Distracted driving prevention : an analysis of recent UK campaigns

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze message features of fear appeals in current British road safety campaigns directed against mobile phone use while driving and to discuss barriers to explicit theory use in campaign message design. Design/methodology/approach: This message-centred research takes a qualitative content analytical approach to analyze nine British web-based road safety campaigns directed against mobile phone use while driving based on the extended parallel process model. Message content and message structure are analyzed. Findings: There still exists a gap between theory and road safety campaign practice. The study reveals that campaigns with fear appeals primarily use threatening messages but neglect efficacy-based contents. Severity messages emerge as the dominant content type while self-efficacy and response efficacy are hardly represented. Fear appeal content in the threat component was mainly communicated through the mention of legal, financial and physical harm, whereas efficacy messages communicated success stories and encouragement. As regards message structure, the threat component always preceded the efficacy component. Within each component, different patterns emerged. Practical implications: To enhance efficacy in campaigns directed against distracted driving and to reduce the gap between theory and practice, social marketers should include messages that empower recipients to abstain from mobile phone use while driving. Campaigns should show recommended behaviours and highlight their usefulness and effectiveness. Originality/value: This paper adds to limited research conducted on effect-independent message properties of fear appeals. It enhances understanding of fear appeal message features across the structure and content dimension. By discussing barriers to explicit theory use in social marketing practice and offering practical implications for social marketers, it contributes towards reducing the barriers to explicit theory use in campaign message design.