We tested 7 UK government ads on 36 synthetic personas
Content analyzed: Seven UK public campaign ads: two Get Into Teaching recruitment ads, two DWP workplace pension ads and three Stoptober stop-smoking ads
Key Findings
- Get Into Teaching: all 12 personas preferred the ad that follows a pupil through school. It scored 62 out of 100 against 37.
- Workplace pensions: a tie at 57 each. One ad makes the better case, the other gives the clearer next step.
- Stoptober: three ads within five points of each other, and the 12 smokers on the panel split three ways on which was best.
We picked three long-running UK public campaigns and showed their ads to the people they were made for: graduates who might teach, employees with a workplace pension, and adults who smoke. Each audience was a panel of 12 synthetic personas who watched every ad in their campaign, scored it, and reacted to it second by second.
Every ad is below. Press play, then read what the panel made of it.
Get Into Teaching: twelve out of twelve picked the same ad
Get out of the everyday. Get into Teaching. (Extended Cut)
See all 12 reactions →Get Into Teaching
See all 12 reactions →Score is the mean across the 12 personas, out of 100.
Two recruitment ads for the same job, shown to the same 12 graduates. Ad 1 opens with spoken word and has a teacher moving through the school like a dance piece. Ad 2 follows a girl through her school years until, in the last seconds, she turns to the camera as the teacher.
Every persona scored Ad 2 higher. The gap is 25 points.
Ad 1 lost people early. Several personas heard the script as empty jargon and read the choreography as a profession not taking itself seriously. Ad 2 won them back with ordinary school moments: a teacher correcting a class at 0:22, and sitting with a crying pupil at 0:30.
“Jumping over benches in the courtyard while kids cheer. I'm 49, I have a bad knee, and I need to get my dad to a clinic by 4:30 PM. This manic energy is alienating.”
“This teacher's tone is spot on. She's not shouting, but she's holding a clear line and demanding better. That's how you earn their respect.”
“Showing the tears and genuine adolescent overwhelm makes this feel much more honest than a purely glossy advert. It acknowledges that building confidence is hard work.”
“Handling this level of adolescent emotional crisis sounds exhausting and completely outside my skill set. I want to build systems, not manage trauma.”
That last reaction is the catch. The scene that persuaded most of the panel is the one that put Kiran off, and his score barely moved (38 to 40). Even for the winning ad, proof and support stays at 29 out of 100. The ad tells graduates to search “Get Into Teaching” and nothing about pay, funding or workload, which is what anyone changing career asks next.
Workplace pensions: a dead heat, for different reasons
Workplace pensions. We're all in.
See all 12 reactions →Workplace Pensions - The TV Advert
See all 12 reactions →Score is the mean across the 12 personas, out of 100.
Both ads are from the Department for Work and Pensions. Ad 1 fills a factory floor with workers saying they are “in”, and makes one hard claim: your employer pays in too. Ad 2 gives each worker a miniature double who works alongside them, to show a pension quietly earning in the background.
The panel scored them 57 and 57. Seven personas preferred Ad 2 and five preferred Ad 1.
The employer contribution is the one moment in either ad that all 12 personas noticed. It is why Ad 1 makes the stronger case. Ad 2 explains the idea more memorably and is clearer about where to go next.
“This hits the nail on the head. I tell the younger girls at work this all the time—don't throw away the free money from the supermarket, no matter how tight the month is.”
“Hearing that millions are 'already benefiting' just reminds me of my overdraft. A future benefit doesn't help me balance this week's budget.”
“The explanation that it is 'like having another you' cuts through the usual financial nonsense that I tend to ignore completely.”
“The visual metaphor is cute when they toss the pans together, but I still want to know what 'your pension works' means in actual pounds. Give me a concrete example of what my employer is adding.”
Neither ad gives a reason to act today. Willingness to take the next step is 10 and 19 out of 100, the lowest willingness scores in the study. Nearly every persona asked for the same thing: one worked example, in pounds, of what comes out of their pay and what the employer adds. For personas already short at the end of the month, “millions are already benefiting” read as pressure.
Stoptober: three ads and no favourite
Stoptober 2019 - Split up with smoking
See all 12 reactions →Stoptober 2019 - Split up with smoking this October
See all 12 reactions →The motivators of Stoptober
See all 12 reactions →Score is the mean across the 12 personas, out of 100.
Three ways to ask a smoker to quit for October. Ads 1 and 2 are the “split up with smoking” campaign, where a person in a giant cigarette costume is dumped like a bad partner. Ad 3 is a longer film of people, some of them familiar faces, talking about their reasons to quit.
The scores are 59, 61 and 56. Five of the 12 personas rated Ad 3 highest, four chose Ad 1 and three chose Ad 2.
Everyone understood all three: message clarity is 90 or above. The differences are in who each ad reaches. The breakup ads land on cost and family within the first few seconds, and the costume divides the room. Terence, a 68-year-old retired seaman, was not having it: “I won’t be lectured by a mascot.” Ad 3 has the best evidence, the 28-day milestone, but opens on grandchildren and loses the younger smokers before it gets there.
“That comment about the kids hating it instantly made me think of my seven-year-old asking why I smell bad when I come in from the loading dock.”
“The wide shot of the two giant cigarettes sitting on the sofa. I actually laughed out loud. It's so absurd but completely nails the feeling of being trapped in a useless relationship.”
“Now we're talking. Quit for 28 days and you're five times more likely to stay off them. That's a proper target I can try to hit.”
“Grandchildren? I'm 23. This immediately tells me this campaign isn't meant for my life stage or reality.”
Willingness to take the next step sits between 35 and 40 for all three. Clarity is not the problem. The panel wanted help with the parts the ads skip: cravings on a night shift, what to do after a failed attempt, and support that does not involve telling everyone you know.
The pattern across all seven ads
Six of the seven ads were understood clearly. Message clarity is 85 or higher for all of them except the first teaching ad, which scored 55.
Acting on them is another matter. Willingness to take the next step never passes 56, and for the pension ads it is 10 and 19. In all three campaigns the personas asked for the same kind of thing: a concrete detail about their own situation. What the pension costs per month. What a trainee teacher is paid. What helps when a craving hits mid-shift.
How the study worked
- Three panels of 12 personas, one per campaign, each built to match the audience the campaign targets. The same 12 watched every ad in their campaign, so scores within a campaign are comparable.
- Six rubrics, 14 measures per ad: comprehension, relevance, trust, call to action, persuasion and readiness to take the next step.
- A timed reaction from every persona to every ad: attention, trust, persuasion, relevance and emotion, with comments at the moments that mattered to them.
- In total: 84 evaluations and 84 timed reactions across the 7 ads.
The interactive study has all of it: each ad with its reaction timeline synced to the video, every persona’s scores and reasoning, the full comparisons, the 36 persona profiles and the rubric definitions.
If you want a read like this on your own campaign, contact us or explore more evidence.
Disclaimer: this is independent work on publicly available ads. The departments that own the campaigns were not involved.