Final Evaluation Report

4.4 The Line

Overview

The Line is a social marketing campaign run by Our Watch aimed at encouraging healthy and respectful relationships among young people aged 12 to 20 years by challenging and changing the attitudes and behaviours that support violence against women. In September 2015, Our Watch launched the ‘You Can’t Undo Violence’ advertising campaign for The Line. The campaign primarily targets young males with the clear message that there is no excuse for violence and there are lasting consequences if you hurt someone. The Line has made extensive use of social media, posting images such as the one highlighted in 4.7.

Figure 4.7: The Line Facebook post

Source: The Line Facebook

A social media analysis conducted by KPMG demonstrated that The Line operates across four media platforms: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Google+. The membership for The Line on each platform is shown on the following page:

Our Watch operates across six platforms, including:

Figure 4.8: Our Watch Platforms

The analysis showed that The Line has high engagement on Facebook and Instagram when compared to other comparable entities such as VicHealth and Lifeline. However, The Line’s campaign on YouTube and Google+ are relatively poor at engagement and activity (Google+ account was created but inactive).

Most posts on the primary social network – Facebook – were about relationships and interpersonal skills, as demonstrated in Figure 4.9 below.

Figure 4.9: The Line Facebook post analysis

Source: KPMG social media analysis

As with the Our Watch social media pages more broadly, most of the Facebook and other social media posts for The Line use images, videos and external links to articles. The KPMG social media analysis demonstrated that the social media accounts are frequently updated and attract a high level of engagement from third party users.

The Line also uses television advertisements although to a lesser extent. The Line website offers general information to young people regarding respectful relationships as well as offering referrals for young people who feel they may “have crossed the line”, i.e. committed violence against a partner or family member, and to young people who may be victims of violence. There is also information available for teachers and parents on how to talk to young people on issues of respect, sex, consent, gender and technology safety. Through its use of social media and visual resources The Line forms one of the most important pathways for supporting and engaging with young people about respectful relationships to prevent domestic and family violence and sexual assault.

In 2013-14 to 2016-17, Our Watch was provided with $6.8 million in project funding to deliver The Line campaign and a Sexualisation of Children project.

Effectiveness - Performance indicators

KPMG’s social media analysis of The Line demonstrated a few key strengths in the campaign, including:

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  frequent submission of new content of professional quality and relevance to the campaign to social media sites;
  
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  frequent engagement with third party users on Facebook through posts that encourage interaction which increases exposure and awareness;
  
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  the use of imagery and in particular humorous images to engage social media users in a light-hearted manner that young people are likely to respond to; and
  
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  the Line further encourages engagement and discussion by responding to visitors promptly.
  

However, KPMG’s social media analysis also noted some weaknesses in The Line’s campaign. The primary issue was weak integration across assets. For example, The Line YouTube account has 31 high quality videos. However, The Line Facebook account has only posted 10 of these videos and only one with the slogan “You can’t undo violence. Know where to draw the line.” Further, The Line’s YouTube channel was the only asset that referenced any of its other social media assets providing a link to The Line’s Google+ account (which was inactive). Further, although generally less utilised social media assets The Line’s Google+ and YouTube accounts generally submit content infrequently and the contract attracts a low level of engagement from third party users.⁷⁰

KPMG’s social media analysis demonstrated a very high level of third party engagement with The Line’s social media accounts. In particular, a Buzzfeed article on the campaign raised the profile of The Line significantly. The social media analysis demonstrated very high third party engagement with Facebook posts of 6.8 per cent. The social media analysis demonstrated entirely positive third party engagement for The Line’s #Noexcuse4Violence campaign in December 2015.⁷¹ Figure 4.10 shows the three post themes which received the highest engagement rate.

Figure 4.10: Engagement rate by Facebook post type

Source: KPMG social media analysis, 2016

Relationships were the most frequently posted topic and had the highest engagement rate. The topic of respect was the only one in which the percentage level of engagement was higher than the percentage level of posts, accounting for 11.2 per cent of third party engagement and only 7 per cent of posts.⁷² This suggests that young people are particularly concerned about and interested in the issues of respect. Consent was a topic that raised significant conversation as well.

Some social media users did raise some concerns that The Line’s messaging would not always encourage behavioural change. Some perceived the “You can’t undo violence” campaign as threatening young men with shame rather than providing them with an option to seek help. Other users were concerned about the creation of a stereotype linking tattoos with domestic violence.

Effectiveness - Stakeholder views

Similar to Our Watch more broadly, stakeholder concerns with The Line focused on the accessibility of the campaign. Some felt the campaign was not reaching as many people as it should have and was not widely available. Not all stakeholders were aware of the advertisements on television and on billboards and those that had did not feel that they necessarily reached the younger target audience. Stakeholders from the smaller states of TAS and the NT noted that The Line had not been effectively advertised in their communities and that young people in particular were not receiving the message or participating in the conversation. There is potential that because the campaign is aimed at young people, and is primarily distributed through social media, that not all government and NGO stakeholders were exposed to the campaign on a regular basis.

Some stakeholders also raised similar concerns to social media users that the campaign was causing unfair stereotypes by linking tattoos and domestic violence. There were concerns raised by stakeholders that the campaign did not provide young men who may be participating in violence an option to seek help, instead it was overtly focused on shaming. Stakeholders suggested it could be more effective if there was a helpline option not just for victims but for perpetrators as well.