Keywords

Introduction

The advent of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has resulted in devastating effects on human activities and other spheres of life. High contact services are also not an exception. (Batat, 2020). While people can afford to seek alternative means of buying groceries or avoid staying in a hotel, financial services provided by banks in emerging economies is an essential service that may not easily be substituted. Even when banks are trying to introduce technologies to aid financial transactions, there is low adoption as people do not trust the technology. They prefer to physically interact (Wayne et al., 2020) and go to the banking halls for their transactions.

While people were asked to stay safe at home and restrict their physical connections, the lockdown spurred economic challenges to many of the banks’ customers in emerging economies (Mogaji, 2020). It is, therefore, not surprising to see banks make special arrangements and provide concessions to their customers to alleviate their economic challenges during the lockdown. This is carried out through their advertising campaigns that also involve health and safety via cognitive and behavioural engagement.

Studies have recognised the dearth of theoretical understanding about advertising practices from emerging markets as there is an uneven concentration of studies from developed countries (Oyedele & Minor, 2012; Zubcevic & Luxton, 2011; Abdulquadri et al., 2021) and a lack of understanding of how emerging economies are coping with the pandemic (Mogaji, 2020). In response to the demand to having a better understanding of advertising and COVID-19 in emerging economies, this study investigates the role advertising plays in helping the Nigerian society and financial service providers cope and recover during the pandemic.

Our conceptualisation and execution of the research is in Nigeria, an emerging economy, the largest economy and population in Africa (Mogaji, Balakrishnan, et al., 2021). Customers’ experiences are being affected as they get frustrated because banks’ branches are not opening, and those that are open are in major cities, with short operating hours. To further avoid this frustration, many of the Nigerian banks had to develop campaigns to create awareness and advertise different banking options for their customers.

The primary objective and key theoretical contribution of this article is to examine how advertising has helped persuade consumers to change their banking behaviour by adopting online banking and comply with desirable health behaviours such as social distancing and movement restrictions while accessing financial services. To achieve these aims, this study adopts the affect–reason–involvement (ARI) model by Buck et al. (2004), which recognises the value of emotional and rational involvement in attitude, change, and persuasion. Initial and follow-up qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted among customers and top bank managers. In addition, content analysis of selected banks’ advertisements was carried out, to understand the types of messages they were communicating. This is aimed at triangulating these findings to understand better how pro-social advertising boosts the brand and changes consumers’ behaviours and what tactics and strategies are likely to persist after COVID-19. This study presents evidence of how advertising can be used to promote socially desirable/responsible behaviours and change consumers’ behaviour while they engage with financial services providers.

The second section discusses the previous literature, highlighting the relationship between advertising and public policy. This is followed by the third section, which contains the methodology and research design. The results are presented in section “Results”. The subsequent section discusses the results and presents the theoretical and managerial implications. Section “Conclusion” concludes the study.

Literature Review

Advertising and Public Policy

A strong relationship between advertising and public policy has been established (Mogaji, 2021b). Kees and Andrews (2019) noted that this relationship presents key implications for customers and can influence business practices. Advertisement has been found to change consumer behaviour (Czarnecka & Mogaji, 2020), some of such behaviour include to drive slowly, donate to charity, or eat healthy food. Can et al. (2020) identified tourists’ behavioural responses to search advertisements, and Sama (2019) established an impact of media advertisements on consumer behaviour. Likewise, organisations have also adopted cause-related marketing advertisements to change their business’ practices (Schmuck et al., 2018; Coleman et al., 2020), and the growing drive for green marketing with advertisement playing a key role has been identified (Bailey et al., 2016; Mukonza et al., 2021).

All these highlight the role of advertisement and how it can be effectively managed to achieve an objective. Extant literature reveals that advertisement campaigns that focus on health- and safety-related issues are well-coordinated, repetitive, and often generate the desired result (Chang, 2013) because they lead to metacognitive fluency which influences customers’ attitude, behaviour, and disposition (Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009). As a result, customers often have the impression that these consistent and regular advertising campaigns are more believable, and they ultimately produce the desired effect (Dechene et al., 2010). Generally, advertising campaigns that focus on health and safety issues or concerns are usually aimed at creating or stimulating subjective feelings (Aparna et al., 2015), but these feelings do not affect every customer in the same way. This is because more often than not, health and safety advertising campaigns that involve cognition may also involve emotions (Maio & Esses, 2001), and different customers or individuals have different levels of emotions. Given the differences in the emotional levels of customers, it is, therefore, essential to focus on the emotions of these customers because it helps advertisers to be able to influence their focus on subjective feelings prior to appeal exposure (Aparna et al., 2015).

