The VERB™ Campaign: Applying a Branding Strategy in Public Health

Introduction 

In recent years, public health campaigns have increasingly adopted a social marketing approach,1 which uses commercial marketing techniques to influence attitudes and behaviors. The CDC applied one such technique, branding, in the VERB™ campaign.2 VERB used a social marketing approach to deliver its message through mass media, school and community promotions, and partnerships to encourage children aged 9–13 years (tweens) to be physically active every day.

Campaign planners incorporated a branding strategy3 into the overall conceptual planning and implementation of the campaign. Behavioral theories, especially the theory of planned behavior4 and social cognitive theory,5 informed the messages delivered through the VERB-branded advertising.6 Evaluation of the campaign showed that tweens who recognized the VERB brand and understood its message were more physically active than those who were unaware of VERB.7 In this article, the development of the VERB brand and the application of a branding strategy to promote physical activity to tweens are described.

What Is a Brand? 

A brand is a distinctive label, sign, or symbol that differentiates the goods and services of one seller from another.8 Branding is a process of imbuing a product with positive attributes and characteristics specifically designed to increase the appeal of that product to consumers.3 By creating a brand, a company defines how it wants consumers to think and feel when they see a brand's logo, name, or message, or when they experience the brand. A branding approach allows multiple attributes of the product or service to be associated with the overall brand, allowing advertisers to highlight different product features through diverse messaging. This offers a rich and versatile platform for developing marketing messages and strategies.

Public health officials can learn about designing an effective campaign from commercial marketers. Commercial marketers know that through building a brand relationship with consumers, they can create deep involvement and emotional connectedness to a product.9 Consumers make purchase decisions about a product on the basis of their overall affinity to a particular brand.3, 9 Brand affinity leads to product loyalty and repeated sales.

A consumer's attraction to a brand is not necessarily related to rational or functional needs. Brands can be symbolic, allowing consumers to project their self-image by association. Certain brands are associated with specific types of people or characteristics, and consumers can communicate the type of people they are—or aspire to be—by using these brands.9

Branding has a long history in commercial marketing and has recently been used by nonprofit organizations and government agencies in the development of public health campaigns.10, 11 Unlike in the commercial world, social marketers often lack a tangible product to sell to consumers. Instead, the product being sold by public health organizations is typically a health-related behavior, and for VERB this behavior was engaging in physical activity. Other national public health campaigns have also used a branding strategy. The American Legacy Foundation's truth® campaign aims to prevent young people from smoking.12 Developers of the truth® brand built a brand that teenagers—the target audience—could aspire to and that could compete directly with tobacco industry brands, which depict glamorous images of smoking. The truth® brand is associated with images of teenagers in control, rebelling against forces that would prevent them from expressing their independence from the tobacco industry.13 Another national public health campaign that used a branding strategy was the National Anti-Drug Youth Media Campaign (NAYMC). NAYMC developed two separate brands, The Anti-drug for parents and My Anti-drug for young people. Each was tailored to reach specific audiences.14, 15

Developing the VERB Brand 

The advertising agencies (Saatchi and Saatchi New York; and Frankel, an Arc Worldwide Company, Chicago) involved in creating the campaign advised that a branding strategy would be more effective than traditional health education messages that emphasize facts and figures about the benefits of physical activity.16 Health education messages would not inspire most children to be physically active because young people are generally optimistic and unconcerned about their health.17 Instead, campaign planners believed that developing a brand that would encourage an affinity with the product (physical activity) would be more motivating. The brand would create affinity by emphasizing the benefits that are important to tweens, such as a sense of belonging that comes from having fun with friends, or confidence that grows with doing a noncompetitive physical activity.

Commercial marketers conduct formative research using qualitative methods (e.g., focus groups, dyad or triad interviews) to understand the audience and discover consumer motivators for and barriers to using a particular product. Effective brand positioning helps to connect consumers emotionally to the product; therefore, commercial marketers use the insights gained in formative research to develop a brand-positioning statement that summarizes the perceptions, impressions, and feelings that consumers have about a brand or the product.18

The formative evaluation strategies used to develop the VERB brand entailed a multi-faceted and iterative process by the advertising agencies using established commercial marketing techniques to understand the target audience and develop branding concepts.19, 20, 21 In addition to the general market advertising agencies, the advertising agencies that CDC hired to target specific racial/ethnic groups also conducted formative evaluation to help inform creation of the brand. Those agencies were: PFI Marketing (African American), Garcia 360° (Hispanic), APartnership (Asian American) and G&G Advertising (American Indian). Methods included an extensive literature review, in-depth interviews with tweens, focus groups with tweens and parents of tweens, and an in-depth analysis of advertisements and brands targeted toward tweens. This process took approximately 1 year. A detailed description of the formative research methods used for developing the VERB brand is in this supplement.22

The in-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted with tweens of various ethnicities and races to identify key motivators for and barriers to engaging in physical activities. Tweens reported similar motivators and barriers regardless of their race or ethnicity.

