| | Catalyzing Community Action Within a National Campaign: VERB™ Community and National PartnershipsAbstractThe VERB™ campaign used a social marketing approach to deliver its message through the mass media, school and community promotions, and partnerships to encourage children aged 9–13 years (tweens) to be physically active every day. This paper presents the VERB campaign's community and national partnership strategy, highlights three successful partnerships, and discusses challenges associated with the efforts. The national advertising generated awareness of and affinity for the product's brand and motivated the primary audience to seek out the product. The campaign's national and community partners were engaged to facilitate a product-distribution channel. The campaign developed a three-pronged partnership strategy to integrate the promotion with the placement of the campaign's product (physical activity): (1) reframe the way physical activity is positioned and delivered; (2) connect the brand to the point-of-purchase; and (3) refer (or drive) the audience to the action outlets, opportunities, places, spaces and programs to purchase the product. The VERB campaign provided partners with marketing training and resources to assist them as they leveraged tweens' brand awareness and supported regular physical activity among tweens. The method of technical assistance and the types of marketing tools were provided in relationship to four characteristics of the partner: (1) partner's network, (2) leaders and champions in the network, (3) partner's financial resources for community campaigns; and (4) partner's understanding of the marketing mindset. Coordinated, collaborative, and strong mass-media and community-based interventions within a national social marketing campaign can sustain the immediate effects of such campaigns. Introduction  “Lasting behavior change is unlikely when the intervention in question does not address the social environment that sanctions risky behavior.”1 People are more likely to respond to messages about healthy lifestyles when their surrounding environment supports their individual motivation. Farley and Cohen2 assert that we are strongly influenced by our everyday world and that we must address the world around us if we want to be healthier. Some researchers suggest that integrating interventions to influence secondary audiences and change social environments within large-scale media campaigns can sustain the immediate effects of such campaigns.1, 3, 4, 5, 6 Other researchers say it is critical to invest in community-level physical activity services to support the intentions and attitudes that are stimulated by a mass-media campaign.7, 8, 9 The VERB™ campaign used a social marketing approach to deliver its message through the mass media, school and community promotions, and partnerships to encourage children aged 9–13 years (tweens) to be physically active every day. The social marketing framework is based on commercial marketing's 4-Ps: product, price, place, and promotion.10 The campaign's logic model suggested a robust and integrated multi-level (mass-media and community-based) and multi-audience (primary and secondary) approach to achieving and sustaining the desired behavioral outcome: a long-term increase in regular physical activity among tweens.11 VERB's mass-media advertising and promotions motivated and created a demand for physical activity among the national tween audience.12 Campaign partners were needed to supply opportunities13 for youth to be physically active on a regular basis. The campaign staff developed a strategy that catalyzed community action and influenced the social environments that can transform the effect that the VERB campaign had on tweens' awareness and attitudes toward physical activity into lasting behavior change. This article describes how VERB developed partnerships to integrate the national advertising within the community environments to sustain regular tween physical activity. It also highlights one national and two community partnerships as examples of the strategy, and, finally, discusses some of the challenges of integrating and embedding community-based marketing partnerships within a national campaign and offers suggestions based on these experiences to other social marketing interventions. Strategy The VERB campaign's national and community partners were engaged to regularly deliver to tweens the VERB brand of physical activity.14 Each brought their expertise and other assets through reciprocal relationships (based on mutual exchange) in order to sustain the positive effects of the national advertising by facilitating and supporting the availability and accessibility of regular tween physical activity. Influencing Individual- and Community-Level Factors to Sustain Behavior Community change practitioners are increasingly turning to social–ecologic interventions, which identify multi-level causes and solutions.1 The ecologic perspective emphasizes the interaction between, and the interdependence of, factors within and across all levels of a health problem. It highlights people's interactions with their physical and socio-cultural environments.15 The campaign effected many levels of influence from a social–ecologic perspective (Table 1). The intra- and interpersonal factors of the primary audience (tweens) were affected by the campaign's national advertising, while the secondary audiences (parents, youth leaders, and teachers) who could influence the community-level factors that enable and sustain behavioral outcomes were engaged through national and community partnerships. | | |  | Concept | Definition | |
