You’re Cooked serves up results
Launched in November 2022, You’re Cooked campaign aims to prevent house fires by encouraging the Disengaged audience cooking while impaired by either drugs or alcohol to ‘stay off the stove’.
The results, measured via our always-on tracker six months since the campaign’s start, have met or exceeded all objectives set. In fact, the shift in the behaviour metrics is more than 4x the target, showing a marked change in our audience’s mindset and behaviour. We’ve seen:
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an increase in agreement that cooking while drunk or high is a high/extreme fire risk among the Disengaged from 67.8% pre-campaign to 72.3% post-campaign (+5 percentage points/pp). Target was +5pp in 12 months.
- a decrease in claimed behaviour of leaving frying food unattended among the Disengaged from 51% pre-campaign to 30% post-campaign (-15pp). Target was -3pp in 12 months.
- a decrease in leaving stovetop cooking unattended among the Disengaged from 34% pre-campaign to 19% post-campaign (-21pp). Target was -5pp in 12 months.
- a drop of 7.5% in unattended cooking incidents in Jan-Feb 2023 versus the same period over the past five years.
Why is this campaign working?
The strategy is strongly grounded by audience insights – we understood there were too many barriers to get the Disengaged to install smoke alarms or create an escape plan, so we focused on prevention behaviours that required no ‘extra admin’.
The campaign idea was tested with the Disengaged - this allowed us to get the call-to-action right and understand that the recipes would be the key driver of behaviour change.
We are meeting the audience in their territory – we use their language i.e. “cooked”, we show up in the right channels and we acknowledge the use of drugs and alcohol (without judgment). While some of you may not have seen the campaign outside of Fire and Emergency, this is a deliberate part of our strategic targeting to a very specific audience, which is clearly a winning strategy in this case.
Our people - it’s important to acknowledge the mahi of all our Community Risk Management teams including Community Readiness and Recovery Advisors and Risk Reduction Advisors for helping deliver the ‘You’re Cooked’ messaging to their communities. Some of them went above and beyond, and we’ve loved receiving your feedback, such as:
'I must say that in the 17 years that I’ve been around, this 'You’re Cooked' campaign and the collateral with it, is probably, if not the best we have had for events such as these. The signage/stand/framework are perfect - looks professional and carries the right messages! It was a great couple of days, and we had hundreds if not thousands of interactions with the students' - Kevin Holmes, Community Readiness and Recovery Manager, after overseeing O-Week activations that featured You’re Cooked.
It's now an award-winning campaign
In late May, the campaign won four GOLD awards at the PRINZ Awards 2023. The PRINZ awards recognise outstanding mahi (work) by public relations and communications professionals across Aotearoa New Zealand. They celebrate the full range of communications, including media, marketing, internal communications, digital and social media. ‘You’re Cooked’ was nominated across four categories, winning Gold for Marketing Communications, Best Experiential and Activation, Best Use of Digital and Social Media, and Most Innovative Campaign. Ka rawe (awesome)!
To keep up momentum, You’re Cooked will continue for the rest of 2023, using new content to keep it fresh and engaging.
To get the You’re Cooked experience at your next event or activation, or to get more collateral, please reach out to National Community Readiness and Recovery team at CRR@fireandemergency.nz.