Although intention to use oral contraceptives is high, use in India was low at 2%. The Friends of the Pill campaign was launched to promote OCs among young middle class urban couples in North India.

The decision to contracept is highly involved and personal. Promotion needs to breakthrough television “clutter” to reach the audience, motivate and persuade. Developing such a campaign relies on proven consumer market research techniques.

Four tools were used:

-          Iterative creative focus group discussions with the target audience to develop advertising concepts. The advertising agency participated in these, each time developing and presenting ideas generated by preceding groups.

-          Qualitative feedback on final adverts for a swift “go”, “no-go” decision before airing.

-          A one-time comparative testing of campaign adverts to assess effectiveness. This uses a design that simulates TV watching settings and asks respondents about advert visibility, recall, appeal and persuasion.

-          Periodical large-scale comparable surveys among the target audience to track changing communication needs, and behaviour shifts.

The comparative testing of adverts shows that the campaign adverts are effective in breaking through advertising clutter, and score well on scales of credibility and persuasion. This endorses the qualitative techniques used to develop adverts. The tracking surveys assessed impact and communication gaps, and shows that OC use among the target audience increased from 5% to 13%.

Television remains a powerful medium, but consumer research is vital to give health promotion campaigns a competitive advantage for a share of the consumer’s mind.