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.