The Scottish Government

Listen

ISBN 0 7559 1163 6 (Web only publication)

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Campaign overview

• The Scottish Executive Drugs Communications Strategy was launched in March 2002 under the theme of ' Know the Score'. This research follows the third phase of this campaign and its aim was to track awareness and attitudes about drugs misuse amongst the general population, and also specifically amongst adults aged 16-25.
• This wave of research was conducted in two parts: a survey of adults over the age of 16 was conducted from 4th -12th March 2004 to track attitudes among adults; and an ad hoc survey of young people was conducted from 27th February - 6th March to examine attitudes more closely among the target audience.
• Two previous waves of research were conducted in March 2002 (Wave 1) and March 2003 (Wave 2).

Highlights

• Recall of the Know the Score slogan at a prompted level was 60%. In the key target age group of 16-25 year olds, this was 89%.
• Almost universally, there is agreement that drugs are a serious problem in Scotland (96%) and indeed, 69% agree that they are a very serious problem. Among the general population, most attitudes towards drugs remain as firmly held as in Wave 2.
• Agreement with the statement the government in Scotland is not doing enough to discourage the use of illegal drugs increased from 59% to 70% between Wave 2 and Wave 3 and indeed, those agreeing strongly with this statement increased from 29% to 45%. Agreement with the statement the government in Scotland is doing a lot to discourage the use of illegal drugs has decreased, from 53% to 41%.
• Respondents continue to agree that campaigns which highlight the problems of taking drugs are worthwhile (85%). 82% of young people agreed that campaigns that highlight the dangers of taking drugs are worthwhile. This indicates that there is not only awareness of how the problem is being tackled, but that there is also an endorsement of the use of campaigns.
• Respondents were asked whether they had seen or heard any advertising or publicity on the subject of drugs misuse recently. The level of awareness at Wave 3 was higher than the levels recorded at the previous two waves (67% in this wave, 60% and 58% in Wave 1 and Wave 2 respectively).
• Nine out of ten respondents from the young people's ad hoc survey had seen at least one of the ads on TV ('Look before you leap' and 'Fast forward'). Just over half (51%) had seen both ads. 89% agreed that it (Look before you leap) is easy to understand and four in five (80%) agreed that it makes you think about the consequences of drugs, which was a campaign objective.

Implications

As a result of these findings, further research was conducted into using a drug-specific approach for the Know the Score campaign. Cocaine is the first campaign to have run executions under this new brand strategy which took place in February to April 2005. Findings show that 20% of all respondents stated that they would be less likely to take cocaine as a result of seeing the advertising campaign and there was a 28% increase, following the campaign, in the number of people who agreed with the statement All you have to do is take cocaine once to be at risk. Know the Score will continue drug-specific strategies in 2005 with the next campaign, tentatively planned for early Autumn.