Goals:
Stated Goals from the Verb website:
1. increase knowledge and improve attitudes and beliefs about tweens’ regular participation in physical activity.
2. Increase parental and
influencer support and encouragement of tweens’ participation in phydical activity
3. Heighten awareness of options and opportunities for tween participation in physical activity.
4. Facilitate opportunities for tweens to participate in regular physical activity.
5. Increase and maintain the number of tweens who regularly participate in physical activity.
The Verb Mission Statement: To increase and maintain physical activity between tweens.
Vision: All youth leading healthy lifestyles
The behavior they are focused on changing: They want to change unhealthy lifestyles and ultimately curb obesity in America and around the world.
8 P's:
Product: Physical Activity
Verb used research to identify the beliefs most attractive to tweens (ages 9-14).
Spending time with friends
Playing
Having fun
Being active with parents
Gaining Recognition for their efforts
Exploring and discovering the world via games/activities centered on exercise
Price:
Financial Cost: Classes or equipment
Psychological Cost: not feeling “good” enough to participate
Environmental Cost: no safe place to play in the neighbor
Time Related Cost: Parents not available to supervise or drive
Place
“Where tweens can be physically active in a safe environment”
Backyards, schools, parks, churches, sports organizations, youth/community organization or any place with appropriate facilities. “Places also had to be considered cool by tweens”
Promotion:
Paid media advertising on television and radio in general market and ethnic media channels
Print advertising in youth and parent magazines, and ethnic newspapers
Media partnerships that facilitate public service announcements
Activity promotions, custom developed material (Book covers, day planners, customized lesson plans), Community based events, viral marketing, contest and sweepstakes, community partnerships, partnerships with corporations and sports teams, websites for tweens, their parents
Publics:
External Publics: Tweens, parents of tweens, schools-teachers and administrators, community based organization staff, corporations, public service directors at radio and television stations, local reporters in various media, state and local governments
Internal Publics: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Project Team, Department of Health and Human Staff, Project subcontractors such as advertising agencies and evaluator, Policymakers in the U.S. Congress
Partnership:
National Recreation and Park Association, Girl Scouts of America, Girls Inc, National Association for Sport and Physical Education, County health departments and community coalitions, Media networks such as Viacom, Disney, Primedia, and AOL, YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs, National sports leagues and individual athletes, Musicians, Sporting goods manufacturers and retailers, Schools
Policy:
Verb Campaign encouraged families to advocate for changes in their communities that would facilitate kits physical activity.
Writing letters to school administrators and board members to support daily physical education and recess time.
Contacting parks and recreation officials to ask for more opportunities for children to get active,
Encouraging local officials to install park equipment, bike paths, or other resources for physical activity
Pursestrings:
The Verb Campaign was funded by the CDC’s budget which is determined annually by congress. The campaign also received many donations from media partners in the form of advertising space. After 5 years the Verb Campaign lost its funding and ended.
Evaluation:
Measures
Four categories of campaign awareness were constructed, based on the child’s ability to recall the VERB brand and ability to state the intended message of the campaign.
The four categories were:
(1) No recall of the campaign
(2) Recall but no understanding
(3) Aided recall with understanding
(4) Unaided recall with understanding
Two primary behavioral measures were used to assess the child’s physical activity level.
(1) Free-time physical activity in the previous 7 days.
(2) Organized physical activity in the previous 7 days.
Additional Measures:
(1) Children were asked whether they had engaged in a physical activity on the day before the interview.
(2) Lastly, children were asked whether they had tried a new physical activity in the previous 2 months.
Awareness
The campaign produced high levels of awareness.
(1) Twenty-six percent of American children had no recall of the campaign,
(2) 7% had recall but no understanding,
(3) 50% had aided recall with understanding, and
(4) 17% had unaided recall with understanding.
Free Time Physical Activity
There was a positive relationship between the level of awareness of VERB and weekly median sessions of free-time physical activity among the total population of 9- to 13-year-old youths. When VERB awareness increased, levels of physical activity increased.
Organized Physical Activity
At the total-population level, no relationship was found between levels of awareness and percentage of children engaging in organized physical activity.
News/PR:
~The Wall Street Journal
Passing the Ball: Hip Campaign That Got Kids To Be Active Looks For Its Next Move
By: Tara Parker Pope (September 5, 2006)
Summary:
Verb, an ad campaign that made excercise cool and helped boost physical activity among school aged children, is coming to an end after five years. The campaign was created in response to pediatricians and medical groups “sounding the alarm” for children’s poor eating habits and lack of activity. Commercials were created by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that promoted exercise as fun and exhilarating with the tagline “Verb: It’s what you do.” The campaign also featured “Yellow Ball” a symbol of children playing in the sun. Kids are asked to play with the ball, blog about it at verbnow.com and then pass it along to a friend.
