Food Safety Education Goes Prime Time!

Background: Since one in six Americans get sick from foodborne illnesses every year, educating consumers about what they can do to protect themselves and their families is important. 

Program background: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) working with the Ad Council, volunteer advertising agency JWT, and the non-profit Partnership for Food Safety Education, will launch a consumer food safety education campaign in July 2011 to educate parents with young children about in-home food preparation behaviors that can prevent foodborne illnesses.

Evaluation Methods and Results: The campaign has leveraged existing research and conducted qualitative research. In addition, the Ad Council convened a multi-sectoral panel of experts as well as gathered input from the Ad Council’s creative review committee. A nine-month long process has led to the creation of a multi-pronged social marketing campaign that is targeting four categories of food safety behaviors:  Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill.     Audience research was conducted to explore the understanding of the risks of foodborne illnesses as well as to learn about current practices and motivations for performing food safety behaviors in their home.  Research guided the development of a campaign strategy and creative brief. Three creative approaches were developed and two approaches were revised and selected for testing with audience members.  Audience research led to refinement of the concepts as well as insights to consider for production.  The first wave of the campaign will include:

• Donated placement of TV, print, interactive and radio advertising
• Campaign-specific, interactive web features added to www.foodsafety.gov website
• Public relations tactics for engaging news and entertainment outlets
• Social media and blog outreach

Successive campaign waves will feature contributions from partners which offer a variety of “voices” and “legs.”   For example, food safety consumer advocacy groups can offer stories of personal experiences with foodborne illnesses to help increase awareness about the risks and address misperceptions about their severity as well as to increase motivation for performing food safety behaviors.  Food retailers can offer point of purchase cues and in-store demonstrations of tools and/or products that support food safety behaviors so that issues of self-efficacy can be addressed among consumers who may be seeing or trying these behaviors for the first time.  Food manufacturers can label their products with helpful reminder cues.  Food safety educators can engage their communities through interactive, in-person educational encounters to increase knowledge, skills, and confidence in performing these important behaviors. Metrics for success are described in a logic model with monitoring activities in place for measuring initial reach and effects. While many communication variables will be assessed, increasing the performance of in-home food safety behaviors (“more of them performed more often”) is the main objective

Conclusions:  An iterative engagement process with the campaign’s audience and partners has led to the creation of a social marketing campaign that is targeting in-home food safety behaviors for the prevention of foodborne illnesses. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  Audience and partner engagement are vital for campaign success.