Celebrate Your Plate: Nutrition Education Through Social Marketing

The State Nutrition Action Committee (SNAC) was created in 2007 to bring together several health- and community-based organizations throughout the state of Ohio including SNAP-Ed, EFNEP, Department of Aging, Department of Education, Department of Health including WIC, Creating Healthy Communities and the Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Program, Department of Aging, Department of Job and Family Services, and the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. SNAC's aim is to promote shared goals and collaborate on related programming efforts. In the spring of 2016, SNAC decided to embark on a social marketing campaign together. SNAP-Ed facilitates the partnership between The Ohio State University and the program assistants (PAs), program coordinators (PCs) and FCS educators who are in 80 of Ohio's 88 counties delivering direct education and community programming. The SNAP-Ed social marketing campaign, Celebrate Your Plate (CYP), will support existing direct education programming across the state and encourage low-income audiences to increase their fruit and vegetable consumption. Social marketing is defined as "the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution, and evaluation of programs designed to influence voluntary behavior of target audiences to improve their personal welfare and that of society." (Andreasen, 1995). Work on a SNAP-Ed social marketing campaign began in early 2016 with the formation of the Social Marketing Core Team (SMCT) and the development of a campaign plan with the members of SNAC. The objectives of the SNAP-Ed social marketing campaign are as follows: 1) Plan, design, implement, and evaluate a social marketing campaign that increases fruit and vegetable consumption in low-income audiences by supporting the existing OSU Extension SNAP-Ed direct education program. 2) Create and document the processes of the social marketing campaign and its pilot and staged implementation throughout Ohio. Formative research was conducted during the summer of 2016 to inform the direction of the campaign; and a marketing agency, Fahlgren Mortine, was hired through the Ohio State University bid process to handle materials development and media purchasing. Data from formative research informed the direction of the campaign and determined the tone of the campaign, media approaches, and material design. Based on results from the pilot, a selection of marketing materials will be used in different quadrants across the state during the next two years. Fruit and vegetable consumption is the dietary guideline with the lowest achievement rate among all Ohioans. Celebrate Your Plate will facilitate additional partnerships to advance health and wellness through increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.AUTHOR AFFILIATION: Alisha Ferguson, SNAP-Ed Program Assistant, Social Marketing, [email protected] (Corresponding Author); Beth Hustead, SNAP-Ed Program Coordinator, Social Marketing; B.R. Butler, FCS Program Evaluation Director; K.L. Golis, OSU Nutrition Program Graduate Research Associate; A.C. Zubieta, SNAP-Ed Director.The State Nutrition Action Committee (SNAC) was created in 2007 to bring together several health and community-based organizations throughout the state of Ohio. SNAC's aim is to promote shared goals and collaborate on related programming efforts. For 10 years, SNAC has given committee members the opportunity to work together, connect with other public health and nutrition organizations, and create new and meaningful projects such as a social marketing campaign. Work on a SNAP-Ed social marketing campaign, Celebrate Your Plate, began in early 2016 with the formation of the Social Marketing Core Team (SMCT) and the development of a campaign plan with the members of SNAC. With fruit and vegetable consumption the dietary guideline with the lowest achievement rate among all Ohioans, it is important for Celebrate Your Plate to create more partnerships to advance health and wellness