents not doing anything because its just not
a problem
Axis 2 Do parents have strategies to deal with
the risks?
Not Risk to my family
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Parent carer segments
7 parent carer segments
I havent heard anything that I really understand
it goes over my head
Its my job as a parent to lead my kids to safe
alcohol usage
Ive made my point, I think thats enough
I think its all best left alone
Its all about other people, not like us
Overarching Attitudinal groups created, that
shared a core common insight
Its all too difficult to deal with
I dont want to make a fuss, Im sure theyll be
fine, we all did it
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Children and Young People segments
Perceived risk to me
9 children and young people segments
This is my life I dont really have options
Not so bad its risky but the consequences seem
to be minor manageable
No way out they dont know how to stop, even if
they want to
Excitement it is risky and it makes you feel
good that makes it exciting
Accessible Fun its an easily obtained and
relatively cheap way to have fun
Shared Stories their group bonds through
memorable, shared experiences which are often
drink-fuelled
Not like drugs they want to demonstrate risky
behaviour, but dont want to do drugs
I want to seem braver than I am
Drinking is fun and fun is what matters to me
and my mates
Aspirational Life they aspire to its image of
adult glamour
I cant grow up fast enough drinking shows Im
an adult
Enjoyment
Being an adult drinking is part of defining
themselves as adults
Stuck
They drink, and I want to be one of them, so I
drink
Relative safety
Under pressure to join in they need to conform
to the behaviour of the group they wish to be
part of
Independence
Rebelling against the family they want to
escape from the restrictive route proscribed by
their family
Fitting In
Got Confidence
No Confidence
Repeating behaviour patterns their role model
for adulthood includes heavy drinking
Coping mechanism
Escaping a difficult life they are
anaesthetising themselves against their very
difficult situation
Drinking is what we do in our family
Family practice
Drinking makes the problems seem less bad, so I
can cope for a while
No worries
Inclusion and belonging it is part of joining
in with the adults in their family group
Something to do
Escaping short term stress they think it helps
to deal with and find relief from short term
pressures
Filling a vacuum there is a lack of alternative
activities for them
Insufficient/ unclear information theyve never
been given clear actionable reasons not to
No noticeable negatives they can see no
apparent serious impacts on them or their friends
Everybody does it alcohol is an integral part
of society, it cant be a real problem
Adults do it if adults they respect do it, it
cant be a real problem
Everyone agrees that drinking is ok, so its ok
to drink
Drinking fills the empty spaces in my life
No perceived risk to me
Common core insight
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Identifying who to speak to
The review allowed us to - identify specific
groups we needed to talk to and - highlighted
the importance of parents as a target
audience It also identified a gap in the
research and made two recommendations going
forward 1. Conduct additional quantitative
research to provide robust linkage of the usage
of, and attitudes towards, alcohol 2. Test
message territories or proposition areas to
ensure that the campaign did not alienate the
target audience
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A policy challenge
In general, across the evidence reviewed, public
information campaigns have been found to be
ineffective in reducing alcohol-related
harms World Health Organisation

• But, evidence that
• Social Marketing campaigns can be effective in
  related health fields.
• Communications a necessary condition for shifting
  social attitudes over time
• Essential that
• the campaign goes beyond information-giving to
  behaviour change
• it is based on a thorough understanding of young
  peoples induction into drinking behaviours
• it is tested with target audiences to close down
  the opt outs from changing behaviour
• the campaign evaluation is tied to robust
  measures of drinking prevalence

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What do we need to say?
Quantitative research (usage attitudes)
Strategic review of evidence base
Exploratory research and mapping
Campaign development
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Proposition Factories - running early
propositions through an intense, iterative
process to develop and refine
Proposition testing

• Research objectives
• identify and refine proposition(s) for the target
  audience (YP parents of 11-17 year olds)
• provide guidance on the optimal language to use
• Research methodology sample
• Participants completed a pre-task to capture
• What they see as the good and bad sides of
  alcohol
• What they know about alcohol and what
  conversations theyve had about alcohol

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Proposition territories tested with parents
Know how to draw the line
Actions speak louder than words
Take the risks of alcohol seriously
Theres another side to alcohol
Talking about bad things doesnt make them happen
Alcohol is a Bad Influence
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Initial proposition
Final proposition
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What we learnt about the proposition
The idea of Vulnerability resonates with parents
Needs direct link to alcohol consumption
Preventative strategies are vital
Powerful and emotive
Confronts parents who think others are the
problem
General alcohol consumption not excess
Child vulnerability leads to parents
vulnerability
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Proposition territories tested with young people
No Regrets
Look out for your mates
Look and feel your best
Real respect
There are two sides to alcohol
Stay in Control
It feels bad to let people down
Alcohol leaves you vulnerable
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CYP What we learnt about the propositions

