Launch date:
5 May 2004; 1 February 2005

Target group:
Potential mothers

Secondary target group:
General public

Aim:
To raise public awareness of the health benefits of breastfeeding, promote breastfeeding as socially acceptable and encourage wider uptake among mothers in Northern Ireland.

Background:
Breastfeeding is widely acknowledged to be the best and most healthy way to feed a baby. Despite recent increases, Northern Ireland still has the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the UK. Research commissioned by the Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland indicates that a lack of social acceptability for breastfeeding is one of the main reasons that mums here resort to bottle feeding. While over half of mums here do start off breastfeeding, very few continue past the first few weeks. When mums encounter difficulties, quite often they choose to stop breastfeeding because of a lack of support and the sense that breastfeeding is still not considered to be acceptable.

The campaign:
The campaign comprises television and radio advertising, advertising on buses, and posters. The television advertisement focuses on the health benefits of breastfeeding for mothers and babies, and by showing breastfeeding aims to normalise it.

The strapline for the television advertisement is:

Breastfeeding - good for baby, good for mum.

Click here to view the television advert

The radio and poster advertising focuses on convincing the general public that breastfeeding is natural and nothing to be embarrassed about, and should be encouraged because of its positive health impact, with the strapline:

Breastfeeding mums need your support – because every baby deserves the best.

Qualitative research in the form of focus groups was carried out during the development of the campaign to pre-test creative concepts and messages for the advertising.

In 2004 the television and radio advertising ran from 5 May to 31 May, while the bus advertising ran until 19 May.

In 2005 the television and radio advertising is running from 1 February to 28 February, while the bus advertising is running until 14 February.

Campaign messages:
The main messages that were communicated through the campaign were:

• breastfeeding has health benefits for babies and mums;
• for babies, breastfeeding reduces the risk of coughs and colds, stomach upsets, ear infections, childhood diabetes, asthma and eczema;
• for mums, breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast and ovarian cancer;
• breastfeeding mums need support and encouragement.
  

Media:
Link to the press release on this campaign: 2004; 2005