Advertising Appeal in Time of Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a different dimension, albeit unknown, to reiterate further the role of advertisement in brand communication (Mogaji & Nguyen, 2021). Many countries and organisations have had to advertise and raise awareness about the pandemic and its impact on society and individuals. Bank customers in Nigeria are confronted daily with several economic and socio-cultural challenges that have been worsened by COVID-19, and it is understandable to recognise how the banks have effectively communicated with their customers. However, like any other heavily regulated industries, such as telecommunications and healthcare, it is important to recognise the complex policies and regulations that they will have to navigate (Kees & Andrews, 2019), despite the pandemic. Mogaji et al. (2018) found that UK banks were using rational appeals and informative advertisement strategies to reach out to customers, they highlight that because of the highly involving nature of financial services, emotional appeals may not be applicable.

The suitability of an advertising appeal, however, presents a unique conundrum (Mogaji & Danbury 2017). While the banks may want to adopt a rational appeal, which fits their regulated business practices, the challenging times and impact of COVID-19 on human endeavour necessitate the need for empathy, understanding, and emotionally appealing advertising campaigns. Chang (2013) found that emotional appeals have commonly been used in charitable contexts to persuade consumers to donate or to purchase a product. Zikmund-Fisher et al. (2008) also reiterate the presence of emotional appeals in health advertising as consumers have difficulty processing information-laden rationally appealing advertisements.

The pandemic presented an opportunity for the banks to communicate and engage with the customers, importantly to make them change their behaviour such as physically coming to the bank branches or dealing with cash which exposes them to catching the virus. There has been a need for health campaigns from different governments to advice citizens about social distancing, hand washing, and even getting their immunisation (Bourassa et al., 2020; Mogaji, 2021a), and this has led to a new consumer behaviour paradigm shift (Gangadharbatla, 2021; Mehta et al., 2020), as some people choose to ignore campaigns about COVID-19 and its health implication because they felt they were not at risk and the media is creating unnecessary anxiety (Van den Broucke, 2020). Notwithstanding the consumer attitude towards advertisement in this time, it is considered important for organisations to engage and communicate with their customers (Park et al., 2021).

Theoretical Framework

This study adopts the affect–reason–involvement (ARI) model to explore the effectiveness of banks’ health, safety, and well-being campaigns among their customers during the COVID-19 lockdown. The ARI model postulates that attitude formation emerges from two qualitatively different but simultaneous mechanisms of persuasion, which are rational cognition and effect (Beck et al., 2004). Schmuck et al. (2018) adopted this model in their study on how consumers perceive advertisements and form attitudes towards misleading advertising and green washing. They recognised that features of advertising campaigns that are being communicated to customers have an impact on attitude formation, and advisedly, this attitude formation is based on the dominant influence of rational cognition, the dominant influence of effect, or the influences of both mechanisms (Schmuck et al., 2018).

Furthermore, the ARI model suggests that customers’ involvement and responses to advertising campaigns influence the depth and quality of their responses which interact with the advertising campaigns and ultimately influence the success of the advertising messages. Unlike other dual process models such as the elaboration likelihood model and the heuristic-systematic model, the ARI model distinguishes between two conceptually different types of persuasion mechanisms because it assumes that the influences of both rational and affective persuasions occur interactively and simultaneously (Sohn, 2009; Schmuck et al., 2018).

Indeed, the ARI model explores the subjective experience of emotion or affect as a type of knowledge cognition that is not subordinate or inferior to rational cognition. Therefore, if emotional persuasion is based on holistic syncretic cognition, then it implies that rational persuasion is based on linear and sequential analytic cognition (Schmuck et al., 2018). Using the ARI model, we investigate the effect of the advertising campaigns of Nigerian banks on customers’ attitude and lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we explore how the attitude towards bank brands, banking and public health are being influenced by emotional (the pandemic) and rational (highly regulated industry) appeals, which are two qualitatively different but simultaneous mechanisms of persuasion (Schmuck et al., 2018).

