Italians and sunglasses
The Istituto Piepoli has carried out a survey on behalf of the Commissione Difesa Vista. The Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (Cati) system was used on a representative sample of the population consisting of 1000 Italians from 18 years of age upward and divided by large geographical areas and town sizes. The interviews took place between May 7 and 14, 2004.
On the one hand, only slightly less than 40% of Italians have bought a pair of sunglasses in the last two years, while around 24% are considering buying a pair of sunglasses within the next twelve months: it can therefore be estimated that 20% a year intend to buy and probably (by applying the appropriate scales) about half this figure actually buy them.
What is important to this large segment of the market that buys sunglasses every year? At explicit declaration level, first and foremost it is the 'quality of the glasses and lenses' that is important (94%), followed by 'the glasses capacity to protect from UV rays' (92%).
It must be pointed out, however, that amongst young people (between 18 and 34) the aesthetic factor is top of the list of reasons for choosing sunglasses.
In the same way, a good 82% stated they know that exposure to the sun is hazardous for eye health and 77% (peaking at 88% amongst young people) stated they know what UV rays are.
However, after analyzing the answers at the start of the questionnaire, this apparently high level of information seems to be debatable: when asked about the risk of exposure to the sun (an open question with spontaneous answer), generic facts such as 'damage to sight' (34%) or superficial facts such as 'weakening of sight' (16%) were given, or symptoms were indicated such as 'stinging/redness' (34%) or 'watering' (15%). Only 9% gave 'excessive exposure to UV rays' as a hazard.
At spontaneous level (the one that really counts when analyzing attitudes and opinions about such a delicate subject as eye health) the mention of UV rays as a sight hazard was completely marginal.
This seems to create a picture in which Italian buyers of sunglasses 'believe' they are sufficiently informed about the risk to eye health by exposure to the sun, and therefore the tendency is not to raise the problem, but in effect they underestimate some of these risks and, especially amongst young people, in the end they attach greater importance to the aspects of aesthetics and fashion.
It is a picture that could be more of a problem in terms of possible communication strategies than simply lack of information. Talk about UV rays and the danger to eye health is not in itself new to Italians: in one way or another they have heard about it and they believe they take it into consideration. But in effect these aspects tend to take second place and they come out very little at spontaneous level. Providing information is not enough: perhaps consumers should be warned about their tendency to be 'distracted'.