|---|
| Individual | Intrapersonal level | Individual characteristics that influence behavior, such as knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and personality traits | | | Interpersonal level | Interpersonal processes and primary groups, including family, friends, and peers that provide social identity, support, and role definition | | | Community | Institutional factors | Rules, regulations, policies and informal structures, which may constrain or promote recommended behaviors | | | Community factors | Social networks and norms, or standards, which exist as formal or informal among individuals, groups and organizations | | | Public policy | Local, state and federal policies and laws that regulate or support healthy actions and practices for disease prevention, early detection, control and management | | | | |
Commercial marketing's purchase cycle (Figure 1) predicates that consumers must be aware of the product, like it, and be motivated to seek it out, all of which are factors influenced at the individual level. The product must be available and accessible for the consumer to purchase it initially, and then repeatedly. VERB's product was physical activity. The national advertising influenced individual-level factors; it generated awareness of and affinity for the product's brand and motivated the primary audience12 to seek out the VERB brand of physical activity.14 The campaign's national and community partners were engaged to influence community-level factors to facilitate a product-distribution channel. Campaign partners ensured that the product (physical activity the VERB way) was available—it could be found by tweens seeking it out—and it was accessible—it was easy for tweens to “purchase” (or perform) physical activity repeatedly and regularly. The more available and more accessible any consumer product is, the more we use it. If we can't find it, we don't use it. If it is in reach everywhere, we use more of it.2 The VERB campaign recruited as partners (Table 2) national organizations whose local affiliates provided points of purchase (action outlets, opportunities, places, spaces, and programs), as well as community coalitions and local and state health departments who had access to funding to promote healthy lifestyles among youth. The national organizations encouraged participation among their members and affiliates who regularly worked with tweens nationwide, while coalitions and public health partners addressed local issues relating to sedentary lifestyles among youth. VERB collaborated with national and community partners whose networks included park and recreation departments, organizations and agencies, businesses, coalitions, schools, state/local government, and/or other community opinion leaders. Working through established relationships within a local network opened the doors to those that influenced the accessibility and availability of the supply of physical activity opportunities. | VERB national partners | | |  National Recreation and Park Association | | | Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. | | | Girls Inc. | | | National Association for Sport and Physical Education | | | VERB community partners | | | Adair and Russell counties KY and Lake Cumberland District Health Department | | | Allegheny PA and East Allegheny Conference Health Ministry | | | Ames and Story County IA and Story County Healthy Lifestyles Task Force | | | Antelope, Boyd, Brown, Cherry, Holt, Keya Paha, Knox, Pierce, and Rock counties NE; North Central District Health Department; and NE Health and Human Services System | | | Ashland KY and Ashland Boyd County Health Department | | | Banner, Box Butte, Cheyenne, Dawes, Deuel, Garden, Kimball, Morrill, Sheridan, and Sioux counties NE; Panhandle Public Health Department; and NE Health and Human Services System | | | Blaine, Custer, Garfield, Greeley, Howard, Loup, Sherman, Valley, and Wheeler counties NE; Loup Basin Public Health Department; and NE Health and Human Services System | | | Bowling Green KY, Barren River District Health Department, and Warren County Health Department | | | DeKalb County GA, DeKalb Board of Health, and Steps to a Healthier DeKalb | | | Greeley and Evans CO, Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment, Steps to a Healthier Weld County, and Greeley–Evans School District #6 | | | Green Bay WI | | | Greenville SC | | | Houston TX, Houston Joint Commission on Children and Youth, and Houston Rockets | | | Kansas City MO and Kansas City KS | | | Knott, Lee, Leslie, Letcher, Owsley, Perry and Wolfe counties KY and KY River District Health Department | | | Lexington KY, Lexington Fayette County Health Department, and Lexington Tween Nutrition and Fitness Coalition | | | Lincoln NE, Lincoln–Lancaster County Health Department, and NE Health and Human Services System | | | Los Angeles CA and Woodcraft Rangers | | | Manchester KY and Clay County Health Department | | | McAlester OK and Inner City Productions, Inc. | | | Miami FL | | | Owensboro KY and Green River District Health Department | | | Sarasota FL, Sarasota County Health Department, and Obesity Prevention Coalition of Sarasota County | | | Sebring FL and Highlands County Health Department | | | Spokane WA | | | Toledo OH Boys & Girls Club | | | Washington DC, DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation, and Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington | | | Wheeling WV and Wheeling Youth Fitness Movement | | | Winchester KY and Clark County Health Department | | | | |
