Vision/Mission/Goals

Mission: To increase and Maintain Physical Activity among tweens (youth age 9-13)

Vission: All Youth Leading Healthy Lifestyles

Goals:

• Increase Knowledge In Physical Activity
• Improve Attitudes
• Increase Parental Influence
• Heighten awareness of opportunities and availability
• Facilitating Regular physical activity
• Increase and maintain the number of Tweens who exercise

Campaign Evaluation

VERB began in 2002 with the mission to fight childhood obesity with five goals. These goals were all met with degrees of success, changing the behavior of both tweens and parents to become more active. Utilizing different medial channels and having multiple campaigns allowed VERB to influence a huge audience, changing tweens physical behavior. 

The first goal was for VERB to "increase knowledge and improve attitudes and beliefs about tweens’ regular participation in physical activity." This goal was obtained as results show that after 1 year, 74% of children surveyed were aware of the VERB campaign.  The average 9- to 10-year-old tween was reported to engage in 34% more free-time physical activity sessions per week than those who were unaware of the campaign. 

The second goal was for VERB to "increase parental and influencer support and encouragement of tweens’ participation in physical activity."The campaign reached its goal of raising support, especially amongst parents with less formal education. In the first year of the campaign parental change in behavior as a result of the campaign changed significantly with (P > .05).

• Less than high school education: 2.2
• High school graduate: 0.30
• Some college: 0.62
• College degree:0.20

The campaigns third goal was to "heighten awareness of options and opportunities for tween participation in physical activity." this was made successful by implementing different media strategies and channels to reach tweens in a positive way. VERBnow.com was launched in June of 2002 to engage tweens in physical activity by providing VERB games, a “Mouth off” section encouraging kids to give their opinions, a VERB scrapbook, and links to other tween websites. This site received 6,287,399 visits between June 2005 and May 2006, and 1,587,768 hours of use.  “8372” Cell phones sent VERB text messages to give tweens “insider” access to VERB with a call to action. This personal interaction offered tweens with relevant national news, events, athletic trivia games, quizzes, horoscopes, scrapbooks and celebrity webcasts.

The fourth goal was to "facilitate opportunities for tweens to participate in regular physical activity."The website and different programs offered gave kids a platform to get active and play new games. VERB Yellowball was a campaign that dropped 500,000 yellow balls off at schools, recreational centers, malls, and tween concerts and sporting events. Printed on the ball was instructions for kids to blog about what games they played with the ball online.  This program facilitated the opportunity for 170,000 yellowball entries to be uploaded to the website between June 2005 and May 2006.

The fifth goal was to "increase and maintain the number of tweens who regularly participate in physical activity.  In the first year, VERB influenced the tweens on average to be active for 4.1 sessions per week (in 2002), rather than 3.6 from the previous year.  Kids most effected during the first year of the campaign: ages 9-13 (34% more active), Girls, Children with parents who had less than a high school education, Urban children living in dense populations, and children with a low active baseline. 

VERB was successful in reaching its goals with federal funding of $125 million in 2001. Unfortunately funding was lowered, despite the campaigns positive effect with $68 million in 2002, $51 million in 2003, $36 million in 2004 and $59 million in 2005.  The campaign is no longer is effect, jeopardizing the health and future medial costs of our younger generations. 

News/PR on VERB

Instructions: Summarize and link to THREE news articles about your SOCIAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN that report, raise questions, and/or encourage support.

*** From USA Today, March 1, 2004: "CDC ad campaign to get kids to play outside"
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-03-01-CDC-ads_x.htm

In 2002, the CDC took a poll before the start of the VERB campaign asking tweens (ages 9-13) how many times per week that they were physically active. A year later, in 2003, the CDC conducted the same poll again. The results, one year into the VERB campaign, showed an increase of one active time per week more than the year before for children ages 9-10. Children aged 11-13 did not report any change. Brand recognition, which was the goal of the first year, produced results the CDC was happy with. The survey reports that 75% of tweens knew of the VERB campaign.

*** From The Wall Street Journal, September 5, 2006: "Passing the Ball: Hip Campaign That Got Kids to Be Active Looks for Its Next Move"
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB115741165465153226

The VERB campaign had to be canceled due to lack of funding, at the same time results of studies were showing the success of the campaign. A study published in the medical journal Pediatrics showed that children ages 9-10 who had seen the VERB campaign reported one third more physical activity than the children who did not know of the VERB campaign. The campaign increased physical activity in girls aged 9-13 by almost 27%. Westat, a social science research firm, also reported positive trends in activity levels among school-aged children. One of the issues with VERB was its lack of adult awareness since the advertisements were targeted only to children.

Critics complained that the VERB campaign was only about exercise, and some critics wanted it to include messages about eating healthy in addition to activity. The CDC responded that they wanted to focus on a positive message celebrating physical activity.

The campaign did not consist solely of traditional advertising media like television ads and magazine ads. Another aspect of the campaign was a give away of yellow VERB balls distributed to schools. Children were asked to blog about their experience with the ball, and then pass the ball on to a friend. Then they could follow the ball's path on VERB's website. There was a 4% blog response rate.

*** From The New York Times, October 15, 2003: "THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING -- ADDENDA; C.D.C. Adjusts Anti-Obesity Campaign"
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/15/business/the-media-business-advertising-addenda-cdc-adjusts-anti-obesity-campaign.html

The VERB campaign was not without criticism. Critics complained that the VERB campaign in its first year was too vague. The ads at the time included active children with words superimposed on the screen like "run" and "jump." New ads planned would have phrases such as "Everyday is Game Day" or "Get Out, Go Play." The change in the direction of the campaign to more specific commands was reported to have been planned all along by the CDC and not in response to criticism.

''Our strategy was always for the first year to be about brand awareness,'' Micahel Greenwell, Director of the Chronic Disease Center division of the CDC said. ''We seeded the brand with a real short message that piqued their interest. Then we planned to get more specific.''