Methodology

An online qualitative and exploratory study was deployed by using a mixed-method approach, combining online interviews with 26 bank customers and 7 bank top executives and social media data. Two initial interviews were conducted in May 2020 during the lockdown and an additional two follow-up interviews were conducted in September 2020 during the partial lockdown. These interviews helped the researcher to gain a comprehensive understanding of advertising in time of COVID-19, an unexplored complex phenomenon (Batat, 2020). In addition, and to triangulate the findings, advertisement from four banks related to the pandemic, social distancing, and awareness and education about digital technology for banking on social media profile were extracted for analysis.

Following research protocols approved by the university research ethics review board, we followed a script of questions which included three topics, namely, banking behaviour pre and post COVID, banks’ advertising strategies and impact of advertisement on banking behaviour, and public health safety. The data recorded, including verbatim and the researcher’s comments during the initial and follow-up interview, were transcribed and analysed (Batat, 2020) by the researcher using Braun and Clarke’s guidelines (2006) through NVIVO 12, a qualitative analysis software tool. Disconfirming evidence was sought throughout the analysis process as researchers met virtually to review and combine preliminary codes and themes in an iterative process that continued until all the themes could be defined, named, and explained (Caulfield et al., 2020). Representative quotes were integrated into the result to provide evidence of the themes and framework of relationships. To guarantee the validity of our results, we asked participants, researchers, and experts in the field to review the script of questions, raw data, and findings (Batat, 2020). This also followed the idea of member check, which is considered the most critical step that can be made to bolster a qualitative study’s credibility (Farinloye et al., 2019). Table 4.1 presents a summary of the methodological approach.

Table 4.1 Summary of the methodological approach
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Results

The findings for each research question are summarised in this section and presented in Figures. The first question addresses what the banks are communicating. The second question identifies consumers’ perception and understanding of the messages. The third question presents the impact of the advertisements (Fig. 4.1).

Fig. 4.1
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Summary of results

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Banks’ Communications

Banks were reiterating the messages of the government and health officials, warning the customers to stay at home and observe social distancing. These are pro-social and public health campaigns beyond the technology and security messages that the banks are sending. These were being targeted to emotionally appeal to the customers, to make them feel responsible for their well-being and public safety. As illustrated in Fig. 4.2, the customers were reminded to use financial technology such as internet banking and mobile apps within the comfort of their homes instead of coming to the branches which are closed.

Fig. 4.2
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Advertisement by Banks reminding customers about alternative banking through mobile app and money agents

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The managers reiterated that these technologies were available before the pandemic. Yet, due to the reluctance of the customers, it has not been well accepted the way it was anticipated. Nevertheless, this pandemic has necessitated the need to advertise further, educate and keep customers aware about technologies which will not only make their transactions faster, but will also save time and, importantly, ensure public safety.

Recognising that there may be several people using these technologies for the first time and maybe vulnerable to scam and frauds, Fig. 4.3 shows advertisements from banks warning customers to be ‘scam smart’, ‘scam alert’, and be mindful of how they manage their information. This was also reiterated by customers who shared that they have been receiving different fraudulent messages from numbers that are posing to be banks. The managers noted that fraudulent people are intensifying their strategies when everyone seems vulnerable, and the advertisements from banks serve as a reminder to be always careful and mindful.

Fig. 4.3
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Advertisement by Banks reminding customers to stay alert and avoid being scammed during the pandemic

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When the lockdown was relaxed in the first week of May 2020, banks were beginning to open and offered skeletal services. There was a sight change in their communications strategy as managers reported huge crowd who came to transact business in the banking hall. Although the lockdown was just being relaxed, people were not observing social distancing, and there was a need to develop other marketing campaigns to educate customers about following the social distance safety measure and the need to be generally safe.

Ecobank had the ‘Staying safe is as simple as ABC’ campaign. They advised customers to observe social distancing, wear a mask, and use hand sanitisers while using the ATM, inside the branch, and at the counter. First Bank asked their customers to take responsibility for their safety and do the right thing, asking them not to come to the branch if there is no need and if they have to come, they should use the respected marked spaces at their branches when queuing. Stanbic IBTC said if customers need to visit branches, they must adhere to instructions while at the branch. As illustrated in Fig. 4.4, these banks had a coordinated message to reinforce social distance and ensured the public safety of their staff and customers.

