Healthy Works: Paths to Healthy Living Media and Marketing Campaign

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

As part of a large-scale effort to curb the tide on the obesity epidemic, the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) developed and launched the comprehensive and innovative program called Healthy Works: Paths to Healthy Living based on a media and marketing campaign. Designed to “sell” health and motivate change on a County-wide scale, this multi-modal media campaign has supported strategic policy systems and environmental change strategies by promoting the overarching messages of Healthy Places, Healthy Foods, and Healthy Schools across a broad range of Healthy Works community-level interventions. The overarching media campaign objective was to expose San Diego County residents to messages that promote increased physical activity, improved nutrition, decreased obesity prevalence, and related environmental changes. Paid media and marketing strategies included television and radio spots, bus and transit advertising, direct mail pieces, a web site, internet banner ads, and social media accounts. Earned, or free media activities also contributed significantly to the added value of the campaign. Evaluation results reflect significant reach (up to 75%) and frequency (up to 5 times) of the campaign to the target audiences (parents, decision makers, community leaders), immediate and sustained engagement through social media, and direct impact on outcomes for Healthy Works sm interventions.