According to the evaluation report, New Zealand has a high (and increasing) rate of bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In 2002 the Ministry of Health reported that sexually transmitted infection (STI) figures showed many New Zealanders were not using condoms and protecting themselves against STIs when having sex. They reported further, that a disproportionately high rate of bacterial STIs occurred among people aged 25 years or younger (especially Mâori and Pacific Peoples), with approximately two-thirds of chlamydia, gonorrhoea and genital warts cases occurring in this age group. Figures also showed that young people were more likely to be diagnosed with concurrent STIs.

In support of the Government’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy (2001), the Ministry of Health funded the No Rubba, No Hubba Hubba communication campaign (summer of 2004/2005) to promote and increase safer sexual health practices. The health objective of the campaign was to reduce the incidence of STIs among this audience. The key goal for the campaign was for at least 80 percent of the priority audiences (15 to 19 year old New Zealanders - with emphasis on Mâori rangatahi and Pacific youth) to be aware of the campaign.

Three key strands of research were compiled to assess the campaign effectiveness: quantitative research with the audience, pre and post the campaig; qualitative interviews with key stakeholders; and an analysis of secondary sources (e.g. print media, internet statistics, online media). The quantitative research used an online population to source the sample. The online population has 83,000 members, including 10,000 people from the target age group. The online population was reviewed to ensure that there were significant proportions of Maori and Pacific people. Nine percent of the online population aged 15 to 19 years old are Maori and three percent are Pacific.

According to the report, there was evidence of high awareness of the advertising and increased coverage in the media. The high awareness of the campaign spans across the Pakeha, Mâori and Pacific audiences. The ‘No Rubba, No Hubba Hubba’ television advertisement had an unprompted recall of 74%. The prompted awareness of the heterosexual version was almost at absolute levels (97%), while there was a lower awareness (although still high at 84%) of the men having sex with men (MSM) version of the advertisement. Other ‘No Rubba, No Hubba Hubba’ campaign elements had varying degrees of prominence. Prompted, two-thirds (66%) of respondents had heard radio advertisements, 59 percent had seen bus shelter advertisements, over a third (39%) cinema advertising, almost a quarter (23%) had attended an event with a ‘No Rubba, No Hubba Hubba’ presence and one-fifth (19%) had seen magazine advertising. Pacific respondents had slightly lower awareness than the general sample (not significantly) of the ‘No Rubba, No Hubba Hubba’ television advertisement (68%).

The evaluation concluded that high media activity indicated that the campaign had caused a significant increase in public discussion regarding safer sex.

Knowledge of STIs post-campaign remained similar to pre-campaign, although there was an increase in the number of respondents (69%, up from 62%) who agreed that STIs are easy to catch. There was also increased prompted awareness (85%, up from 75%) of gonorrhoea. Pre and post-campaign, almost all teenagers believe condoms are a good form of protection against STIs. Some however think that other forms of contraceptives are good protection against STIs, including: diaphragms (16%), dental dam (11%), emergency contraceptive (9%), combined contraceptive (7%), vasectomy (7%), Depo Provera (6%), progesterone pill (5%), tubal ligation (3%), and IUDs (3%).

Pre and post-campaign perceptions of condoms generally did not change, with the exception that more respondents (91%, up from 81%) were likely to agree that condoms are the best form of protection against STIs. Pacific participants’ agreement increased from 75 to 90 percent, whilst Mâori participants’ agreement increased from 83 to 89 percent.

The proportion of respondents who had had sex pre-campaign (56%) and post-campaign (49%) were similar. Condoms were by far (87% pre-campaign and 91% post) the most commonly used form of protection against STIs. As would be expected, historical condom usage has not changed in such a short period of time. Almost half (49%) the respondents indicated the campaign had ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ increased their likelihood of using condoms in the future. The proportion of respondents who said they would still have sex if no condom was available decreased significantly between the pre and post campaign (36%, down from 6%). There has been a significant reduction in the proportion of Mâori respondents who said they would still have sex if no condom was available (43%, down from 59%).Forty-nine percent of Mâori respondents said that as a result of seeing the campaign they are now more likely to use condoms in the future.

As at May 5 2005 the campaign website had 42,000 unique hosts and 67,500 visits . This equates to an average usage of 1.6 visits per host . Half (50%) of the unique hosts were recorded in the first five weeks of the campaign, with a further 20 percent of unique hosts recorded late January/early February.