Making a Monday Resolution: Committing to Health 52 Times a Year

Background: 

Like the beginning of a new year, Monday can be perceived as a day to dread, but it’s also the day people see as an opportunity for a fresh start. By leveraging this “Healthy Monday Reset”, public health marketing & communications professionals can enhance their marketing strategies to sell health, and may even achieve better outcomes if they pursue audiences when they are “open to buy” health. The Monday Campaigns, a nonprofit public health initiative, works with the Lerner Centers for Public Health Promotion at Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Syracuse Universities to understand how Mondays can influence behavior change. Collectively, these Centers develop and evaluate promotion campaigns that change health behaviors in a range of settings, including communities, schools and worksites.

Program background:  The presenters will highlight statistics from various media that promote Monday as the day to initiate a behavior change within the context of Healthy Monday, as well as discuss weekly/Monday patterns in health-related internet searches and engagement with online resources. These statistics demonstrate that Monday can be an important day to promote and encourage healthy behaviors. Case studies and free promotional materials will be featured that show how the Monday effect can help engage audiences in a range of health behaviors, including stress reduction, nutrition, exercise and tobacco cessation.  

Evaluation Methods and Results: 

Focusing on digital media metrics including email and social media, and video views, The Monday Campaigns (TMC) will present analytics that demonstrate the interest of general audiences in the Healthy Monday Reset concept. Among other statistics, TMC will share statistics from email (range +20-148%), Facebook (range +3-354%), Twitter and Youtube platforms, with a special focus on the New Year Resolution/Monday Resolution video, which highlights the connection between these periodic commitments to better health behaviors. TMC continues to gather data regarding the number of views of the Resolution video has received as well as the interactions with its other media channels to access resources promoting the Healthy Monday Reset concept for their health interventions. The presentation will also highlight results from a study analyzing weekly caloric intake and weight outcomes on a popular weight loss app.

Conclusions:  The Monday Campaigns has continued to attract audiences by producing new content, especially video, in an effort to encourage a more consistent practice of healthy behaviors, beyond a single, New Year’s Day commitment. Online interactions with original content delivered through social, digital and video media, can demonstrate how consumers respond to Monday messaging and respond to this weekly cue, creating regular opportunities for public health marketers to engage audiences when they’re most receptive to health messaging. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  Leveraging weekly cycles and the Healthy Monday Reset can help public health marketers and professionals improve both their message design as well as the scheduling of their communications. Focusing on Monday can also create opportunities to extend a commitment to behavior change that sometimes occurs only once a year. With this healthy intention in mind, individuals and organizations can leverage this Healthy Monday cue to support sustained behavior as well.