Integrating Product Promotion and Placement A three-pronged strategy was used to integrate the promotion with the placement of the campaign's product (physical activity): (1) reframe the way physical activity is positioned and delivered; (2) connect the brand to the point-of-purchase; and (3) refer (or drive) the audience to the action outlets, opportunities, places, spaces, and programs to purchase the product. Reframe the positioning of physical activity The very essence of the VERB brand of physical activity is that being active is fun and exciting for tweens14 and it is not another must do, good for you command from parents, teachers, and other adults. Campaign partners had to do their part to keep VERB motivating and fun for tweens. The campaign's experiential marketing tactics gave the primary audience (tweens) chances to experience and try the campaign's product,16 and they also gave the secondary audiences (parents, youth leaders, teachers) opportunities to experience and practice delivering physical activity the VERB way. Each time campaign partners used VERB-branded communication and marketing tools to implement short-term promotional interventions or events within their after-school programs, summer camps, or classrooms, they gained experience reframing the way they positioned the product. They shifted away from educating tweens about chronic disease prevention, making physical activity unpleasant or a chore, and they shifted toward marketing physical activity as fun, “cool,” a chance to try something new and a way to spend time with friends. Connect the brand to the point of purchase Community and national partners were engaged to facilitate the availability of and access to the campaign's product. The campaign connected its partners at the point of purchase to the VERB brand with communication and marketing tools that brought the campaign from sedentary media into partners' physical activity places and programs. Tweens liked the VERB brand that they saw on television and on the Internet,12 and branding the point of purchase borrowed on that affinity. At all places in the tween world—school, after-school activities, home, and community—VERB was there to stimulate physical activity. The campaign provided partners with marketing tools such as posters, banners, and other signs, to enable partners to brand their points of purchase, thus helping to make physical activity available anywhere in the tween world. The campaign also provided partners with a wide range of new games to play or fun physical activities to try, making physical activity accessible and easy to purchase for tweens anytime. Campaign partners ensured that sufficient points of purchase were available and accessible in their communities, and campaign messages were reinforced at the local level as more partners embraced the VERB brand and positioned physical activity in the VERB way. Refer (or drive) tweens to the point of purchase Connecting the well-known and well-liked VERB brand with the point of purchase enabled partners to direct their limited marketing resources toward driving an audience already in search of the VERB brand of physical activity to the places where they could get it. By being associated with the national campaign, the partners capitalized on VERB's popularity with tweens12—VERB branding meant it was fun and “cool”—and the partners benefited from the instant recognition and credibility among tweens12—VERB branding meant that it was going to be physically active—to draw attention and potential customers to their own physical activity services and programs. Segmenting the Partner Audience to Align Consultation and Resources As the campaign evolved, it was determined that partners needed to have more than just a mission similar to VERB's and be more than just willing and anxious to be part of the campaign. Ideal community and national partners for VERB had four characteristics: 1.an existing coalition or community network that facilitated access to the supply of physical activity opportunities in the community; 2.a champion within the network who provided leadership and ensured follow-through; 3.their own funding to support community-wide campaigns or promotional events; and 4.a firm understanding of the social marketing model, or a marketing mindset.17, 18 The campaign could help partners enhance or develop the fourth and most critical characteristic: the marketing mindset; but, communities and organizations needed the first three characteristics in place to begin a productive collaboration. The campaign provided partners with marketing training and resources to assist them as they leveraged tweens' brand awareness and supported regular physical activity among tweens. The method of technical assistance and the types of marketing tools were provided in relationship to the four characteristics of the partner (Figure 2). Basic marketing information and ready-to-use materials (turn-key kits) to implement short-term promotional interventions were provided to partners who worked with tweens in one recreation center or one classroom, had few financial and human resources for community campaigns, and/or had little experience thinking like a marketer. The campaign provided more-intensive technical assistance and offered a wider range of marketing materials to partners as they developed a better understanding of the marketing mindset; as their networks connected to more tweens in their communities; as champions emerged; and as they had more resources to deliver community-based marketing campaigns and events. Staff from the VERB partnership team and the Florida Prevention Research Center at the