Fig. 4.4
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Advertisement by Banks reminding customers about social distancing when coming to the Banking Hall

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Beyond social media, there were other campaigns on broadcast media to create awareness and educate the customers on safety measures to avoid the coronavirus. These campaigns can be considered corporate actions by the banks to check the spread of Coronavirus in Nigeria. Ecobank Nigeria had the ‘StaySafeNigeria’ campaign broadcasted on radio, and it was presented in Pidgin, Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba. These are local languages in Nigeria (apart from English, being the official language). This was to ensure the message gets to the grassroots; customers who may not be conversant with English or have access to technology are still able to get the ‘StaySafeNigeria’ campaign. Also, banks were showing forms of empathy to reinforce the idea that the pandemic is also impacting the banks as the rest of the customers. Banks are showcasing their struggle when it comes to staffing, suggesting that their staff also work remotely, using technology, and hoping the customers will use the same as well. Some banks showcased their donations and palliative measures put in place to support their customers.

Customers’ Perception

The customers acknowledge that there was an increase in the form of communications from the brand during the pandemic; they feel the banks are doing well to communicate and introduce them to the new technologies. They acknowledge advertisements on broadcast media, especially on social media and text messages from the banks. They felt they were reminded about the different technologies and, therefore, made them want to explore it.

There were consumers who felt that using the technology was a hasty decision; they acknowledge that they would not have used the technology if not for COVID-19 and the advertisements they have received, but they feel reassured that they are making a right decision. Customers, especially the underbanked who have previously had little engagement with bank technology, acknowledged that they are new to it and it feels different. They do not have an option than to use it, but they felt reassured that even if they make a mistake, the bank can sort them out.

Those who were conversant with some of these financial technologies also recognised that they had been incentivised to use the technology, which is to the advantage of the banks and for their conveniences. Considering transaction charges as a pain point in Nigeria’s financial services provision, Fig. 4.5 shows banks introducing incentives for the customers to change their banks and their banking behaviour, especially with regards to their digital channels. Six customers indicated that the incentives have made them change their bank.

Fig. 4.5
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Advertisement by Banks providing incentives for customers using their digital channels

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Advertisement Impact

Change in banking behaviour was the significant impact of the banks’ advertisements during the lockdown. Participants that were interviewed during the first stage reported during the second stage how they have adopted the technology, albeit without no option or alternative. They acknowledge it was a difficult shift, but the bank’s communication strategy kept them in the loop, reassuring and educating them. The bank managers recognised an increase in the number of people using technology such as the mobile app, internet banking, and ATM. They observed that there is reduction in the number of people coming to the banks to make transactions and engage with customer services. Customers now feel they can stay at home and carry out their transaction without being physically present in the banks. These advertisements have also contributed to the changing behaviour of Nigerian banks’ customers who would have had to go to the bank to carry out transactions.

For those who have decided to come to the banking hall, the bank’s campaign has reminded them to make conscious effort to protect themselves and others when in public places. Also, with fewer queues at the bank, it has become easier for the bank to manage the number of people in the banking hall and easier to maintain and enforce social distancing. Though the managers acknowledge that in some big branches in the cities, it is still necessary to remind people and enforce social distancing. The managers acknowledge that there is a recognisable change in behaviour of customers.

The positive attitude to the banks is also recognised as evident by the comments of the participants and those who have opened an account because of how the bank has communicated their products and services during the lockdown. Customers recognised the human nature of these bank brands and easily formed a positive attitude.

Discussion

This research note explored the role of advertisements in changing the banking behaviours of customers in Nigeria, one of the largest emerging economies in the world. Before the pandemic, consumers filled the banking halls trying to make financial transactions, and banks built more branches to meet the growing need as customers were reluctant to adopt technologies. The pandemic has, however, brought a change which has necessitated the need to explore alternatives when assessing financial services. The Nigerian banks have yet developed different integrated campaigns to address the needs of the customer, create awareness about different technologies which will dissuade them from leaving the house and changing their social behaviour with regards to social distancing in the banking hall and protecting themselves using a face mask.

Evidence from the customers and bank managers that were interviewed suggested that customers are aware of the advertisements on different media and are gradually changing their behaviours to reflect banking services in the new normal. Figure 4.6 presents a conceptual framework of Advertising and COVID-19 in the banking industry. It recognises banks’ effort in communicating key messages around technology, safety, and social distancing to the consumers through different media. There was increased communication reaching the customers as banks tried to engage and reiterate their diverse messages continually.

