Analyzing Perception and Self-Concept in Family Planning Ads

Abstract:

One of the things that is still in the spotlight for the Surabaya City government is the population density. It makes city officials take strategic steps to increase public participation in family planning program. One of the programs being promoted is male family planning with vasectomy method. In order for this pro-gram to be widely known, public service ads will be made. The ads take consideration of perceptions and self-concept of the target. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative, with in-depth interviews as data collection instruments. This research informant consisted of five people who were the target of the male family planning program using vasectomy methods, namely men, Surabaya residents, aged 25-49 years old, married and already had a child of at least one person. The results show that the target have no negative per-ception towards the program and willing to participate when they feel it is necessary. They also want to be seen as responsible and useful person for their family and surroundings. Thus the ads to be made are advisable to lift it as the main message.

Keywords : Public Service Ads, Adverstising, Family Planning, Vasectomy

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Introduction

The Surabaya City Government faces one serious problem, namely controlling the population. Until the end of 2015, the East Java Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded 2,848,583 residents of the city of Surabaya (BPS Jatim, 2016). The population that is not small is still developing with a population growth rate of 0.63 (Pemerintah Kota Surabaya, 2015). This growth has become a problem because the population density in Surabaya has exceeded the limit since 2010. The ideal population of Surabaya city should be 75 people per hectare, according to the Surabaya Population and Civil Registration Service (Dispendukcapil). However, the latest data from the population census in 2010, there were 87 residents per hectare (Kristanti, 2010). Various negative impacts of population growth that exceeded the limits were identified. Residents who live in areas that are too dense must compete to meet basic needs such as clothing, food, shelter, education, and jobs to survive. The more people are unable to fulfil their needs, the greater the crime will occur (Khaqim & Andawaningtyas, 2013).

With regard to these problems, the Surabaya City Government through the Surabaya City Population Control, Women's Empowerment and Child Protection (DP5A) Office has promoted the Family Planning (KB) program again. One of their programs is the vasectomy method. This male family planning program is expected to grow. So far, women dominate the use of family planning. Women are susceptible to various diseases if they take part in family planning programs such as diabetes, high blood pressure, lung disease, heart disease, systemic or pelvic infections, vaginal bleeding, and allergies. Since 2013, DP5A (formerly the Community Empowerment and Family Planning Agency/Bapemas KB) has conducted a male family planning group formation program and aims to increase vasectomy user participation. Until 2017 there were around 7 male family planning groups. This family planning group with the longest formation of data was found in Pakal Subdistrict with the name 'Siwalan Mesra' group with 150 members. The group with the highest number of participants was named 'Karangpilang Bahagia' and had 250 participants (Yudianto, 2018).

Regardless of the efforts made, the development of male contraceptives tends to stagnate. 2013 data from Bapemas KB showed a target of around 0.27% of 518,000 fertile age couples in the city of Surabaya. In 2014, the target had reached around 0.38%, and in 2015 the target achievement decreased to 0.32% (Wono & Teguh, 2016). Departing from this problem, the Surabaya city government took the initiative to find a solution. According to information from various sources in the field, the cause of the low male KB participation is that people have low knowledge and there are even many myths that are mistaken about male contraception. So far the main action to overcome this is by relying on doctors and physician assistants to follow up on male KB. Unfortunately, the number of health workers is very limited: DP5A only has 6 doctors from the Health Service and 5 doctor assistants from BKKBN who handle all KB participants every year. Because the numbers are very limited, health workers focus more on providing explanations to people who are interested in participating in male family planning rather than socializing to targets who do not understand male KB issues (Yudianto, 2018). Therefore, it is necessary to have an alternative to effective and efficient socialization to encourage the participation of male KB users in Surabaya.

The alternative solution chosen by DP5A is to create public service advertisements which are disseminated through the media such as posters, leaflets, booklets, and videos. In order for the public service advertisement to be right and effective to the target, the ad must be able to attract the attention of the audience. Attractive advertising is an ad that can answer the needs of the target audience and they can interpret the content of the ad positively. Conditions that affect a person's interpretation include their perception and self-concept (Khan, 2006). This study describes the perceptions and self-concept of target targets related to male family planning programs.

Literature review

Advertising is a promotional message that is generally paid and distributed by a source identified through a communication medium. Advertising often sells a product. However, in its development the contents of the advertisement expanded to include various things such as ideology, public appeal, health and safety issues, social activities and other non-profit matters (Hackley & Hackley, 2018). In general, advertisements that aim to convey non-profit messages are called public service advertisements. Public service advertising is a very important approach to promoting health issues. Various changes in people's behavior after being exposed to health service advertisements have been observed. These advertisements are like prevention of melanoma, prevention of uterine cancer, the urge to do more physical activity and the call to stop smoking. These observations show positive results: public service advertisements can increase awareness and change people's behavior effectively (Hu, et.al, 2017).

