Benefit of a celebrity patronage in SHARE Germany

For wave 7 of SHARE Germany, we have invited a television celebrity, Nina Ruge, to be the study´s patron and to write some special messages to the respondents. This measure is part of a larger response stimulating program implemented in the German SHARE substudy, which serves as a testbed for the other SHARE countries. The program implements motivational measures which have been proven to be most effective in stimulating response, i.e. incentives, as well as measures founded in very recent developments in survey methodology, which concentrate on specific adaptations of fieldwork procedures to respondent characteristics, i.e. tailored communication strategies and responsive design. The celebrity project is part of the development of a tailored communication strategy. The idea behind such a strategy is to use a variety of communication materials that addresses the heterogeneity of the SHARE panel members, especially its large age range. Examples are a modernized website which might especially appeal to the online generation between 50 and 65; traditional paper leaflets to better reach the older generations; a results booklet which those who are interested in science can read, and a television celebrity who might also reach those potential respondents who do not have a large personal interest in research topics. These measures might not be uniformly effective, but the assumption is that the combination of different forms of communication could stimulate response rates across different target groups, thereby in potential also reducing nonresponse bias.