A Study on the Effectiveness of Donation Campaign Broadcasting linked Data Service on Donation Intention Improvement

1-1 Research Background

Donation means giving away money or things for free to help charity or public works[1]. Korea's average living standards have steadily improved due to continuous economic development, but according to a report by the Korea Labor Institute [2], the gap between the rich and the poor has deepened, and in 2017, the top 10% of incomes exceeded half of the total income. In response to this situation, the public welfare system for the support of the poor is strengthening, but this is not enough and the culture of donation at the private level should be further promoted. Intermittent media-led fundraising activities caused by disaster are also important, but the importance of long-term public participation in donations through non-profit organizations is increasing, and the strategic donation campaigns such as TV advertising and online community use are being carried out [3].

According to a government press release[4], the size of the donation relative to GDP of Korea in 2016 was 0.77 percent, less than half of that of the United States (2.08 percent). The rate of contribution participation has also been on the decline in recent years, which is 26.7 percent in 2017, significantly lower than that of Britain (67 percent) and Canada (82 percent). However, according to the 2019 National Statistical Office (NSO) survey[5], 39.9 percent of the respondents said they intend to donate money, and 26.7 percent said they intend to donate legacy. So If the government can address factors that hinder donations, it is expected that the culture of ordinary people's participation in donations will spread.

1-2 Related Works

According to a survey of people who have no experience in donating, the reasons for not making donations are found to be 'because they have no economic leeway' (51.9 percent), 'because they are not interested' (25.2 percent), and 'because they distrust the donor organization' (14.9 percent) [5]. Of these, the problem of distrust of donor organizations is judged to be the most urgent issue to be solved, increasing by a whopping 6.0%P over two years from 8.9% in 2017 to 14.9% in 2019 (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Survey Result of Reason for Not Donating(Unit %)

Message delivery methods of donation promotion can generally be divided into 'image presentation', 'information delivery' and 'storytelling' methods. Among them, the storytelling method is more effective than image presentation or information transfer method, drawing sympathy from the message recipient. According to the studies that examined organ donation-related message effects, when compared with the effect between a storytelling-style message and an informational message that showed statistical figures related to organ donation, an effective emotional response to a storytelling-style message was high [6,7]. In addition, the intention of donation was found to be high when negative emotions such as sadness, anger, and fear from donation campaigns developed into compassion or guilt [8,9].

According to such researches, the donation campaign broadcast is an effective medium for generating strong intent to donate, considering that it is a media that can implement emotional storytelling using a comprehensive set of video, music and narration.

1-3 Research Subject

This study devised a donation campaign broadcast-linked data service aimed at improving the intent of viewers to donate. This data service provides viewers with the information that helps solve the distrust problem of donor organizations, which is an impediment to participation in donations, and the storytelling information of beneficiaries that is effective in improving the intention of donation. In addition, this data service is executed in conjunction with donation campaign broadcasting, so it has the characteristics of strengthening in a timely manner the viewer’s intention of donation invoked through campaign broadcasting.

Specifically, this study designed user scenarios and interfaces for the data service linked to donation campaign broadcasting, and developed a prototype of the data service based on DVB-MHP (Multimedia Home Platform)[10] which is an international standard for data broadcasting. The impact of this data service on the intention to donate was also analyzed by surveying the 63 college students who had no experience in donating.

In the situation where the participation rate of donation continues to decrease due to the reliability problem of donor organizations, this research is meaningful in that it suggests the possibility of activating the culture of participation in donations by combining the donation campaign broadcasting and data service to solve the issue of distrust of donor organizations.

2-1 User Scenario

When watching a broadcasting program with an interlocked data service, it is common to avoid the automatic execution of the data service and to give viewers the authority to execute the data service. In other words, at first, it only informs a viewer of the existence and execution manner of data services with minimal graphics. The graphics usually shows icons suggesting certain color buttons on the remote controller and short phrases representing the functions of the data service. Recognizing the existence of the data service, a viewer presses the color button on the remote controller only when they want to execute the linked data service.

This data service is also activated when the donation campaign is broadcast and shows on TV screen the existence and execution manner of the data service currently linked to the donation campaign broadcasting. This data service is designed to be executed by pressing the red button on the remote controller. When a viewer press the red button on the remote controller within the time the donation campaign is aired, this data service is executed providing the information on the donor organizations and stories about the recipients of the donation.

The information of the donation organization usually shows the objective information proving the major activities of the donation organization and the transparency of the accounting, and the story of the recipient of the donation shows the emotional story of the actual recipient, such as the person featured in the campaign. If the data service is not executed until the end of the donation campaign broadcast, the data service will be deactivated with the end of the donation campaign broadcast, and the graphics informing the existence of the data service will disappear.

A Viewer can use the functions of the data service with the direction buttons and the ‘OK’ button on the remote controller, and use the ‘Exit’ button to terminate the data service at any time. Once executed, the data services do not automatically terminate after the end of the donation campaign broadcast because shutting down the data services voluntarily executed by the viewer regardless of the viewer's intention is negative to the user experience of the data service.

Figure 1 shows the user scenarios for this data service. Figure 1-(a) shows when the data service is not executed until the end of the donation campaign broadcast, and Figure 1-(b) shows when the data service is executed beyond the end of the donation campaign.