• The idea that alcohol consumption can make young
  people vulnerable was a clear winner.
• Strong, emotive hook across the age range (11-17
  years)
• Fits with the intense change they are
  experiencing
• - exploring independence
• - new experiences can leave them in uncertain
  situations and with unknown people.
• The most relevant, powerful and motivating call
  to action for 11-17 year olds is around the idea
  of Think before you drink
• For the Alcohol Aware group Think before you
  drink should be coupled with the message Have
  the confidence to say no to alcohol. Make your
  own decision.
• For the Alcohol Experimenters Think before
  you drink should be coupled with the message
  Always make a plan to stay in control of
  alcohol. Stick to it.

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Define the Audience
Campaign Objectives
Empower young people to make informed decisions
about alcohol directly and via parents -
Supply messages parents can use at home -
Supply messages that prepare YP to make
decisions

• Alcohol Experimenters (13-17 yr olds)
• Parents of Alcohol Experimenters
• Alcohol Aware (11-13 yr olds)
• Parents of Alcohol aware

Shared tone of voice 2 sides to Alcohol

• Parents - parent to parent, grounded and
  balanced
• Young people peer to peer, hard hitting and
  culturally relevant
• Alcohol aware talk to them as individuals
• Alcohol experimenters talk to them as
  friendship groups

Core message Alcohol leaves you Vulnerable

• Alcohol bad decisions
• Leads to unsafe places with untrustworthy people
  
• YP Immediate danger leads to long term scar
  immediate mistakes lead to a changed future
• Parents Range of risky situations road
  accidents fights violence miss the last bus
  home

Call to action

• Young People Think before you drink
• Parents Start talking before they start
  drinking / keep talking

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How do we need to say it?
Proposition testing with
parents young people
Strategic review of evidence base
Exploratory research and mapping
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Making sure the final product works
Campaign development

• Objectives
• To help appoint an agency to execute the
  campaign
• To guide development and ensure optimal response
  to the chosen creative route and its specific
  executions

• Does the work currently deliver to the strategic
  direction for the campaign?
• If not, can it be adapted to deliver to the
  strategic direction?

• Methodology
• Pairs taken through phased gallery
• Fully matched sample to allow for in-depth
  exposure of both ideas to same sample
• Total sample included
• - 32 friendship pairs with Young People (YP)
• - 16 pairs of parents of YP

• Young People aged between 11-17 yrs old
• Spread of behaviour and attitude and overall
  risk with regard to alcohol with bias towards
  higher risk respondents

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How do we know weve succeeded?
Proposition testing with
parents young people
Strategic review of evidence base
Exploratory research and mapping
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The strategic review of the evidence also
discovered that there were some gaps in our
knowledge
Quantitative research
ATTITUDES Of Parents to parenting (inc
drinking) Of CYP to their lives (inc drinking)

• There was a lot of robust data, but important
  links were missing
• could not connect alcohol use and
  socio-demographics to attitudes.
• We could not connect parental attitudes and
  behaviour to that of their children

Who people are Social groups Areas of social
deprivation
CYP Age
What people do (usage) Frequency, amount drunk,
hospital admissions
Solution
Commission new quantitative research to validate
and quantify segments
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Usage and attitudes (UA) survey
GfK NOP

• Objectives
• To better understand parents and young peoples
  attitudes and behaviour towards alcohol and
  alcohol consumption
• To investigate how childrens behaviour may be
  influenced by their parents attitudes and
  behaviour towards alcohol
• To validate and quantify the attitudinal segments
  to help targeting
• To allow us to link to other key data sets such
  as the Families Segmentation and SDDU
• To provide a baseline for future tracking
• Methodology
• Survey of children in years 6-13, and their
  parents/carers in England
• Total sample size of 2,017 linked interviews
• Random location sample design
• Questionnaire designed heavily informed by the
  evidence base
• Interviews conducted face to face in-home using
  CAPI
• Average interview length 45 minutes for parents
  and carers
• Average interview length 30 minutes for young
  people
• Self-completion section for most sensitive
  questions (incl. audio self completion)

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Key findings from UA
GfK NOP

• Parents and Carers
• 50 of parents thought that their child had drunk
  alcohol, ranging from less than a fifth of
  parents of children in Yr 6, to over three
  quarters of children in Yrs 12-13.
• Around two fifths of parents know that their
  child has tried alcohol, 9 of children had drunk
  without their parent knowing and 9 thought that
  their child had drunk alcohol when the child said
  they had not.
• 80 of parents said they would just deal with it
  if / when their child was not sensible with
  alcohol, only 17 said they had already thought
  about what they would do.
• Parents tended to hold more positive views of the
  drinking behaviour of young people that they knew
  (ie their childs friends) compared with other
  children of their childs age.

