How to Persuade Our Communities to Eat Healthier

Myriad complex factors contribute to why people don’t eat fruits and vegetables or become obese. However, generic messages like “eat healthier,” “go to a farmer’s market” or “exercise more” only add to the noise and overwhelm audiences. Many people end up not changing their behaviors because they don’t know what to do. But we can use marketing campaigns to show people where health can fit into their lives.

In this educational video, Rescue President and Executive Creative Director Jeff Jordan reveals how to create campaigns that make it easier for our communities to engage in healthy behaviors like eating more fruits and vegetables.

Key Moments

3:54: At Rescue, we’ve been conducting focus groups and interviews focused on healthy living and nutrition, and we’ve found that a lot of people do not trust health information. See quotes from recent focus groups to learn more.

4:50: To create effective behavior change campaigns, we have to understand the unique motivators of why our audiences eat the food that they eat. Check out a helpful tool we use to better understand these motivations.

7:14: If we can focus our health messages on the areas that are most important to our target audience, we can help them overcome the burden of change. See some of the most important health insights we’ve gathered from our audience research about the obstacles they most frequently experience when trying to live healthier.

10:42: We need to provide more specific messages about how to live healthier. Instead of trying to reach everyone with one generic message, our campaigns need to focus on the actual behaviors we’re asking people to change. Jeff explains two key areas where we can give audiences specific, helpful health messages.

11:43: Learn more about crafting “replacement messages” that resonate with your audience, and see some examples of replacement messages that work.

13:40: See examples of effective “overcoming messages” that help your audience break down barriers to being healthy.

15:10: What exactly do we need to make a good nutrition and obesity prevention message? We need messages to be SAVI: Specific, Attainable, Viable, and Impactful. Jeff breaks down what this looks like in the context of a behavior change campaign.

20:09: Jeff shares examples of public health campaigns created in partnership with the CalFresh Healthy Living brand that leverage SAVI messaging, such as “Good-bye Sugar, Hello Flavor."

Learn more about our approach to developing nutrition and obesity prevention campaigns by visiting our Nutrition Health Topic web page.