Safefood
The Challenge
Safefood engaged We the People for the digital strand of their ‘Talk About Food' behaviour change campaign. The campaign was designed to raise awareness of our food environment and instigate behavioural changes regarding food environments and their impact on family health. This long-term campaign aims to shift the focus from the individual and the individual’s food choices to the food environment we live in and the retail and marketing tactics of big food companies to influence our behaviour.
The Approach
The ‘Talk About Food' campaign was strategically divided into three key pillars, each tailored to different aspects of audience engagement and content dissemination:
Pillar One: Trusted Voices
Expert Panel: We worked with Safefood to identify and recruit a panel of six experts to feature in a video series for social media and the Safefood website to give external validation to our behaviour change message and grow our audience reach by leveraging these external voices and their audiences.
High-Impact Videos: We developed a series of high-impact videos featuring these well-known and engaging experts in food and health. These videos are published monthly throughout 2024, delivering clear, digestible, and supportive messaging.
Expert Involvement: Experts such as behavioural psychologist Padraig Walsh and Dr. Norah Campbell were commissioned to feature in content produced by We the People explaining the physiological and environmental factors influencing food choices. This content is strategically aligned with our campaign objective to remove judgment from the individual and shift the focus to systemic issues.
The videos were strategically distributed across TikTok and Instagram, leveraging the platforms' viral potential and engaging formats to maximize reach.
Pillar Two: High-Impact Visuals
Inspired by the effective TV ad created by Kick, we created four original digital ads using animations to depict the overwhelming food shopping environment from a child’s perspective. These ads were also translated into Gaelige and distributed across the island of Ireland.
Pillar Three: Campaign Ambassadors Content
Ambassadors were sourced through social media, community parent groups, and university links, ensuring diverse representation and authentic voices. We recruited real parents, grandparents, and young adults to create authentic content showcasing real-life scenarios. These ambassadors shared their experiences through videos, highlighting the challenges posed by the food environment. The Ambassadors were given a challenge in the form of a shopping list or a task to execute. These briefs were designed to ensure that our returned content showcased the food environment and its impact on people when buying food or attempting to stick to a list of healthy options.
The Results
Trusted Voices
The videos successfully grew our audience on social media platforms, with significant engagement metrics and virality. A longer-term engagement strategy will see the Safefood social channels gaining followers and supporters from account cross-pollination.
Ambassadors
Over 72 pieces of content were produced by ambassadors, offering consistent messaging and engagement across different audience segments.
The ambassador-led content fostered a sense of community and personal investment in the campaign, leading to significant user-generated content and social media engagement.
Media Coverage
The PR-able nature of the content led to widespread coverage across traditional and online media, further amplifying the campaign's reach.