In order for the content of the ad message to be well received, the content of the message must have an appeal and pay attention to the attitudes and behavior of the target audience (in this case it can also be said as a consumer of advertising). In terms of attractiveness, there are three attractions that can be developed for advertising messages (Harjanto, 2009):

• Factual appeal. This attraction emphasizes the benefits of the product in accordance with the interests and desires of consumers. Pesanyang must highlight rational or factual benefits for consumers such as product basic ingredients, product performance, quality, formula, low prices, and others.
• Emotional attractiveness. This attraction focuses on the emotions of the target audience. Emotions here relate to one's self-concept about feelings of love, pride, feelings of pleasure, fear, hate, shame, guilt, and so on. The trick is to motivate them to act. The messages conveyed usually touch feelings, attract attention, and create feelings that need, want, or like what is advertised.
• Moral attractiveness. This attraction is closely related to the conscience of the target audience, and relates to perceptions of the right things, virtues, or things that should be done. This type of attraction is often used to arouse awareness and conduct activities that benefit the social environment and others.

Self-concept can be described as a situation where a person sees himself and his behavior in everyday life. Self-concept is about how a person sees himself and how they think about him. There are six human self-concepts that can be described as follows (Khan, 2006):

• Actual self: how a person sees his true self
• Ideal self: how someone wants to see themselves
• Social self: how someone thinks about what others see about him
• Ideal social self: how someone wants to be seen by others
• Expected self: a self-image that is in the midst of actual self and ideal self
• Situational self: A personal picture of a person when in a specific situation

Ad adjustment to the self-concept of the target group is one way to attract attention. If the ad is too deviated from the target's self-concept, the target group will lose interest in the ad. According to them the advertisement was not intended for them.

Perception is the most important psychological factor in influencing human behavior. Perception of stimuli and situations plays a large role in human behavior. Perception is an important activity that can make individuals feel connected with a group, situation, and various messages and invitations. A study conducted in Ngudilor Hamlet, Bandung Village, Gedeg Subdistrict, Mojokerto District showed a relationship between perception and interest in doing a vasectomy. The results of this study stated that the negative perception of the target group caused their low interest in doing a vasectomy. This study took a sample of 62 respondents: 40 respondents had a negative perception of vasectomy, 39 people (97.5%) were not interested in participating in the male family planning program. 22 people have a positive perception, 18 people (81.8%) are interested in participating in the Male Family Planning program . It is important to know the perception of the target group of male family planning users in Surabaya so that an advertising message can be made correctly and then the ad encourages their interest in participating in the family planning program for male.

In advertising, an advertisement can be said to be successful if the advertisement succeeds through the stages in perception as follows (Khan, 2006):

• Exposure: the target is exposed by advertising, meaning that the advertisement reaches the target easily
• Attention: does not stop at advertisement delivery to the target group. The target group must be interested in the ad. This means that advertising messages have meaning for them to think and touch their hearts.
• Interpretation: after the target group has been attracted to the ad, then the ad can be interpreted correctly by the target. The correct interpretation is the interpretation that matches the purpose of making the advertisement.
• Memory: after the ad has been interpreted, the ad must be remembered by the target group. It is expected that the target group will be ready to participate because they are able to remember the information or message of the advertisement.

Research method

This research used descriptive qualitative method. This method was used to understand phenomena in a natural and profound way: researchers explored seed and probed all information to obtain specific data . Data collection methods were carried out through in-depth interview techniques for informants. The criteria of the informants were the people who were the target of the male family planning program using vasectomy methods, namely men, Surabaya residents, aged 25-49 years old, married and already had a child of at least one person. In particular, informants were taken from the area of residence in Semampir, Kenjeran, Tambaksari, Sawahan and Wonokromo sub-districts. These regions were chosen because the region is the region with the lowest male KB penetration in Surabaya. Data from this study were taken from five informants aged 28 years, 33 years, 35 years, 40 years and 48 years. They live in Tambaksari, Kenjeran, Semampir, Sawahan, and Wonokromo. They work as small traders, online transportation drivers, administrative staff, and security. They have as many children at 1-3. The informant was chosen because it was in accordance with the criteria needed in this study. Transcript results from in-depth interviews were analysed by reducing, presented and drawn conclusions .

