Communications

and Advocacy Research

NSW Health was interested in understanding how best to position Healthdirect as the ‘first step’ for people seeking medical advice or care, and as a trustworthy alternative to visiting Emergency Departments (EDs).
MMResearch conducted a program of qualitative research to explore the effectiveness of proposed creative territories and messaging for a new Healthdirect campaign. The campaign aimed to promote behaviour change and build trust in healthdirect: strengthen public trust in healthdirect, fostering long-term engagement and repeat usage of the service.
We conducted a series of online group discussions with NSW residents to explore their responses to each creative concept, and to identify opportunities for further development.
The concepts were evaluated in relation to appeal and personal relevance; message take out, strength and credibility; potential impacts on behaviour change; and unintended consequences
Insights from our research informed the development of the updated “Anywhere” campaign, which promotes Healthdirect as a first step for health advice and care.
Our findings helped guide refinements to campaign messaging, tone and delivery across the executions we tested, along with the messaging “For free instant health advice anytime, anywhere”.
The final campaign can be viewed here.
Campaign toolkit and assets can be found here.

The Cancer Council Victoria has developed Food Fight, which is a social marketing campaign that aims to drive policy reform and legislation around the removal of unhealthy food and drink advertising within 500m of schools, and on public transport and public transport infrastructure in Victoria.
This campaign is about creating advocates for systemic change within the community and mobilising public support to help drive this policy reform.
The focus of activities for the first phase of the campaign, which launched during 2022, was to raise the issue of unhealthy food and drink marketing to children and its impact on unhealthy diets and weight.
To inform the development of the campaign, we conducted a series of group discussions with Victorian parents of children aged 5-16 years.
A separate group discussion was also conducted with people who have already signed up to the Food Fight campaign.
We assessed draft advertising concepts in terms of the constructs of Attention, Identification, Communication and Effect in order to determine their capacity to achieve the campaign objectives; and to provide guidance for the further development of the concepts.
This research was used to inform the development of CCV’s latest Food Fight campaign, calling for unhealthy food advertising that targets children to be removed from places where Victorian kids commute, learn and play.
Read more about the campaign here.
Watch the ad here.

The Climate Council wanted to develop a communications strategy for reshaping the national conversation around climate change and economic renewal in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic induced recession. The intention of the strategy was to develop an approach to messaging that would position climate action as the key to creating good jobs, and the only path to a strong economic recovery.
The research provided target audience insights to inform the development of positively framed climate action messages.
The project involved a series of group discussions with men and women aged 25-60 from key target audiences, including those who had previously supported the Federal Coalition parties, but had become uncomfortable about their climate policies, blue collar workers and rural audiences.
This research was used by the Climate Council to develop a communications guide that provides practical advice about how to effectively talk about climate change, with a particular focus on ensuring that the issue is not lost in discussions during a global pandemic and recession.
A copy of the guide can be found here.

Cancer Council Victoria wanted to develop a new social marketing campaign that aims to mobilise parents to support initiatives advocating for changes to the advertising of unhealthy foods.
To inform the development of the campaign, we conducted a series of group discussions with Victorian parents of 4-12 year old children.
We assessed draft advertising concepts in terms of the constructs of Attention, Identification, Communication and Effect in order to determine their capacity to achieve the campaign objectives; and to provide guidance for the further development of the concepts.
This research was used to inform the development of CCV’s Food Fight campaign, and has assisted in gathering support from over 10,000 people and 30 organisations who have already joined the Food Fight campaign, calling for unhealthy food advertising that targets children to be removed from places where Victorian kids commute, learn and play.
Read more about the campaign here.

Asthma Australia wanted to develop a social marketing campaign to promote the AirSmart brand and the associated air quality app.
Our research involved a series of group discussions with people with asthma and/or people who had a child aged under 12 who had been diagnosed with asthma, and the general population aged 25-60.
The primary campaign target audience is people with asthma and their carers. The secondary audience is all people who are vulnerable to air pollution, and it is intended that the language and messaging will be inclusive for all people who are impacted by poor air quality and that the creative campaign will be broadly appealing. Given this intended target audience, our analysis was weighted towards the needs of people with asthma but taking into consideration the requirements for promoting AirSmart more broadly.
This research was used by Asthma Australia to inform the development of the ‘Make the invisible, visible’ advertising campaign, which has so far been used in a pilot program that encourages people to download the AirSmart app, with the intention that the campaign be scaled up to a National roll out.
The campaign, which was developed by Gatecrasher, can be found here and here.

Cancer Council Victoria wanted to develop resources for communicating the health risks of e-cigarettes, and to help mitigate their use among teenagers.
The project involved a series of group discussions and in-depth interviews with parents of young people aged 15-17; and young people aged 15-17, with the samples segmented by school type, to include people from both government and private/independent schools. During the research sessions, we identified the information that people were interested in learning about e-cigarettes, and we assessed aspects of style and tone of draft concepts.
This research helped Cancer Council Victoria to develop e-cigarette resources for parents and teens. Copies of which can be found here.