St John Ambulance made a bold statement on the cover of The Age newspaper on 22 October 2013:
“87% of businesses are not FIRST AID READY. This puts your employees, customers and business at risk.”
This statement repeats some of the inaccuracies that SafetyAtWorkBlog pointed out in March 2013.
The figure of 87% sounds alarming but is to be found nowhere in the March 2013 report that is footnoted in the ad, but not referenced in the original media release. The 87% figure is a straight inversion of a 13% figure from the report and with some different terminology.
SafetyAtWorkBlog analysed this report and some of the media statements on the report’s release in March 2013 and found that
- the report’s sample seems to not represent Australian workplaces, and
- the Code that the report references is not applicable to Victoria or Western Australia as those States are not party to the Work Health and Safety laws.
The original report quoted the 13% figure from the survey results as a fact. The validity of that fact is arguable.
The campaign is a marketing campaign so it is likely to be a little loose with terminology but it also reinforces the importance of reading the footnotes and the original source documents when assessing any claim.
Marketing is a strategy. Planning a best marketing campaign starts with understanding your position in the marketplace and ends with details such as the wording of an advertisement.