Fig. 4.6
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Conceptual framework of advertising and COVID-19 in the banking industry

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Notably, the figure illustrates how advertising messages changed during the pandemic and the impact it had on the consumers’ behaviour. The partial relaxation of the lockdown, which made people want to continue their old banking behaviour necessitated the need for the banks to update their campaign strategies. The evidence suggests that consumers changed their banks (to more technological driven banks), their banking behaviour (more online transaction and less visits to the bank), and their public health safety (avoiding large gatherings and ensuring social distancing). There are key features that have made these advertisements effective, especially when explored in the context of an emerging economy with diverse customer base with different languages, levels of literacy, and financial inclusion.

First, the advertisements tapped into peoples’ struggles. The banks know about this inherent behaviour within their customer group, the need for them to always come to the bank because they do not trust the technology or the unreliability of the technology. Though the banks have continually been raising awareness about technology to enhance financial services, the pandemic provides an opportunity for customers and banks to reflect on the banking process and enforces a behavioural change. Banks recognised how their customers may be affected due to the lockdown and had to intensify their campaign to communicate alternative means of banking. This is more like speaking to the customers at the right time with the right message. The customers are stranded, and they need alternative ways to access their money.

Also, the banks used different tones in the campaigns to appeal to a diverse audience. Nigeria is a country with over 500 languages, even though English is the official language, there are different campaign adverts using different languages. There were advertisements in pidgin, a derivative of English language, and also, there were many advertisements in many local languages to appeal to the diverse customer base, especially many of the unbanked and underbanked customers who may not be conversant with technology and not understand English. Effectively communicating with them through the medium and language they understood made the campaigns very effective.

In addition, the banks got many celebrities and influencers to endorse and amplify their messages. This builds on the idea of using a language that people can understand. These individuals were able to reinforce the messages from the brand, reaching out to their followership and communicate the message. To further amplify the messages, there were different hashtags from different banks. Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) was using #SimpleBanking, First Bank had #EasyBanking and #EnablingYou, while IBTC Standard Chartered had #BankFromHome. This strategy can also build on the notion of social media for marketing communications and engaging with the stakeholders (Gökerik et al., 2018; Gbadegeshin et al., 2021)

Furthermore, this was a general campaign by all the banks to raise awareness about technology and advice people to stay at home. Unlike previous campaigns that were being developed by different banks at different times, the pandemic necessitated all the banks to communicate the same message at the same time. It became a coordinated campaign to make people safe, use technology for their financial transactions, and for customers to avoid large crowds in the banking halls. This synchronised campaign across the industry, due to the pandemic, made the advertisement very effective. Customers are receiving the same advertisements from different banks at the same time.

Lastly, there was a form of rational and emotional appeals integrated into the advertisements. While the banks were raising awareness about their technology and advising customers to be alert about scams, they were also appealing to the customers’ emotions. They were sharing their struggles, their staff working from home, the donations they have made and measures they have put in place to support their customers. This aligns with the ARI model (Buck et al., 2004), which recognises how attitudes can be changed through cognitive processing and depth and quality of processing information by the banks. The customers had the cognitive ability to reason with the advertisements meeting their needs while still emotionally attached, and likewise, the banks were not only selling their technology but also showing empathy in their communication, using a different medium to raise awareness and educate the customers.

Theoretical Contribution

This research makes several notable contributions. As Taylor (2005) and Oyedele and Minor (2012) called for future research to explore advertising issues from emerging markets and Mogaji (2020) highlighted the dearth of theoretical understanding about how developing countries are coping with the pandemic, this study provides insight into the effectiveness of advertisement during the pandemic from an emerging economy. This study recognises the inherent feature of an emerging economy and how it shapes their advertising practices (Soetan et al., 2021). The study further iterated the choice of language in the advertisement campaign, the dissemination of the advertisement on different media, especially on radio, reached those in the grassroots and addressed their needs (Soetan et al., 2021).