The VERB Brand 

Various brand names and concepts were tested with tweens, and feedback from tweens led planners to select the brand—VERB™—and the tagline, It's what you do! Campaign planners saw the name VERB as symbolic of physical activity. Verb is the grammatical term for action. The VERB brand concept embraces more than 7000 verbs in the dictionary, many of which are action words that can refer to physical activity. Therefore, the word offered creative flexibility and versatility in that it was easy to ascribe to it various ways tweens could be physically active (e.g., run, jump, climb, dance, swim). In sum, any physical activity could be incorporated into the VERB brand.

An essential part of creating a new brand is defining the brand's attributes. Attributes are key features that characterize a brand in consumers' minds and contribute to their overall functional and emotional associations with the brand.3, 9 Advertisers strive to apply a brand's attributes consistently to messages and strategies so that consumers' experience with the brand is uniform. Brand attributes for VERB included inclusiveness, playfulness, having fun being active with friends, and accessibility to all children. VERB invited all children to play: younger and older tweens; boys and girls; and tweens of different races, ethnicities, sizes, skills, and physical abilities. VERB was not just for tweens who were athletes or members of organized sports teams; it was designed to empower all tweens to explore their world and find physical activities that they liked to do. VERB brand attributes were expressed in the messages describing the VERB brand of physical activity.

The VERB brand strategy was to encourage tweens to explore what they like to do, discover new ways to be physically active, and pursue a variety of physical activities including participation in both free-time play and organized sports. VERB was designed to minimize perceived barriers to physical activity and motivate tweens to seek opportunities to explore their goals and develop their skills. Furthermore, VERB was positioned as tweens' own brand, not something imposed by adults. This positioning was deemed essential by the advertising agencies if VERB was to communicate effectively with tweens and inspire them to get active.

Branding Strategy 

The first step in implementing a successful branding strategy was to create awareness of the brand among the target audience. VERB was a newly created, unknown brand prior to launch of the VERB campaign in June 2002. Moreover, the campaign faced an immediate challenge of broadening the definition of verb for tweens. The word verb is normally associated with school and grammar, yet the VERB brand was linked with being physically active, discovering new ways of being active, having fun, and doing activities with friends.

In the campaign's initial television advertisements in summer 2002, the campaign began creating awareness by piquing tweens curiosity about the VERB brand so they would want to learn more about it. The brand's launch advertisements featured animated figures of children covered in verbs being physically active while the voice-over told tweens that the verbs are in them just waiting to come out or that the world is full of verbs for them to get into. Later advertisements showed the animated verb-covered kids turning into real kids playing actively.

One crucial undertaking for the campaign was to build brand equity. Brand equity is the value that a brand name provides to a product, service, or (in the case of a public health campaign) an attitude or behavior.3, 12 From the beginning, the campaign's advertising agencies associated VERB with brands that were already highly recognized and popular with the target age group (e.g., Nickelodeon, ABC Disney, Cartoon Network). In essence, the campaign borrowed the equity of these children's media brands to spark tweens' awareness of VERB and to foster their affinity to VERB.2 As added value for purchased VERB advertisement, media partners sponsored contests and sweepstakes for tweens and produced VERB PSAs using characters and people popular with tweens (e.g., teen television stars, cartoon characters) at no expense to the campaign. These PSAs were consistent with the VERB brand, featured the campaign messages, and aired when tweens would likely be viewing. For the same reason, popular athletes and celebrities were engaged in VERB throughout the campaign. Their involvement ranged from appearing in VERB television or radio advertisements or PSAs, to being featured on the VERBnow.com Internet site for tweens, to appearing at local youth organizations. At all stages of the campaign, advertisements were designed to portray the original VERB brand attributes and preserve its brand equity.

One of the complexities of implementing a public health branding strategy is that there is no tangible product to market. Unlike commercial marketers who can allow potential customers to try their products at a specific place (e.g., retail stores), social marketers must devise innovative ways to bring their product (in this case, a change in lifestyle) into direct contact with the target audience. To address some of these concerns, VERB implemented an experiential marketing strategy23 that involved a series of outreach activities to allow tweens to experience the VERB brand of physical activity for themselves. During these outreach events, promotional materials such as tattoos, balls, bracelets, and flying discs branded with the VERB logo were distributed to tweens.

Maintaining Brand Integrity 

A brand, its attributes, and its relationship with consumers are fiercely protected in the commercial world, because they are important to the financial success of a product or service.3, 24 Communicating about VERB in a style consistent with the brand's attributes was essential for maintaining the integrity of the brand and the success of the campaign. To that end, campaign planners developed guidelines that described the VERB brand's purpose and attributes to the parties associated with the VERB campaign, including VERB advertising agencies, media partners, and other private and public partner organizations. Explicit directions were issued on appropriate uses of the VERB logo (i.e., which colors or fonts could be used, where the logo could and could not be shown) and ways to communicate about the brand to various audiences (e.g., tweens, parents, and other adults such as teachers). The guidelines made clear that VERB was about only one topic: having fun being physically active. (See The Latest Word, VERB newsletter at: www.cdc.gov/youthcampaign/newsletter/index.htm.)