University of South Florida consulted with and assisted campaign partners via on- and off-site trainings, site visits, and individual consultation, as well as with written and web-based materials. VERB also provided (Figure 3) the high-quality and audience-tested marketing and communication tools that made it easier for community and national partners to execute community-based campaigns and marketing events that were consistent with VERB's brand position (on-brand) and that were innovative enough to break through the communication clutter in tweens' lives. Highlighted Examples of VERB Community and National Partnerships One national and two community partners are featured in the following examples. Lexington Tween Nutrition and Fitness Coalition (Lexington KY) The Lexington Tween Nutrition and Fitness Coalition used the community-based prevention marketing approach19 to develop and launch the first VERB Summer Scorecard community-based campaign in Lexington, Kentucky.20 The coalition successfully implemented the community-based campaign in 2004, 2005, and 2006. As the national campaign ended, 17 other communities had replicated the community-based campaign, and many of them planned to continue their efforts. A VERB Scorecard community-based campaign addresses individual- and community-level factors to sell the campaign's product. A VERB Scorecard campaign makes physical activity accessible, exciting, and rewarding for tweens (Figure 4) by giving them discounts on a variety of fun physical activities and special events, such as two-for-one skating, free swimming, tween-only dances, and free recreation center admission. Tweens track their physical activities on the VERB Scorecard, get their entries validated by a parent or adult, and then redeem their completed cards for prizes that promote physical activity, ranging from VERB water bottles and drawstring bags to sports equipment and free memberships and lessons. Community-based VERB Scorecard campaigns also increase parents' awareness of available opportunities for tweens. The VERB Scorecard serves as a simple reminder and offers plenty of free and reduced-price admissions to make it easier for parents to keep their children active. Businesses and service agencies benefit from increased traffic or participation when tweens come in to do their VERB and get their VERB Scorecards stamped. The commitment among community partners strengthens as they collaborate to make physical activity opportunities more available and accessible for their tweens. Each completed VERB Scorecard in Lexington represented 24 one-hour sessions of physical activity. By tabulating the number of VERB Scorecards redeemed and the number of hours of physical activity each completed card represented, campaign partners measured physical activity as an output of the community-based campaign. In 2004, more than 350 completed VERB Scorecards were redeemed in Lexington, with tweens logging over 8400 hours of physical activity in the 13-week community campaign.20 More than twice as many completed VERB Scorecards were redeemed during the following two campaigns: nearly 840 cards that represented almost 20,160 hours of tween physical activity in 200521; and, according to coalition members, 775 cards representing 18,600 hours in 2006. Baldwin et al.21 reported that Lexington's quantitative evaluation measures in 2005 indicated that, similar to the tweens across the nation, Lexington tweens were highly aware of the VERB brand. The community campaign achieved VERB Summer Scorecard awareness among almost half of 4th and 5th graders, and motivated nearly one third of the same children to at least partially complete a VERB Scorecard. For comparison, commercial marketing promotions that convert awareness to action (conversion rates) from 4% to 8% of the targeted audience are deemed successful.22 While further longitudinal, controlled studies are needed, Baldwin's findings may suggest an additive effect of implementing a locally tailored intervention in conjunction with the national campaign.21 They indicated that tweens who had been exposed to both the national VERB advertising and the community-based VERB Summer Scorecard reported significantly higher mean physical activity levels than those who had been exposed only to the national advertising or who reported no campaign exposure. Baldwin's findings suggest that individual-level behavior outcomes may have been stimulated by the multi-level marketing intervention.21 The Lexington Fayette County Health Department staff and Tween Nutrition and Fitness Coalition members noted several community-level outcomes that also resulted from their efforts. Although anecdotal, these community-level outcomes are reflective of how a social–ecologic approach may function. Their business partners—new partnerships for the county health department—estimated that they benefited from over 2000 visits by tween VERB Scorecard holders during the 2004 implementation according to coalition members. For their 2005 community-based campaign, the coalition negotiated with the local public transportation department—another new partnership for the health department—to accept the VERB Scorecard as bus fare. The relationship that the county health department fostered with their local media generated more news coverage and other media placements during the second year's intervention, including steeply discounted advertising space. The continuing relationship between the Lexington Fayette County Health Department and their local media was positive, and they collaborated on additional projects promoting healthy lifestyles