Better Health For All

Hertfordshire has led the way in improving levels of physical activity in older adults via a social marketing campaign ‘Never Too Late’ which has seen almost 4000 people sign up – 4 times our target.

The 12-week campaign with a budget of £20,000 launched in April 2018 across social media, local Daily Mile schools (with children inviting older adults to join them for their Daily Mile), and through a wide range of partner organisations.

The campaign formed part of Hertfordshire’s Year of Physical Activity. It reached three quarters of a million people and generated nearly 30,000 hits to our webpage. The evaluation found that of those who reported doing no physical activity at the start of the campaign, 93% reported doing at least 30 minutes of physical activity per week at the end of the campaign. Overall, 79% of participants reported moving from doing less than 90 minutes of physical activity to doing more than 90 minutes per week by the end of the campaign. Just over half of those completing our post-campaign survey have reported meeting or exceeding their physical activity goals.

It targeted over-55s but messaging was tailored for specific behaviours, informed by insight from local focus groups and Sport England research. Key barriers (anxiety, lacking role models, thinking they do enough exercise already) and motivations (keeping up with grandchildren, healthy mind/body, social belonging, confidence, getting more from life) were central to messaging, which also promoted easy ways to fit ten minute activities into everyday life.

In Hertfordshire 42% of 65+ year olds are inactive and 58% do not meet national recommendations for physical activity. We used evidence-based behavioural science techniques (based on the COM-B Model) to encourage behaviour change:

• Action-planning/progressive tasks: an activity planner enabled people to move from intention to action
• Behavioural practice: personalised support from trained staff offered in a way that best suited participants’ needs
• Prompts: twice-weekly text/email messages, targeted by key motivation (health, social, mobility, enjoyment)
• Incentivisation: free activity pass and entry into prize draw for all participants
• Nudge theory: sign-up to resident e-newsletter provided ongoing contact beyond campaign

We used a range of tactics and channels to target residents:

• All traffic driven to webpage, which hosted case studies, information and registration survey. Through this we captured baseline and follow-up data to evaluate success.
• Creation and sharing of a suite of insight-led online content tailored to different groups, in particular tapping into the over-55s growing love for Facebook. We reviewed and updated regularly to keep fresh and promote best-performing content.
• Blitzing local and regional media, developing stories and media packages across the county.
• Developing unique and impactful relationships with partners to maximise reach and success.
• Identifying key periods of activity (our successful media launch and the 40+ school launch events) and supplementing these with ongoing activity across our own and partners’ communications channels. We cascaded messages, using key hooks and milestones to celebrate success and sharing pictures/videos from events.

Hertfordshire County Council’s director of Public Health, Prof. Jim McManus, said: “This campaign has demonstrated effective use of behaviour science techniques to help older people get closer to the guideline of 150 minutes of physical activity per week. This is an important element of our prevention agenda”.

“As a result of this success, we’ll be running the campaign again from 5th May 2020 in the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics”.

Case study

One person who found the campaign of benefit was Jim Furman who is 69 years old and retired. “I am much more positive than I was, both mentally and physically. I always feel better after any kind of physical activity, especially when it is enjoyable, which the activities I’ve discovered through this campaign are”. He heard about the campaign through the Council’s email newsletter and was very interested in the free day trial offer. “It has made a big difference to activity levels for both my wife and I. She has signed up to be a regular member of Stevenage leisure centre as a result of the free trial and we both now play badminton there together every week. I was very impressed with the gym. I was amazed at the whole set up, the equipment and facilities – I hadn’t realised how good they were. There was one particular activity I really enjoyed – a walking machine with a TV screen – and I’d love to go back to try that again, it was fun and made me feel really positive about exercising”.

Written by Nicola Ainsworth, Specialty Registrar (ST3), Hertfordshire County Council