Rethink Dementia Marketing Campaign Evaluation – 2024/25

9. Campaign evaluation

Pre and post campaign evaluation research was carried out through online quantitative surveys by an independent research agency.

Questions were asked of adults aged 30-60 across Scotland. The pre wave sample size was 744 people; post wave 760 people. The data was weighted by age, social grade and location to ensure the results were representative of the target audience in Scotland and consistent between waves.

72% of the total sample had current and/or past experience of dementia, either personally or through someone they know or had known.

Fieldwork dates were as follows: Pre wave: 7 – 18 August 2024; Post wave: 7 – 15 October 2024.

Campaign performance against SMART objectives

Amongst the general target audience, four out of five of the campaign SMART objective targets were exceeded, illustrating excellent awareness of the campaign and action taken because of it.

SMART objectives set, and results achieved versus target are provided below.

While there was no increase in agreement - from the pre to post wave survey - that helping someone with dementia stay connected and socially active can help them stay well for longer, those who recognised the campaign were more likely to strongly agree with this statement than those who did not recall seeing it (54% v 42%). There was also a significant increase in agreement among those with no experience of dementia (68% at the pre wave to 77% at the post wave).

Changing entrenched attitudes and beliefs - such as the idea that people living with dementia are less capable and can no longer continue the activities they did before diagnosis - will take time and repeated exposure to positive messaging. This indicates a continued need for sustained campaign efforts to shift long-held perceptions.

Further measures

• As shown above, prompted recognition far surpassed the SMART objective target. It was also consistent across gender, age and social grade.
• Multi-channel recognition was good with almost two fifths of those recognising the campaign (38%) recalling 3+ channels. Nearly a third (31%) of campaign recognisers saw the TV/Video on Demand advertising.
• The main messages of the campaign came across clearly. Half (49%) understood actions to take, with 20% mentioning ‘encouraging continued social interaction/activity/maintain normality for those with dementia’. Just over a fifth (22%) thought differently about dementia, with 10% mentioning ‘dementia does not mean the end of life/life does not end with a dementia diagnosis’.
• The campaign achieved high levels of engagement, in particular for agreement with ‘I believe that what the advertising says is true’, ‘it encourages me, either now or in the future, to support someone with dementia to stay well for longer’ and ‘it makes me think I could do something to support someone with dementia stay well for longer’. The overall engagement metric (RUSTIC-M^[4]) was a very high score of 81%.
• The campaign drove high levels of reported action among those seeing it, far exceeding the target. It was even higher among campaign recognisers with current or past experience of dementia, with 82% of this group taking a relevant action.
• Over 1 in 10 (11%) who saw the campaign stated they tried to meet, talk with or keep in contact with someone with dementia more regularly.
• Over a quarter of those seeing the campaign (28%) stated they were likely to think more positively about the outlook for people living with dementia. This was similar across those with past or current experience and those with no experience of dementia.

Other key metrics (including paid-for-media, partnerships and website)

• In line with planned figures, paid-for media reached 94.7% of the target audience of adults in Scotland aged 30-60, giving them 10.4 opportunities to see or hear the campaign on average.
• Overall, the paid-for media campaign reached 4.25 million adults, including 2.15 million within the target audience of adults aged 30–60.
• Partner engagement was strong across social media channels with 227 campaign mentions, 155 reposts and 2.4 million impressions giving a reach of 808,000.
• During the campaign period, there were over 18,000 visits to the website and almost 1,500 case study views.

Lived Experience Panel members experiencing direct results:

• “The best feedback I have had has been people saying, oh, we never knew that, you know, just going for a cup of tea would make a difference. So I think it really helped. It's helped a lot of people to recognise that it's the small things that can make the biggest differences for people living with dementia and I have had an awful lot of feedback. I've had former pupils phoning me and coming to the door, because they've seen a newspaper or heard the radio or whatever”.