Iowa Nutrition Education Network: Pick a better snack™

Iowa Nutrition Education Network Staff

The Iowa Nutrition Education Network's social marketing campaign Pick a better snack™ encourages fruit and vegetable choices for snacks. Iowa Nutrition Network partners worked together to develop Pick a better snack™ so that multiple programs could use it. Key partners include the Iowa Department of Public Health, the Iowa Department of Education-Team Nutrition, Iowa State University Extension, the 5 A Day Coalition of Iowa, Inc., the Iowa Dietetic Association, and Iowa Public Television.

The Pick a better snack™ (PABS) campaign, which was funded and developed by Team Nutrition (Iowa Department of Education) and the Iowa Nutrition Education Network (Food Stamp Nutrition Education, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)) and the Iowa Department of Public Health, was implemented in the spring of 2000. Its goals include supporting at least one of the USDA’s Team Nutrition messages, providing consistent nutrition messages that can be used by multiple programs and that are appropriate for low-income audiences, and training nutrition coalitions, schools, and partners of the Iowa Nutrition Education Network in social marketing, campaign development, and implementation strategies.

Effective social marketing must recognize and find ways to handle several challenges. Target audience – Americans are under-consuming fruits and vegetables. The targeted audience does not need to be convinced that the targeted behaviors are beneficial and worthwhile. Messages can build upon the positive associations of healthful behaviors by providing simple, specific ways to incorporate the behaviors into daily living. Benefits – Although nutrition and health educators tend to focus on the long-term benefits of healthful eating, the targeted audience needs to see an immediate benefit. Intermediary – If the behavior change is to be successful, local support must be available; either by making the brand readily available or by offering how-to information.

The Pick a better snack™ campaign originated from formative research, with the Health Belief Model as the foundation. Social marketing research and materials from other states were reviewed and three campaign themes were selected for testing. Focus groups were held in five counties. They included groups of mothers, fathers, and child-care providers to determine perceptions about motivations, benefits, barriers, and information channels. A marketing firm was charged with developing the campaign and tested proposed themes with nine focus groups. Pick a better snack™ was selected because it emphasized a simple action that will lead to increased consumption of fruit and vegetables.

The Pick a better snack™ campaign includes simple messages with colorful fruit and vegetable graphics. Campaign messages and graphics can be applied in a variety of ways and include recipe cards, posters, grocery-store signage, bookmarks, achievement certificates, brochures and billboards, as well as radio scripts. Venues for delivering campaign messages include activities by extension agencies, grocery stores, and schools as well as community and youth organizations.

Key target audiences of the campaign are low-income children, ages two to 12, and their parents and caregivers.

The coalition members in the Iowa Nutrition Education Network deliver the PABS campaign. A process evaluation was completed in December 2001 with 13 coalitions that had used PABS campaign materials. It was determined that modifications of the campaign would enhance usage. The original campaign design had assumed that the coalitions would create their own materials using the CD ROM. The evaluation indicated the users wanted more materials in a ready-to-print format. It was also determined that coalitions needed a tool to measure campaign impact. A tool was pilot tested in 2002 and implemented January 2003. A marketing company revised the campaign CD ROM and created additional media components based on process-evaluation results and retail and partner surveys. The revised campaign was distributed to community coalitions in January 2003.

Two communities were selected for implementation of intense media efforts during February - April 2003 to determine which strategies would best reach the targeted low-income audience. They were selected because of their work with low-income schools and their partnerships with grocery stores. Media buys were secured for billboards, bus signs, radio, and local shopper newspapers. Surveys were conducted in food-stamp offices in both cities to determine if the campaign was effective in reaching the targeted audience. Surveys were also conducted with customers in the front of grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods.

Results of process evaluation suggest that coalition members are satisfied with the simple, colorful, and easy-to-understand Pick a better snack™ campaign. Coalition members rely on ready-to-use materials and do not have the resources to support multi-channel social marketing interventions. State agencies cannot financially support multi-channel interventions statewide or even multi-channel interventions in selected communities. Pilot studies are helpful in determining which channels are most cost-effective in influencing target audience behavior.

Surveys to determine the impact of Pick a better snack™ indicate that low-income audiences most often recall messages on billboards, from school, on television, in grocery stores and in WIC offices. Survey participants said they were starting to eat more fruits and vegetables (25%) and were thinking about eating more fruits and vegetables (36%) because of Pick a better snack™. Surveys conducted with elementary students in local communities showed a statistically significant increase in recognition of the 5 A Day and Pick a better snack™ logos and improvement in attitudes toward fruit and vegetable snacks. Additional evaluation results are available for 2004 and 2005. Contact Doris Montgomery at the Iowa Nutrition Network, Iowa Department of Public Health, 800-532-1579.

An effective social marketing campaign must focus first, and continually, on the target customer. In the case of Pick a better snack™, the campaign serves two customers – community coalitions that deliver the campaign, and the target audience for which the behavior of increasing consumptions of fruits and vegetables is intended. State agencies and community coalitions have distinctive and important roles in the delivery and evaluation of the Pick a better snack™ marketing campaign. The state-agency role is to develop/update campaign materials, provide training and evaluation, buy media and data entry and analysis. Coalitions are to engage local radio stations, newspapers, grocery stores, schools, and community groups in campaign interventions, and send evaluation tools to the state agency. The success of the campaign and the ultimate goal of increasing fruit and vegetable consumption is a result of these collaborative efforts.