The VERB campaign was careful about choosing partner organizations. Partner organizations had to possess an image that was consistent with the VERB brand (e.g., a community organization that offered a place for children to play). The campaign aligned with partners that enhanced and extended the VERB brand to tweens. During the first year, VERB was not promoted in schools because the advertising agencies were concerned that tweens might perceive school as being “not cool” and that an association with school would make the VERB brand less appealing. However, VERB was also designed as a lifestyle brand, meaning its purpose was to affect how children lived their lives (being physically active every day). Therefore, beginning in the second year, the VERB brand was promoted in schools, for example, through distribution of VERB activity promotion kits.

Appeal of the VERB Brand 

Brand awareness greatly increased during the 4 plus years of the campaign, as did the appeal of the brand to tweens. VERB brand affinity was associated with more-positive attitudes and behaviors related to physical activity among the target audience (American Evaluation Association paper presentation, 2006). The VERB Continuous Tracking Survey (CTS)22 was conducted monthly during the first 2 years of the campaign and quarterly thereafter to monitor VERB awareness and brand equity among tweens. Brand awareness reached an average of 66% in all months during the first year of the campaign and leveled off at an average of 73% in the last 2 campaign years (Table 1). Moreover, there was a steady increase in unaided awareness of VERB: By the last year of the campaign, one in four tweens spontaneously mentioned VERB when asked to name a message for kids getting active. Positive attributes were consistently associated with the brand, and tweens tended to view VERB more positively as the campaign progressed. For instance, during the first year of the campaign, an average of 53% of respondents “really agreed” that VERB is fun and 46% “really agreed” that VERB is cool. By the fourth year, the percentages had increased to 67% and 56%, respectively.

Table 1. Percent of tweens aware of VERB and percent who associate positive attributes with the brand, averaged within campaign years: 2002–2006

	Awareness of VERB brand	June 2002–May 2003 (n=2400)	June 2003–May 2004 (n=3600)	June 2004–May 2005 (n=1400)	June 2005–September 2006 (n=1800)
	Overall awareness of VERB	66	68	73	73
	Unaided awareness of VERB	12	15	21	25
	Attributes—percent who “really agree”
	VERB is fun	53	62	63	67
	VERB is “cool”	46	51	55	56
	VERB is about trying new things	64	66	68	64
	VERB is saying something important to me	49	56	59	64
	VERB makes you want to get more active	60	67	69	68

Note: Data collection for the VERB Continuous Tracking Survey (CTS) began in October 2002 and continued monthly through August 2004. Thereafter, data collection took place November 2004, April 2005, August 2005, November 2005, February 2006, May 2006, August 2006, and September 2006. CTS used a national random sample of numbers augmented by a list of households likely to contain tweens.

Discussion 

In this article, the development and application of a branding approach to a public health campaign were described. The development of the VERB brand entailed extensive formative research to understand the target audience, creating a brand identity and attributes that would appeal to the target audience, launching an unknown brand, and building and protecting the brand's value or equity with tweens.

Branding means developing a relationship between consumers and a product and, as such, involves the complexities inherent in maintaining any good relationship.25 Important relationships create connections that go beyond rational needs to emotional desires. Evidence from the CTS and the outcome evaluation indicates that VERB resonated with tweens, who are in a transitional stage in their lives as they simultaneously try to discover their own identities and be accepted by their peers. The VERB brand was positioned to appeal to tweens of all ethnicities and all skill levels and abilities by encouraging them to explore their individual interests and to play and have fun with other children. We believe the success of the VERB campaign was contingent on how well the product (physical activity) was branded and positioned in the minds of tweens.

While the VERB campaign has been successful, we are acutely aware that the cost and time required for developing and implementing an effective branding strategy may represent a considerable challenge for many public health agencies. Creating a new brand requires sufficient time to study the target audience and to conceptualize, audience test, and develop a brand identity that elicits the desired audience emotions when it is encountered. Shortcuts in the process could result in a brand that lacks the lasting attributes to underpin effective messages and intervention strategies that connect with the target audience. In addition, it takes time to generate brand awareness for a new brand and to influence the target audience. Therefore, public health managers need to make a multi-year commitment to develop a truly effective branding strategy for a public health campaign. Brand awareness and brand characteristics must be firmly positioned in the minds of the target audience to motivate attitude and behavior change. Communication strategies must also compensate for the lack of a tangible product.

Despite these challenges, the success of the VERB campaign does indicate that a commonly used commercial marketing strategy can be an effective way to address critical public health issues. As described in another paper in this supplement, VERB as a national brand was adapted by local communities to promote VERB-related activities in their community.26 Thus, co-branding could be an effective strategy for partners at the local or state level to leverage the national brand for their local efforts. The benefits associated with the national brand would be evoked and thereby facilitate the implementation of state or local program. The public health community at all levels should consider the benefits and costs associated with implementing a branding strategy for future public health campaigns.