Discussion

From the results of the interviews it was found that they generally gathered and socialized around their living area or working area. Therefore their perception is strongly influenced by the household environment and their work environment. The topics of conversation in their daily lives are work, daily living and household needs, hobbies, issues that are currently crowded and events in their environment. They use topics in conversation because the topic is interesting and can be an input to support the work, add new information, and increase familiarity. Apart from the social environment, the informants also got a lot of information from various main media social media and sites on the internet and from television. One of the information they pay attention to is audio visual advertising. Often ads appear when they are browsing on the internet or watching television. The things that make them pay attention to advertising are because they are interested in the content of the ad. If the content of the advertisement is interesting and according to their needs, they will continue to see the ad. If the ad is considered not useful, they will just skip the ad. They also claimed to still get additional information from various types of print media such as brochures, posters or leaflets. Generally they will only read news content if the design in the print media is interesting to them and information is relevant to their needs. If not, even if they get the print media, they are reluctant to read it.

Specifically for health information they generally get information through several channels such as conversations with friends, sharing experiences about health, talking with health center staff or doctors while they are on treatment, browsing internet sites, and posters installed in the surrounding environment. Health information that attracts their attention is information about prevention of disease, the level of risk of various diseases, and the benefits of various health tips. For male family planning or vasectomy, the informants claimed that they had already known about the method. However, they have not explored deeper information because they do not feel the need. The informants actually did not have a negative view of male family planning. They have only a few concerns: they do not understand the vasectomy procedure; they feel afraid of vasectomy procedures, they do not get support from their wives; their wives have joined the family planning program; they are worried about the side effects of vasectomy for the body. If their worries prove to be incorrect, they are willing to use male KB.

While in terms of self-concept, they generally see themselves as people who are good and can be accepted by the social environment. Their ideal self-image is someone who is responsible, independent, does not trouble others, and is able to make the family happy. They feel they are seen by others as a low profile, not much, simple, and consequent person. They want to be seen by others as contributive people, able to share what they have even if they are simple, able to raise children well, and able to maintain harmony in their own homes.

From the informants' perception it can be seen that there is no significant rejection of the vasectomy. But there are things that need to be a concern that their conditions of lack of information. These informations must be included in the ads that will be created. Therefore, information must be included in the advertisement regarding the benefits of vasectomy, vasectomy procedures, the level of safety of the vasectomy for male health and stamina, the safety of the vasectomy for the marital relationship, and the side effects of the vasectomy. Consideration should be given also to include information about who needs a vasectomy and why it needed to be able to encourage interest in the target using vasectomy.

Besides needing to pay attention to the information contained in the advertisement, the theme of the message that will be carried is also important. The theme of the message can pay attention to the self-concept of the informants. They want to be seen as someone who is good and can mingle with the environment as much as possible. In particular they also want to be seen as a responsible person, not troubling others, and able to contribute to the family and people around them. Therefore the right picture to be raised in the advertisement is the figure of a father, who is able to work well to make the family happy and contribute to society. Why is the father figure more appropriate than the husband's figure, because the target of the vasectomy program is a father. Therefore the father figure is much more appropriate to be used in the advertisement that will be made. The father's figure must be described as an active father and able to work diligently. This is needed because the self-image of the informants shows that the ability to work and contribute becomes an important part of their lives. This also simultaneously removes the misperception that the vasectomy will make the user weak and unable to work properly. Besides that, the father figure must also be described as someone who works for the welfare of the family and the people around him. Why is this important, because the impression of a workaholic father but is not responsible for the family or loner and is not accepted by the environment should also be avoided. This is in addition to answering the ideal picture for a father, as well as providing an impetus those vasectomy users can improve their families' welfare. Because with the ability to plan the number of family members, fathers will also be more responsible for the family's future. Besides that, a father who is not burdened with too many children can also contribute to his social environment.

Conclusions and recommendations

From this study it can be concluded that the perception of the target of male family planning programs with vasectomy methods does not tend to be negative: there is no rejection from the target group frontally. However, it is important to pay attention to various concerns that stem from misperceptions about vasectomy procedures. For self-concept, they want to be seen as someone who is responsible and able to contribute positively especially to the family and the surrounding environment. It is recommended that advertising messages can correct the perception that is still wrong about vasectomy. Information that must be entered includes the benefits of vasectomy, vasectomy procedures, the level of safety of the vasectomy for male health and stamina, the safety of the vasectomy for the marital relationship, and the side effects of the vasectomy. Meanwhile, advertising theme and design should refer to the self-concept of program target. Where the theme and design raised should refer to the figure of a father, who is able to work well to make the family happy and contribute to society.

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