The impact of poster advertising in buses on young people's awareness and knowledge of a telephone counselling service.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the impact of a public poster advertising campaign for Kids Help Line, a national Australian telephone counselling service providing young people with 24-hour access to trained counsellors.

METHODS

Posters were displayed in the interior of 50% of all Brisbane City Council buses for a period of six months. 1,642 high school students were surveyed at the end of the campaign to determine their awareness and knowledge of Kids Help Line services. Awareness and knowledge of frequent bus users was compared with that of non-bus users and the linear relationship between bus usage and awareness and knowledge was investigated.

RESULTS

After controlling for age, socio-economic status and gender effects, there was evidence of a linear relationship between exposure to advertisements and expectation that Kids Help Line could assist with a larger range of problems. There was a trend towards a relationship between exposure and knowledge of Kids Help Line.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Although effect size was small, the results suggest that the advertising campaign had a modest but potentially important impact.