Cairín Conway, Campaigns Manager

We’re all researchers. All you need is a burning question and a means of finding the answer. 15 years ago, I mentioned to my mum and sister on a long distance skype call that I had met a really nice Aussie fella here in Melbourne. Within half an hour, they had found his picture online and could tell me all about what he did for a living and other facts of interest. Even my eight year old has googled himself. He was delighted to find his own picture looking back at him from a previous HSE photoshoot I bribed him into coming to.

The same principle applies when we think about market research for HSE campaigns. We have a burning question, and a whole host of ways to find the answer.

The foundation for any marketing campaign is data and we’re lucky to have lots at our disposal – we have information on service use from the HSE programmes we work with, peer reviewed research and evidence from experts and a lot of website metrics and insights that are freely available that can tell us what people are searching for online in relation to a particular health topic.

But I’m going to focus here on how we use market research in HSE communications and campaigns, and its role in helping to build campaigns that support people to improve their health and access the health service.

What is market research?

Market research involves gathering, analysing and interpreting information to help solve a challenge*. Put simply, it is listening to people to gain an understanding of their lived experience, beliefs, needs and desires.

From market research, we gain insights – a key truth that is uncovered about a group of people. It might be a gap in what people know, uncovering certain attitudes that exist or a barrier that prevents them from taking an action that would have a positive impact on their health. Listening to people helps us to get to the root cause of an issue or problem and provide a deeper understanding of the mind set of people and what is feeding into their decisions and actions. Campaigns are built based on these insights, resulting in engaging advertising that helps people to take action because they have the information or motivation they need.  

Market research helps us, and the agencies we work with, to be more efficient and effective, as we’re identifying the best ways of communicating to each audience so we can plan the best advertising creative, messages and channels to use.

Market research is the first port of call when it comes to creating a campaign, as well as to refine and track effectiveness.

Types of market research

There are many ways to conduct market research.

Formative research before developing a new campaign usually involves quantitative and qualitative research methods to provide us with information to plan our communication strategies. These include literature reviews, national surveys, focus groups, in-depth interviews and deep dives.

Another type of research involves co-creation, where we involve real people in developing ideas and concepts that meet their communication needs. These include using social media, online communities, workshops and discussion groups. We also have our own online community panels that we can access to get real peoples input into developing campaigns.

We also use digital and social analysis, such as online ethnographic analysis of conversations posted on message boards, comments sites and social networks to help us understand how our audience feel about a particular health topic.  

We work closely with a range of market research agencies, who provide us with advice on the most appropriate methodology, giving us quality in-depth research that informs all our work.

Research into action

When it comes to seeing our research put into action, just turn on your TV or radio and wait for one of our ads!

The current QUIT smoking campaign was built on the insight that people who smoke underestimate their addiction and how smoking impacts their daily life. Despite knowing smoking is bad for their health, people who smoke still believe it gives them positive benefits such as helping them relax, relieve boredom and help to socialise. This insight was used to develop a campaign to highlight the control smoking has on a person’s life, empowering them to take back this control as a means of motivating them to quit smoking. Evaluation of the campaign is showing that this message is resonating with people with the number of quit sign ups increasing by 20% compared to 2022.

The recent sepsis advertising campaign was built around the insights gained from a national survey combined with qualitative and quantitative research. Sepsis is a medical emergency. Our research showed that although awareness of the word sepsis was high, especially with people who were 65 years old and above, when it came to awareness of the specific symptoms, this was much lower. People were not very confident in knowing what to do if they or someone they cared for was showing signs of sepsis.  This research identified a need for education in our advertising.  The research also showed that the symptoms of sepsis were easy to dismiss, miss or mistake for something else, which could lead to a lack of seriousness or urgency.  This allowed us to create a campaign called “Could it be sepsis?” which is based on educating the audience on the symptoms and the seriousness of the condition for all age groups.

Our research shows us that if people feel they can trust us, they are more likely to seek our help at the right time. This includes reporting symptoms, following treatment plans and attending screenings. That’s why we undertook further research into what drives trust and found there are four key trust drivers – public good, integrity, respect and competence. These drivers are key to our communications strategy. This same research also found higher trust levels among those who have accessed our information based services such as the HSE Helpline and the HSE website, which is why we put these channels front and centre in our adverts.

When we were first developing the Dementia: Understand Together campaign in 2016, formative research gave us key insights in naming the campaign and developing its objectives. Quantitative research showed that one in two Irish people know or have known someone with dementia. Despite this, only 1 in 4 people felt they had a good understanding of what dementia is and what it isn’t. Fear and misunderstanding surrounded dementia which results in loneliness, social exclusion and isolation for people living with dementia and for their families. And this can be for numerous reasons, such as the fear to talk about dementia, the worry of how to engage, changes in behaviour that may not be understood, and the loss of abilities such as driving.

The name of the campaign was born - Understand Together - reflecting exactly what we want to achieve. An Ireland that understands, embraces and includes people living with dementia, and which displays solidarity with them and their loved ones.  In January 2018, a national survey showed that within two years of launching the campaign, there was a measurable change in awareness, understanding and attitudes in the population around dementia and the stigma that exists. A third of adults believed they had a reasonable understanding of dementia, a considerable improvement on 2016 (24%). A more recent survey in 2021 showed that local initiatives are positively influencing the public’s empathy towards people with dementia which in turn impact their willingness to take meaningful actions.

We also undertake ongoing research to track how well our campaigns are resonating with our audiences. These are usually quantitative surveys and give us great feedback on the success of our campaigns and also alert us to any changes in strategy that might be needed.

When we listen, we do things better, we understand people and what they need, we find better ways to reach them, and effect real change that improves health and wellbeing.

And in case you were wondering what happened to the Aussie fella? I married him.  Turns out they were dead right to google him! If you are interested in knowing more about the market research we manage, please email us at campaign.research@hse.ie.

 *The Market Research Society UK – see mrs.org.uk/glossary