The end of this campaign comes just as the data starts coming in showing that it was surprisingly effective at boosting physical activity among the school aged children. “A recent study of more than 2,700 school kids published in the medical journal Pediatrics showed that 9- and 10-year-old kids who had seen the Verb campaign reported one-third more physical activity during their free time than kids who hadn't seen Verb. Among girls ages 9-13, the ad campaign boosted free-time physical activity by nearly 27%.”
Part of the problem was that it was targeted directly to children aged 9-13 and parents were not aware of the campaign. Verb also got off to a rocky start after critics complained that the government was focusing too much on exercise while they should be trying to improve children’s eating habits. The CDC said in response that they “didn't want to lecture children about what not to do, and instead wanted to focus on a positive message that celebrated physical activity.” Although the government will no longer be funding Verb after this month, there have been discussions with nonprofit groups as well as major companies and sporting organizations about ways to continue the Verb concept without government money.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115741165465153226-search.html
~The Washington Post
Without Funds, Verb Program Became Past Tense
By: Susan Levine (May 19, 2008)
Summary:
The Verb campaign used messages that were clever, hyper, and even edgy to appeal to tweeners ages 9 to 13, a group whose rate of obesity has almost quadrupled since 1974. The national program, created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was ordered by Congress as a social marketing campaign to increase physical activity for this age range. Lawmakers invested $125 million in start-up funds in 2001, because everyone said this had to be “different” to succeed.
Instead of preachy hard facts, Verb used highly focused marketing, community promotions and megastar role models (rapper Bow Wow, pro quarterback Donovan McNabb and singer-actress Miley Cyrus) to brand its cool, can-do message. "We very much worked at understanding kids from kids' point of view," said Faye Wong, who directed the program.
By the second year, evaluations showed that the program was making a difference. Millions of children were aware of the campaign, with substantial numbers choosing to be much more active. Supporters expected Verb's impact to grow exponentially. Except Congress cut the funding and ended the program. A few passionate proponents simply could not get their colleagues to pay enough attention. The last ads aired in late 2006. "If you did that with a vaccine, that would be public health malpractice," was the response given from CDC’s director Jeffrey P. Koplan.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-05-19/news/36870517_1_national-program-cdc-director-tweeners
~ADWEEK
Pro Athletes Spread the ‘Verb’
By: Mae Anderson (July 30, 2004)
Summary:
Saatchi & Saatchi, a global advertising agency, has a new effort for the Verb campaign that features children playing with professional athletes and carries the message that you don’t have to be good at a game to have fun playing it.
“McNabb plays football with kids who keep calling different plays, like the "lightning" and the "trashcan" that he doesn't know. In a spot that broke last week, Donovan plays soccer with a group of children who have a special point system that is mystifying to the Major League Soccer star. And in Williams' spot, which broke in May, Williams plays tennis with two girls who declare that anything that hits the court in the shade is out.”
The first round of the campaign in October 2003 introduced the “Verb” idea to kids and got them saying “there’s a cool thing called ‘Verb’ out there.” The second round, in December, and the current series, are designed to get the kids motivated and find fun ways to play.
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising/pro-athletes-spread-verb-74011
Media Analysis:
Most effective digital/social/traditional media platforms helping achieve goals
Traditional Media outlets used – Print Advertising (#2), Television/Cable Programming or Advertising (#1 Disney and Nickelodeon - 15- and 30-second spots featuring different verbs such as “bounce,” showing children and celebrities bouncing a basketball or bouncing on a trampoline and encouraging children to “find their verb. 85% of the population had 8.8times throughout the month), In-person Communication, Radio(#3)
Website Media outlets used – Information, Games & Interaction(#4), Blog/Vlog, Video
Least effective digital/social/traditional media platform helping achieve goals
Social Networking used – Facebook, MySpace
Other New Media used – YouTube, Desktop Agent, Text Messaging
Support Tools: Evaluation & Monitoring used – Analytics (Google, NetTracker), Survey tools (Survey Monkey)
- Children who reported being aware of VERB engaged in 3.9 [CI: 3.5, 4.2] weekly sessions of free-time activity in 2004, whereas children with no VERB awareness reported 3.0 [CI: 2.4, 3.7] sessions), a 22% difference between VERB aware and VERB unaware.