Findings from this study contribute to the literature on the effectiveness of advertising appeals. It provides evidence of how banks have adopted both rational appeals (security and technology) and emotional appeals (empathy, endorsement, and humour) in their advertisements. While the main aim was to educate customers about available technology, the creative choice to integrate emotional appeals in the campaign made the campaign more relatable and engaging. The customers were able to effectively perceive and process different types of advertising from the campaign and change their bank and banking behaviours. This finding further extends the ARI model (Buck et al., 2004) beyond green marketing (Schmuck et al., 2018; Urbański, 2020) and cause marketing (Attwell & Freeman, 2015).

This study also extends prior work on pro-social marketing (Ballings et al., 2018) by showing its positive effect on changing customer attitude towards a brand and public health. These banks have invested a considerable amount of money for their pro-social advertising to raise awareness about the pandemic, and there is evidence to suggest that there is a boost to their brand perception. Consumers indicated that the empathy shown by the banks and a physical demonstration through palliatives and incentives as part of their integrated pro-social campaign made them have a positive attitude towards the brand. In addition, there are evidence of corporate social responsibility on the part of the banks (Mogaji, Hinson, et al., 2021); even though they were creating adverts to change banking behaviours, these campaigns also contribute to creating awareness about the public health issues raised by the pandemic (Mogaji, 2021a).

This study presents insights and contributes to the theoretical understanding of how advertising messages can change during the pandemic and what impact they have on behaviours. During the lockdown, banks were communicating messages about the use of technology and digital banking, advising customers to stay at home, to be safe, and use digital banking. However, when the lockdown was relaxed, the old behaviour post-pandemic—customers thronging into the banking hall emerged, and that made banks to change their advertising message. They were informing customers about social distancing, wearing a mask, protecting customers and staff. This change in the advertisement campaign was, therefore, able to achieve a shift in banking behaviour (online banking) and public health (social distancing)

Managerial Implications

The empirical results from this study also provide important managerial implications for advertising practitioners, bank managers, policymakers, and other stakeholders in financial services provisions, especially in emerging economies. The pandemic has provided an opportunity for all banks and other organisations to reflect on their marketing strategies and use different media to effectively engage their customers, highlighting their struggles, showing empathy, and providing solutions to their problems. As Mogaji et al. 2021 noted, Brands should not also hesitate to adjust their advertising strategies to address the audience’s behaviour.

A combination of rational and emotional appeal in the advertisement was found to be effective in reinforcing the need for a behavioural change. Consumers were provided with solutions to their problems while still pulling their heartstrings through emotional appeal. Like many other emerging economies, Nigeria is a country with over 250 cultural/ethnic groups and 500 indigenous languages (Oyedele & Minor, 2012), and it was considered effective to feature advertisements in many of these local languages. The provision of advertisements by banks to customers in a language that they are comfortable with could lead to a better understanding and improved trust in the altruistic intentions of banks towards their customers.

Beyond just communicating about change in behaviour, banks should also endeavour to communicate about their digital transformation strategies and technological measures put in place to enhance banking operations (Mogaji et al., 2021). As Abdulquadri et al. (2021) and Mogaji, Balakrishnan, et al. (2021) highlighted, chatbots are essential banking technology that should be communicated to the customers; in addition, access to mobile money, online transaction, and accessing banking services on mobile app should be communicated to customers.

Conclusion

Before the Coronavirus pandemic, Nigerian customers would often throng the banking hall for financial transactions, but with the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, many had to stay at home and had difficulties in accessing their money because they have often relied on visiting the banks to get their money (Soetan et al., 2021). To address these challenges, banks had to create advertisements that remind customers about digital banking tool, to encourage them to stay safe at home while still able to do transactions. This study analysed these advertisements, engaged with customers and bank managers to understand how advertising can be used to promote socially desirable actions such as social distancing (in the banking halls) and change in banking behaviour (to use online banking).

This study makes vital contributions to the literature on advertising, especially pro-social advertisement (Ballings et al., 2018; Schmuck et al., 2018), and financial services advertisement from emerging economies (Soetan et al., 2021; Mogaji, Adeola, et al., 2021). In addition, it provides important managerial implications for advertising practitioners and other stakeholders. This study has several limitations that suggest potential areas for further research. These evaluations were based on qualitative insights from the participants and therefore, may not be generalisable. Hence, future studies can adopt quantitative research to quantify the effectiveness better. Also, though participants were from a major city in Nigeria, the findings may not be generalised and therefore future studies can examine these behavioural changes in different cities and countries.