Background
Social marketing materials, including billboards and television and radio campaigns, are used by the LSU AgCenter SNAP-Ed program to encourage healthy eating behaviors and to supplement information provided in direct education lessons. An evaluation conducted in 2018 found campaign messages were previously found to be effective in encouraging healthful eating behaviors, but changes were since made to targeting and implementation.
Objective
This study aimed to assess exposure, unaided recall, and behavior change outcomes of a social marketing campaign on a SNAP-Ed eligible audience.
Study Design, Setting, Participants
A survey was distributed to n = 78 SNAP-Ed eligible adults through channels used for recruitment of SNAP-Ed participants.
Measurable Outcome/Analysis
The survey first assessed unaided recall of social marketing messages, then prompted participants with titles of campaign messages and assessed recall. Survey questions also asked about changes to attitudes and behaviors after exposure to campaign messages.
Results
Although few (n = 13, 17%) respondents recalled messages unaided, many remembered billboard (n = 55, 70%) and television (n = 35, 45%) messages. Only 5% (n = 6) of participants reported hearing a radio message. Many participants who specifically recalled messages about breakfast and fruits and vegetables said they changed their behavior in response to those messages (n = 12, 41% and n = 19, 68%, respectively).
Conclusions
Though the generalizability of our findings are limited by the convenience sampling strategy used, our results demonstrated continued reach and effectiveness of the LSU AgCenter social marketing campaign among our sample of participants. Findings also suggested that radio messaging may not be effective in reaching the target audience.
Funding
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - Education
SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Supplementary data related to this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2022.04.168.
Appendix. SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
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Copyright
© 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc.
