Clear creative: why simple NHS ads worked wonders

Communication has never been more crucial than during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Of course, the constraints of the lockdown and the urgency of changing messaging has been felt across the advertising industry, with many brands exercising their most creative approach to find a way to talk to their audience that feels natural, authentic and compelling. KFC pulled off a fantastic creative campaign, gently making fun of customer attempts to recreate its fried chicken. British Gas brought its services to life in a compelling medley of its employees hard at work during lockdown. 

These shows of creativity are simple concepts that reflect the public mood. Sometimes, the best creative solution is not to be too extraordinary or overly sophisticated, but to send a clear and consistent message that can be understood and remembered by all viewers. For this, simplicity is key - but achieving this is harder than it sounds.

Above: KFC and British Gas created "natural, authentic and compelling" campaigns.

In March, the NHS launched a national TV campaign designed to educate the public on the measures individuals needed to take to control the virus. More than ever, the ability to effectively use and optimise TV advertising to impact mass social behaviour changes was critical. Nielsen undertook a study to investigate the effectiveness of the advertising campaign and we found that, in this case, simple messages with a strong figurehead performed the best. 

The campaign featured three creatives: Phase II-Delay [below], Phase III-Lockdown - both of which featured the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Witty - and Stay at Home. Working with Dynata, the first-party data and insight platform, in a forced exposure environment, Nielsen tested the three adverts by interviewing 1,000 British residents across all regions of the U.K. 

Above: Professor Chris Whitty fronted a series of UK government TV campaigns about the coronavirus pandemic.

Whitty is better than wit 

Memorable advertising is the key to campaign performance. Content that stands out is linked to memory retention, which helps to drive advertising effectiveness. In this case, it wasn’t clever wording that won the day. Our Nielsen TV Content Evaluation study found that the creatives for Phase II-Delay and Phase III-Lockdown were the most memorable since the videos heavily featured Professor Whitty. 

As a newly established household name, the Chief Medical Officer acted as an effective spokesman, talking calmly and directly to the audience and immediately engaging them. His well-known position as the central health care expert during this pandemic - also reinforced by the on-screen text - gave him instant authority, which helped to build trust with the audience. Nine in 10 respondents considered him to be an informative and a credible source of information, further driving engagement.

As a result of the wide and continuous news coverage of NHS staff and the challenges faced in hospitals, the memorability of this creative is not particularly strong.

The third creative, Stay at Home, which did not feature the Chief Medical Officer, was launched with a new creative style that focused on vivid imagery of the frontline battle of NHS staff against Covid-19.

Interestingly, however, as a result of the wide and continuous news coverage of NHS staff and the challenges faced in hospitals, the memorability of this creative is not particularly strong, as viewers likened the video to reports from mainstream news channels. To maximise the effectiveness of NHS Covid-19 advertising content, it needed to be overtly and visually differentiated from daily news reports. 

Above: The Stay at Home messaging, not featuring Professor Whitty, was found to be less memorable.

Audio and visual cues - not clues 

When aiming for clarity, it’s important to land every message with simplicity and sincerity. The Phase II-Delay advert marked the launch of the NHS campaign and, through the use of graphics, encouraged those with symptoms of Covid-19 to visit the NHS UK website. The use of infographics can be very effective if aligned with audio cues as it helps to improve the fluency of the creative and the overall ability to deliver key messages.

Without infographic support, clear messaging is difficult to communicate.

However, this approach needed to be consistently deployed across all messaging, as the creative also featured verbal cues without the infographic support. This instruction was not particularly memorable, indicating that without infographic support, clear messaging is difficult to communicate. It might sound obvious but it’s clear that to land these messages, visual and audio must tie in together.  

The Phase III-Lockdown creative provided audio and infographic alignment on the instruction not to visit those outside your household and, as a result, the creative was particularly strong for driving home this message with the viewer. For all creative, audio and infographic alignment is critical to ensure those in the audience engage with all key messages.