Intention to act on messages

Additions, clarifications, extended definition

It indicates how many people, after contact with the campaign, state that they may / plan to change their behaviour, opinion or attitude – e.g. buy a product, try a service, donate, vote, etc.

It is mostly measured through a questionnaire survey shortly after exposure or after the campaign ends.

In both psychology and marketing, behavioural intention is seen as the key intermediate link between perceiving a message and actual behaviour change.

Interpretation

A higher value suggests the campaign not only attracted attention but also motivated the audience towards a specific action. Low values may mean the message was too generic, lacked a clear appeal or call to action, that the audience did not understand what specifically to do, or that the topic and the way of addressing the target group were poorly chosen.

Watch out: limits and risks of distortion

• Declared intention does not always lead to actual behaviour.
• Respondents may answer in a socially desirable way (so-called social desirability bias).
• The metric should therefore be combined with real data on the desired behaviour and/or with qualitative insights into motives and barriers.

Where and how to measure

• Questionnaire survey among the target group (online panel, telephone or face-to-face interviewing).
• Representative market research, follow-up research after the campaign.