Spot the Block - Structuring a Campaign to Reach Tweens

Background: Beginning in 2004, JMH Education worked with FDA to find a way to effectively reach tweens to address the growing overweight and obesity problem. Key research findings about tweens, which informed the development of Spot the Block, included: Convenience often drives eating decisions; tweens often dictate what food is purchased; tweens have considerable control over their diets and typically eat the most after school; tweens are not using nutrition label information; and, finally, everywhere tweens go, they see and hear messages about eating healthfully, but they lack tools to help them actually do it.

Program background: The Spot the Block campaign empowers youth to “Spot the Block”—the Nutritional Facts Label—in order make informed food choices. On the basis of FDA research, message testing, and FDA initiatives, three actionable behavior change messages, or three key steps, were determined: (1) check out the serving size, (2) consider the calories, and (3) choose nutrients wisely.

Evaluation Methods and Results: The Spot the Block campaign, encompassing paid advertising, marketing strategies, partnership efforts, and community educators, focused on “meeting” tweens and their parents where they were. This might mean communicating online (wwwspottheblock.com), on television, or in person through a community educator. Community educators offered relevant and easy to adopt steps for improving knowledge of and use of the Nutrition Facts Label in families. Through a partnership with Cartoon Network, millions have been exposed to the campaign. To date, on-air animated spots have reached more than 141 million persons, the online advertising has garnered more than 116 million impressions, and the website has more than 1 million unique page views. The parent program targeted African American and Hispanic audiences via a hands-on community outreach pilot program in eight states. 

Conclusions: Focusing on meeting parents and tweens “where they were” both physically and knowledge-wise, and employing several best practices strategies created an effective campaign to increase awareness of the Nutrition Facts Label, increase understanding of the Label, and influence healthy eating behaviors.

Implications for research and/or practice: Behavior change campaigns must take into account the cultural, socioeconomic, and daily reality of the populations they wish to influence and provide small amounts of applicable and accessible information that can be easily incorporated into daily routines.