in their community. Steps to a Healthier Weld County (Greeley CO) Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment incorporated VERB within its Steps to a HealthierUS funding from CDC. Steps to a HealthierUS is a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services initiative that helps Americans live longer, better, and healthier lives. Through the CDC, the Steps initiative funds communities to support evidence-based community interventions that reduce the burden of diabetes, obesity, and asthma, and address three related risk behaviors—physical inactivity, poor nutrition, and tobacco use. Steps to a Healthier Weld County staff aggressively promoted VERB's ready-to-use marketing materials, like VERB Anytime Doubletime (a turn-key kit encouraging tweens to make two games into one) and VERB Crossover (a turn-key kit that crosses basketball with other sports and activities),16 to their partners in the school district, the parks and recreation department, and other organizations that serve young people. The VERB Crossover turn-key kit included a contest through which Greeley–Evans School District Number 6 was recognized for having the most students in a school district participate in the program and for having two schools in the district record the most hours of physical activity among the 1000 schools across the nation that also used this turn-key kit. With these successful experiences, Steps to a Healthier Weld County staff and their partners launched Weld County's first VERB Scorecard campaign in the summer of 2006. Each completed VERB Scorecard in Weld County represented 24 one-hour sessions of physical activity. By tabulating the number of VERB Scorecards redeemed and the number of hours of physical activity each completed card represented, campaign partners measured physical activity as an output of the community-based campaign. Over 500 completed VERB Scorecards were redeemed, which represented over 12,000 hours of tween physical activity during the 2-month community campaign.23 Nearly 60% of tweens who redeemed completed VERB Scorecards were Hispanic/Latino while just over one quarter were white, results produced due to the rich collaboration the county health department established with its partners that specifically serve Hispanic/Latino community members. While anecdotal, the Steps to a Healthier Weld County staff described individual-level and community-level outcomes reflective of how a social–ecologic approach may function. The staff reports that infusing VERB marketing interventions within existing youth programs engaged many Weld County tweens in the VERB brand of physical activity. The collaboration has strengthened the county health department's relationship with the city–county parks and recreation department and other agencies that serve young people. Nearly 70 business and community partners supported the local campaign and donated over $12,000 in cash, goods, and services. The new relationships with different community organizations created opportunities for the Steps to a Healthier Weld County program to integrate the planning and delivery of related health promotion interventions across the community. As Lexington also experienced, staff perceived that the collaboration with VERB has helped elevate the county health department as the local media's go-to resource for prevention health marketing information. National Recreation and Park Association VERB and the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) conducted a successful pilot project to reach thousands of local parks and recreation departments through their national partner association. VERB supported an existing NRPA initiative promoting healthy lifestyles and building livable communities. Local and state parks and recreation departments participating in the NRPA initiative executed promotional campaigns and community festivals, among many other activities. Parks and recreation departments were engaged to deliver physical activity the VERB way through the campaign's turn-key kits (ready-to-use marketing materials) in their after-school, summer, and other tween recreation programs. Each time the VERB campaign released a new turn-key kit, the NRPA actively promoted it through its networks. As a result, local NRPA members and affiliates are the largest group of organizations that serve young people to implement these promotional programs across the nation, according to the campaign's materials-fulfillment records. As a follow-up to the ready-to-use materials, VERB provided two custom marketing resources to support the NRPA's existing initiative: the VERB National and Community Partners Media Kit (Figure 5), which aided the local promotional campaigns, and the VERB Activity Zone pack (Figure 6) for their community festivals. Over 1000 NRPA affiliates and members received the VERB National and Community Partners Media Kit. The media kit included co-branded video, print, and radio advertisements and other marketing materials that had been previously developed by the national campaign. VERB established strong brand awareness through its paid media campaigns, and the media kit shared the awareness and appeal of VERB with the campaign's NRPA partners. Parks and recreation partners distributed the co-branded media materials on their websites, in parks and recreation brochures, before family movie nights, on a telephone call-hold system, and through local radio and newspapers to bring VERB's attention and credibility among tweens to their own physical activity services, events, and programs. The VERB campaign distributed VERB Activity Zone packs