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Key findings from UA
GfK NOP

• Children and Young People
• 26 of children interviewed said that their
  parent had never talked to them about alcohol.
• 49 of young people have had an alcoholic drink,
  (from around 10 in Yr6 to more than 80 in
  Yr13).
• 87 who had drunk alcohol said that their parents
  knew about it.
• The majority of drinking reported by young people
  was in private households, either in their own
  homes (62) or in other peoples homes (41).

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Seven parent and carer segments identified
GfK NOP
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Seven children and young people segments
identified
GfK NOP
Base All respondents (2017)
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What this piece of research gave us

• Provided conclusive evidence linking usage of,
  and attitudes towards alcohol
• Enabled us to look at how parents attitudes and
  drinking habits effect their children
• emphasised importance of parents (and of seeing
  relevance of risk / having strategies in place)
• Quantified target audiences to ensure the best
  return on investment
• Established a robust baseline from which to track
  and measure progress in changing attitudes,
  knowledge and behaviour
• set of benchmarks for parenting behaviour and
  young peoples attitudes to alcohol that can be
  linked to consumption (and tracked over time)
• Allows us to monitor responses of individual
  target groups to give genuine evidence of the
  behaviour change were seeking
• Increased Departmental capability to deliver -
  base all alcohol work on robust knowledge base
  and share fresh thinking with partners
• Allowed us to link and compare the data with
  sources such as the DCSF Families Segmentation,
  TellUs and SDDU.

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Final policy perspective

• The thorough approach to the segmentation and
  behaviour-change modelling allowed us to move
  beyond a simple information giving campaign
• The segmentation, in particular, allowed us to
  target expenditure to ensure maximum impact
• The research established benchmarks that could be
  clearly tied to prevalence of alcohol consumption
• BUT
• Our campaign remains one part in the complex set
  of influences that shape young peoples attitude
  to alcohol (Vellemen 2009)
• Alcohol advertising, sponsorship, product
  placement all have an impact on young peoples
  consumption. Alcohol communications as a whole
  found to have a dose response relationship with
  consumption (ScHARR review)

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The overall process
Strategic review of evidence
Propositions development testing
Campaign development and testing
Quantitative Usage and Attitude
Evaluation
Exploratory research and mapping
Stage

• Initial primary research to identify existing
  landscape
• Workshop with policy and comms

• Reviewed evaluated all existing evidence
• Looked at a young persons journey into alcohol
• Explored the role of parents

• Develop propositions founded on insights
• Qualitative research to test propositions with
  audiences

• Tested two different campaign ideas and
  executions with the target audiences to
  understand what was working well and what wasnt

• Linked the usage of and attitudes towards alcohol
  
• Explored how parents attitudes and drinking
  habits influenced those of their children

• Extensive campaign tracking and evaluation to
  measure behaviour change of parents and young
  people over the long and short term

What we did

• Identified series of myths related to alcohol
• Parents play a crucial role in changing drinking
  behaviour

• Identified more specific target audiences
• Identified research gaps and made
  recommendations on how to proceed

• Identified vulnerability as a strong emotive
  hook that resonated with both YP and parents
• Identified potential call to action

• Robust baseline data
• Alcohol specific segmentation to enable specific
  targeting

• A campaign that worked well across the target
  audiences and got people thinking, without
  sounding too authoritarian

Key findings
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• David Chater, Substance Misuse Team, DCSF
• David.chater_at_dcsf.gsi.gov.uk
• Jackie Stevenson, Customer Insight Unit, DCSF
• jackie.stevenson_at_dcsf.gsi.gov.uk
• Sara Jones, Customer Insight Unit, DCSF
• sara.jones_at_dcsf.gsi.gov.uk
• Published research
• Use of Alcohol Among Children and Young People.
  Define, June 2008. (DCSF-RW043)
  http//publications.dcsf.gov.uk/default.aspx?PageF
  unctionproductdetailsPageModepublicationsProdu
  ctIdDCSF-RW043
• Children, Young People and Alcohol report. GfK
  NOP, Feb 2010. (Publication pending)

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