Financial support marketing campaign 2021-2022: evaluation report – August 2022

1. Background

One of the main challenges associated with the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic has been dealing with the financial impact that it has had on large numbers of people living in Scotland.

The Financial Support campaign was launched to address this impact on people’s financial wellbeing, through supporting, empowering and offering opportunities to people who were ‘newly’ financially vulnerable.

A campaign approach was divided into three phases: Benefit Uptake, Debt Advice and Affordable Credit. A supportive, overarching proposition titled ‘You Are Not Alone’ was developed to work across the three campaigns but within this each phase had its own strategy to address the specific barriers which were identified by the initial campaign research:

Benefit Uptake (29 November to 26 December 2021) – The Benefit Uptake phase focussed on tackling the stigma associated with claiming benefits and encouraged people to access the financial support they were entitled to. Partners for this first phase were Citizens Advice Scotland, Advice Direct Scotland and Social Security Scotland. (Note: an additional burst of digital activity ran from 7 March to 31 March.)

Debt Advice (17 January to 20 February 2022) – The Debt Advice phase encouraged people struggling with problem debt to seek assistance and address these debts before they reach crisis point. Partners for this phase were Citizens Advice Scotland, Stepchange, Christians Against Poverty and Money Advice Trust.

Affordable Credit (21 February to 20 March 2022) – Affordable Credit was the third phase and was designed to increase awareness of sources of affordable credit including Credit Unions and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). Partners included ABCUL Scotland, Scottish League of Credit Unions and Responsible Finance.

Each of these phases signposted people experiencing financial difficulties to the campaign website, moneysupport.scot where advice, support and guidance was offered alongside links to trusted partners.