ATTITUDES AND AWARENESS AMONG TARGET AUDIENCES
One major objective of the Storm Water campaign is to maintain and/or increase public concern about storm water pollution issues.
- This concern must compete with other daily concerns of County residents including traffic, employment, race relations, crime, public education, smog and, most recently, California’s energy crisis.
Concern about water pollution and litter is high among Neat Neighbors and moderate among Fix It Foul-Ups and Rubbish Rebels.
- Levels of concern are directionally, but not statistically significantly, higher among these target groups.
- In aggregate, there is more concern now among County residents than there was five years ago.
Increasing knowledge about causes of storm water pollution is also an objective of the campaign.
- Knowledge about causes of storm water pollution is highest among Neat Neighbors and Fix It Foul-Ups and lower among Rubbish Rebels.
- These levels are relatively unchanged since 1997 despite an overall increase in knowledge related to causes of storm water pollution county-wide.
- Neat Neighbors as a group are now less sure than in 1997 that they really understand all of the causes of runoff pollution. This indicates that the public education campaign has been successful in causing them to question their knowledge and needs to continue to focus on providing residents with solutions, while simultaneously enlightening them about the problems.
- It may also indicate that their receptiveness to new and more accurate information is increasing, which is a positive development for educating this segment.
Consistent with the trends in the total population, recall of messages in the media related to pollution of oceans, rivers and lakes is lower among all target segments this year than it was in the baseline period.
- Similar to the trend for the general public, all three targets are seeing less about storm water pollution on television and in the newspaper than they did a few years ago.
- This drop in awareness of messages is likely due to an increased media focus in 2001 on the California energy crisis and less focus on weather-related stories such as El Niño and La Niña.
- Because advertising funds focused predominantly on radio, funds were not available for a strong “reminder” visual medium such as billboards, which might make it easier for residents to recall the advertising.