Good vision for life campaign influences over 2.3m appointments

By Rhiannon Riches
Communications Manager

The latest consumer survey has revealed that Optometry Australia’s flagship consumer awareness campaign, Good vision for life, has influenced more than 2.3 million Australians to make an appointment since its launch in September 2016.

The survey has highlighted that 1.3 million Australians aged 18 years and over were influenced by the campaign to make an appointment with an optometrist compared to 1.07 million in 2017.

Simultaneously the number of Australians who would now see an optometrist first for a range of eye conditions has also increased, meeting a primary goal of the campaign to influence key household decision makers.

Optometry Australia launched the Good vision for life campaign in September 2016, to ensure the community understands the value of good eye health, the need to have regular eye examinations throughout life and the role optometrists play as primary health care providers.

National Campaigns Manager Trinity Scarf said the campaign, now in its second year, is continuing to hit its mark among consumers and members alike.

‘Awareness campaigns are designed to foster understanding and create habits, so it is pleasing to see this upward trend, reflected by the results of the consumer survey,’ she said.

‘Additionally, our recent national member survey indicated that our members value the work we do in the consumer space via the Good vision for life campaign. When asked to rate the need for Optometry Australia to educate consumers about the role of optometrists and the need for regular eye examinations, 84.4 per cent of members said it was “very important”.

‘Seventy-four per cent of our members are aware of the campaign, and 70 per cent rated the campaign as either somewhat valuable or very valuable to their business.’

‘Our annual omnibus consumer survey, conducted by respected social research company i-View, is designed to reflect the broader view of Australians. The survey sample size was 1,158 people with results applicable to represent the entire population aged 18+ (19.1m).’

‘Year two of the campaign was an evolution of the awareness established in its launch year, and we worked with our media agency to carefully select progressive and innovative media channels, coupled with high-reaching traditional media, to grow our audience incrementally.

‘Free-to-air radio remained a core channel for the campaign, and spreading our message across two major networks, via our full 30 second ad as well as repeated air checks allowed us to deliver a huge increase in reach compared with the launch year.’

‘We also expanded into audio streaming via Spotify and iHeart Radio this year, to reach an additional audience, as well as to increase our consumer database via a competition in which consumers were given the chance to win Gold Class movie tickets if they signed up to the Good vision for life website.

‘In lieu of a TV-sized budget, a robust video strategy was required to continue to harness our strong video material created in the first year of the campaign. Cinema was identified as the main outlet for this strategy, due to its scale and targeted relevance to the audience.

‘Exposing parents and grandparents who visited the cinema with young children over school holidays focused on an audience who would be receptive to our particular messaging. Over two short bursts with cinema, we were able to reach over one million people with our strong video material.

‘This year we also utilised an additional new digital channel – in-home catch-up TV – capturing this growing consumer behaviour in a cost-effective way.

‘Digital activities which have been core to the campaign from the outset, such as YouTube and digital, display and social media advertising, all remained steady in year two. The ability to constantly tweak and maximise performance via these channels also saw strong year-on-year growth in reach.’

Optometry Australia is encouraged by these strong campaign results and is focused on continuing to grow awareness and change consumer behaviour in the year ahead.