to about 450 NRPA affiliates that used the materials in their community festivals to create tween-centric areas (an area that is highly appealing to tweens and intended just for them) with games and physical activities in a safe, fun, and friendly environment (Figure 7). The VERB Activity Zone pack included game equipment that could be re-used several times, activity and game ideas, small prizes for tweens, and guidebooks for department staff who regularly work with tweens. The pilot project with the NRPA achieved several key benchmarks and showed promise for expansion. The marketing materials and training created an entrée to develop a richer collaborative relationship with both the national organization and its local affiliates. VERB's Challenges Integrating Community-Based Marketing Partnerships Within a National Campaign Several challenges affected the development and maintenance of partnerships to integrate the product promotion with its placement. First, it took time—including lessons and adjustments—to establish the ideal role and characteristics of national and community partners. Then, it was difficult to identify partners with all four of the critical characteristics. Potential partners had varying networks, community support, and funding of their own as well as differences in their understanding of brand positioning and protection (avoiding the denigration of the brand or linking the brand with inappropriate messages). Ideal networks had a strong leader as a champion and they were well-connected to tweens and the community supply of the campaign's product. The campaign could not fund community events and promotions, and there was always a higher demand for materials than the campaign could provide. Establishing performance standards that defined the marketing mindset would have aided the selection of potential partners with missions related to healthy youth who were anxious to be part of the campaign, yet needed high levels of technical assistance because they were generally unfamiliar with applying commercial marketing techniques to a public health intervention. Second, connecting partners to the VERB brand was controversial among the campaign team and its advertising agencies. Wong et al.24 discusses the divergent points of view between commercial advertising and public health and the respective roles of national advertising and community-based mobilization in the campaign. A strict for-profit approach to a marketing campaign leaves little room for community participation, and an appreciation for the value of such efforts was not shared among all internal and external campaign team members. The campaign's advertising agencies were resistant to enabling multiple connections, fearing an erosion of brand affinity among the tween audience that might have resulted from poor quality, “uncool,” adult-driven, and/or off-brand (inconsistent with VERB's brand position) materials and events produced locally. It was a challenge for the campaign to balance brand protection and community participation. It was critical for the campaign to design a congruous partnership strategy in which the role of partners was to influence community-level factors to facilitate a product-distribution channel, regularly delivering to tweens the VERB brand of physical activity. In execution, community and national partners were challenged to match the sophistication of the national campaign's marketing and communication materials without a deep wealth of resources or vast commercial marketing experience. Providing partners with ready-to-use communication and marketing materials and access to campaign artwork exponentially increased their ability to execute community-based campaigns and marketing events that were consistent with VERB's brand position (on-brand) and that were innovative enough to break through the communication clutter in tweens' lives. Third, the complexity of the campaign's marketing mix produced notable communication outcomes, yet there were a few missed opportunities to coordinate national paid and community partner tactics. The campaign achieved minimal coordination in scheduling stops at campaign partners' events and festivals by the experiential mobile tours that traveled across the country.16 Messaging themes synced across the partnership platforms and the national advertising platforms only in the final promotional campaign. The divergent needs and processes of media agencies and community partnerships frustrated close coordination between national and local tactics. Increased flexibility, a better balance between “too late” and “too soon” and between not enough and too much information would have enhanced considerably the ability to coordinate tactics implemented at the local level by the advertising agencies and campaign partners as well as to leverage common messaging across all campaign platforms. Finally, evaluating community-based marketing interventions embedded within a national campaign is complex and expensive. Process measures of events and mass-media reach and frequency metrics monitor how the intervention was delivered, but they are inadequate to gauge behavioral outcomes. Annual or bi-annual surveillance systems measure overall behavior in a population, but cannot be used to attribute success to a short-term community-based marketing intervention. Social–ecologic approaches require the measurement of individual-level behavior change and community-level outcomes. Including community-level outcomes in the evaluation design at the beginning of the campaign would have enabled the campaign to measure these changes in our