The Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health was hired by the Victorian Office for Children to create scripts for a radio advertising campaign targeting mothers from Arabic-speaking and Chinese backgrounds.
The campaign aimed to promote the benefits of reading to your child; changing eating habits to include more nutritious foods and drinks; and using Maternal and Child Health services.
By focus-testing draft scripts with mothers from the target groups, CEH was able to identify a number of ways to make them more relevant and appropriate.
Improvements included:
- re-writing the scripts as conversations between parents
- incorporating culturally appropriate fruits and vegetables in the scripts
- substituting ‘story-telling’ in place of reading to children, to accommodate for traditional practices and mothers with low literacy
- explaining the purpose of the Maternal and Child Health nurse
Verification with the target audience showed that the revised scripts were more culturally relevant and had a greater impact on message reception.