Fig. 1.

User Scenario of the Data Service

2-2 User Interface

Based on the research of [11], the user interface of the data service is not more than one-third of the TV screen, and all functions of the data service are available with only left and right buttons and confirmation buttons. The data service can be terminated at any time with one operation (i.e., exiting the data service by pressing the 'Exit' button and omitting the window for confirming the viewer’s intention).

This interface design reflects the nature of the TV platform that the primary purpose of watching TV is to watch broadcasting and the remote controller is not convenient for users to manipulate data services. The details and screen composition of the additional information to be displayed in the data service are designed in consultation with the campaign advertisers.

Figure 2 shows the user interface of the data service. Figure 2-(a) shows that the data service can be executed with the red button of the remote controller during the donation campaign broadcast. Figure 2-(b) shows the initial page of the data service introducing the donor organization (UNICEF). Figure 2-(c) contains information proving the transparency of the donor organization. Finally, Figure 2-(d) tells the details of the Ottoman family's story and how donations benefit the Ottoman family, as introduced in the donation campaign. In the lower right corner of the plane, the information required to operate the data service is displayed. Viewers can switch the pages of the data service with the left and right buttons on the remote controller, and the ‘Exit’ button can shut down the data service at any time.

Fig. 2.

User Interface of the Data Service

2-3 Prototype Implementation

A prototype of this data service was developed using the 'AltiComposer' [12] to analyze the impact of this data service on viewers' intention to donate. Altycomposer is an MHP-based data service authoring tool. MHP is an international standard for data broadcasting established by Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) [13], a European standard for digital broadcasting. AltiComposer provides the functions such as WYSIWYG-style UI design, specifications of JavaScript per UI component, and easy animation effects of UI components, enabling easy creation of data services. After authoring a data service, through the automatic coding function, AltiComposer can generate the executable code of the data service that can be run in the MHP middleware.

Alticomposer designs data service UI hierarchically with concepts of ‘Scene’, ‘Plane’, ‘Shot’, and ‘Actor’. The Scene defines a unit of action for a particular purpose, such as login, and the Plane defines a unit of screen manipulation that make up the scene, such as input of the login ID. The Shot is a unit of reaction to remote controller operations, such as a focus shift for login ID input, and the Actor is a Java object that makes up the UI, such as a login button. The 'Transition' between Scenes, Plain and Shots, and the 'Animation' of the Actors are defined for each remote controller manipulation, and they are programmed using the scripting function based on JavaScript.

This data service consists of four Scenes such as ‘Service Announcement’, ‘Introduction to Donations’, ‘Transparency of Donations’, and ‘Recipient Stories’, and ten Planes including ‘Donation Logo’, ‘Donation Introduction’ and ‘Remote Control Information’, and 29 Actors including various icons, photos, and texts. There is only Transitions between Scenes and Planes in response to the viewer's remote control. Since no action like focus shift exists, no Shot is defined.

3-1 Experiment Method

In order to analyze the effect of the use of the data service on viewers' donation intention, an experiment was conducted on 63 college students who had no donation experience. Along with the donate intention, the impact on the donation attitude was also analyzed, which refers to emotional attitudes toward campaigns such as trust in donor organizations, interest in campaign activities and favorability. When the donation attitude is positive, the donation intention that indicates the actual willingness to pay the donation also improve.

Group-A (31 persons) provided a donation campaign broadcasting with the data service linked to it, and Group-B (32 persons) is required to watch a typical form of donation campaign broadcasts that are not linked to the data service. After watching the donation campaign broadcasting, a survey of the items as shown in <Table 2> was conducted to measure donation attitude and donation intention for each group. The answers to the questionnaire were composed on the Likert 5-point scale from "① Very Not" to "⑤ Very Yes" . The survey results were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statics program.

Table 2.

Survey Items for Donation Attitude and Intention

3-2 Experiment Result and Analysis

<Table 3> shows the analysis results of the t-test by questionnaire about the donation attitude. In the campaign interest category, there was no statistically significant difference in significance level (p ≤ 0.025) between Group-A (using the data service) and Group-B (not using the data service). Regarding the campaign reliability, Group-A (M = 4.91) answered that the group trusts donors statistically significantly compared to Group-B (M = 3.63). Regarding the campaign favorability, Group-A (M = 4.69) liked the campaign statistically significantly compared to Group-B (M = 3.61). The reason why the campaign favorability is high is that the recognition of the campaign activity of the donor organization is favorably recognized as the trust of the donor organization increases.

Table 3.

t-test Analysis of the Donation Attitude of Group-A and Group-B

<Table 4> shows the analysis results of the t-test by questionnaire for the donation intention. In all categories, Group-A scored significantly higher than Group-B. This can be interpreted as that the increased trust in the donor organization and the favorability of the campaign' had a positive impact on the intention of participating in the campaign and the willingness to pay donations. Note that Group-A and Group-B have a lower intention to pay donations compared to the willingness to participate in the campaign. This suggests that a variety of methods of sponsorship are needed other than the monetary payment that is economic burdensome.

Table 4.

t-test Analysis of the Donation Intention of Group-A and Group-B

Based on the results of these experiments, we can see that the data service is a suitable tool to increase the promotion effect of the donation campaign.