partners' communities. Conclusion The VERB campaign's partnership approach integrated national and local interventions to sustain behavioral outcomes stimulated by an exciting and creative advertising campaign. Giving partners access to the VERB campaign's marketing expertise along with materials and resources produced partnerships that integrated product promotion with its placement to sell regular tween physical activity while protecting the essence and spirit of the product's brand. The experiential learning that resulted as campaign partners applied commercial marketing techniques to public health interventions inspired them to improve their delivery of prevention marketing and promotion. Physical activity became more accessible to tweens as campaign partners practiced reframing the way they positioned the product and more available as physical activity the VERB way was everywhere in tweens' worlds. Social marketers must balance brand protection and community involvement in order to enable the exchange processes that will produce and sustain the intended behavioral results. Brand awareness and brand affinity are communication outcomes that can support behavior change or adoption,25 and influencing community factors can sustain the behavioral outcomes. Dearing1 cautions external change agencies to avoid the inclination to seek a degree of community sponsorship so that subsequent efforts can be labeled community-based whether there is authentic community involvement or not. More-collaborative, broad-reaching, and effective partnerships emerged over the course of the campaign. Community members—organizations and individuals both—bring the promise of participation, local legitimization, and sustainability that external sponsors cannot hope to buy.1 The right partners open up the inroads to the community itself more efficiently and more successfully than outsiders. Community organizations and the national organizations that are a part of the local fabric are the gatekeepers to the supply of physical activity opportunities for both a national campaign and the intended audience. Catalyzing community ownership of the problems and the solutions can change the social environment and sustain the effect of a social marketing intervention. Especially when the public investment in a prevention marketing intervention is substantial, a social–ecologic perspective is key. A multi-level strategy requires a multi-level investment in design, implementation, and evaluation. Community-based marketing campaigns and interventions without national resources to support them have difficulty building momentum, as generating awareness and influencing attitudes take a lot of media and marketing resources.6 National marketing campaigns bring to communities technical expertise and resources that few of them have independently.18 National campaigns have reach while community partners have personal connections. National social marketing campaigns need coordinated, collaborative, and strong mass-media and community-based interventions to translate the newly created high awareness and positive attitudes into lifelong behavior. Special thanks to the teams from APartnership, especially Jeannie Yuen, Anita Lai, and Juili Hsu-Wei; and the Florida Prevention Research Center at the University of South Florida. The Florida Prevention Research Center was supported by CDC/Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Centers U48/CCU415803-05 (Cooperative Agreement Number 1-U48-DP-000062). The findings and conclusions in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the CDC. No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper. Supplementary data References 1. 1Dearing JW. State of the art and state of the science of community organizing. In: Thompson TL, Dorsey AM, Miller KI, Parrott R editor. Handbook of health communication. Mahwah, NJ: LEA; 2003;. 2. 2Farley T, Cohen D. Prescription for a healthier nation: a new approach for improving our lives by fixing our every day world. Boston: Beacon Press; 2005;. 3. 3Atkin CK. Theory and principles of media health campaigns. In: Rice RE, Atkin CK editor. Public Communication Campaigns. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications; 2001;. 4. 4Bracht N. Community partnership strategies in health campaigns. 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15. 15USDHHS. Theory at a glance: a guide for health promotion practice (National Institutes of Health). Washington DC, USDHHS: NIH Publication; 2005;. 16. 16Heitzler CD, Asbury LD, Kusner SL. Bringing “play” to life: the use of experiential marketing in the VERB™campaign. Am J Prev Med. 2008;34(6S):S188–S193. Abstract | Full Text |
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25. 25Salmon CT, Atkin C. Using media campaigns for health promotion. In: Thompson TL, Dorsey AM, Miller KI, Parrott R editor. Handbook of health communication. Mahwah NJ: LEA; 2003;. a National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia b National Recreation and Park Association, Ashburn, Virginia c Florida Prevention Research Center at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida d Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment, Greeley, Colorado  Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Rosemary Bretthauer-Mueller, BA, CDC Division of Adult and Community Health, 4770 Buford Highway NE, MS K-30, Atlanta GA 30341.
PII: S0749-3797(08)00259-6 doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2008.03.011 © 2008 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. | |
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