A social marketing campaign with mixed strategies to improve physical activity and nutrition intake attitudes and behaviors

Social marketing has been increasingly employed in promoting health messages and policy interventions. Traditional social marketing campaigns often use commercial marketing strategies, but innovative strategies are needed to facilitate translating awareness and knowledge into behavior changes. Before initiating a campaign funded by CDC's Community Putting Prevention to Work, a telephone survey (N=1,495; response rate = 60%) was conducted Summer 2010 to assess adults' awareness of a major local community health initiative and local public health campaigns conducted in Douglas County, NE. Information on physical activity and nutrition intake attitudes and behaviors were also collected. The survey oversampled African Americans and Hispanics and this complex sample design were addressed by a weighted analysis. The results indicated that about 23.6% of residents reported knowing the local health initiative and less reported having seen or heard of any health campaigns. County residents generally had positive attitudes, but few people reported being physically active for at least 30 minutes daily (19%) or eating five servings of fruits and vegetables (16%) daily and more than half had no plans to change. These findings highlight the importance of challenging a complacent community's perspective and incorporating a positive call to action message in a social marketing campaign. The current campaign was designed to appeal to residents' competitive nature and focuses on the city's poor ranking in health behaviors compared to other US cities. The community-wide campaign also incorporates mixes of tradition media, social media, and gorilla marketing approaches to assist translating health messages into behavior change intentions.