Expanding the initial phase of the Great Nations Eat Campaign, Share Our Strength will launch a new and scaled up ad campaign, which will secure two billion media impressions in 2016. The new creative will challenge assumptions about who is hungry, raise awareness of the problem, and help create the national will to advance smarter policies and new public private partnerships to ensure that no American struggles with food insecurity. This will be achieved through an alliance of media companies on platforms including cable, local broadcast TV, radio, online, social media, out of home media, and text messaging. This work builds on the 2015 campaign by attracting more media partners, engaging celebrity spokespeople, implementing a new theme for the advertising creative, leveraging Share our Strengths donated media, and creating a level of accountability that the initial campaign has not had to date.
The goal will be to educate audiences about who is hungry in America and compel them to learn more by visiting the Great Nations Eat website where they will be able to take a variety of grassroots actions including: attend local and national events, share compelling content on social media, encourage their local news outlet to cover hunger, and donate to the campaign, among other activities.
To the extent possible, outlets will be targeted based on their ability to convey the core campaign message to a diverse swath of Americans in every media market in the country including Latinos, African Americans, millennials, seniors, and moms. The commitment will focus on producing a strong advertising campaign leveraging commitments from major outlets including cable television, local broadcast television, radio, online, social media, out of home media like billboards, and via text messaging.
Television: Ads will run on 20 national broadcast stations with an average of 65 TV spots per week.
Radio: Ads will be featured on over 900 radio stations reaching 150 media markets from coast to coast.
Digital: Through a variety of partners, the campaign will garner nearly a quarter billion impressions across a broad spectrum of social, lifestyle, and news sites, including interactive units to drive actions within the ad itself.
Print: Over 700 half-page ads will run in over 200 local newspapers across the country, as well as full-page ads in national news and lifestyle magazines.
The approach for 2016 will include a national launch of the campaign with a national press event, regional press events, and a large-scale earned media outreach. In addition, the campaign will use digital and earned media to raise hunger in the national conversation.
The campaign has been designed to cover a several year period with messaging tent poles tailored to each year and focused on seasons where Americans are actively engaged in social events or cultural moments that revolve around fulfilling human potential.
2015 Q4: (Setting the Stage for 2016 Launch)
Earned media program outlining
Analytics review of current messaging and effectiveness
Message testing for new creative
Secure new creative team
Onboard celebrity spokesperson (currently George Lopez or Kevin Hart)
Secure media partner commitments for Q1 & Q2 2016
2016 Q1:
Launch 2016 campaign and new creative including:
Major national press event with Great Nations Eat spokespeople, celebrity spokespeople, partner organizations, etc.
Press events in target states
Large-scale earned media outreach strategy
2016 Q2:
Host national event focusing on hunger
Leverage national event to organize events in target states across the country
2016 Q3:
Use digital and earned media to raise hunger in the national conversation
Work with debate hosts to insert questions about hunger into the debates
Leverage news hooks for opportunities to insert campaign messages into national, state, and local news coverage
Create specific media outreach plans for campaign celebrity spokespeople to garner additional media attention
2016 Q4:
Evaluate 2016 campaign metrics and leverage successes to prepare for 2017 and beyond
Prepare new creative and secure media commitments for 2017
Hunger is a very real problem for too many Americans. In the U.S., one in five kids go to school hungry; 15% of seniors worry about finding food; and 3.9 million parents skimp on meals to provide for their children. Altogether, 48.8 million Americans struggle with food insecurity.
Hunger impacts everyone. Kids who struggle with hunger achieve lower test scores, have lower cognitive development, and are less likely to graduate. These educational setbacks hinder their ability to contribute economically as adults and reliance on charity food can breed low self-esteem. Hunger also leads to chronic health conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, and, paradoxically, obesity. All of this adds up to lower productivity and higher education and healthcare costs, threatening Americas ability to prosper economically.
Despite crucial work performed by advocacy organizations, billions were cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the 2013 Farm Bill and the 2010 Child Nutrition Bill. Now, even though one in six Americans in large cities struggle with hunger, 62% of individuals report that they do not know of hunger existing in their community. Unfortunately, even Americans who do care about hunger are not aware that it is a solvable problem. There is more than enough food to feed people; what the country lacks is the drive to make sure healthy food is accessible to everyone in need. Through smarter policies at the national and state levels, along with collaboration between new public private partnerships, corporations, and charities, it is possible to ensure that no American struggles with food insecurity again.
In June 2015, Share Our Strength launched Great Nations Eat campaign to raise awareness and understanding of hunger in the U.S. The primary goal the campaign in 2015 has been to build a strong foundation for implementation of a full-scale campaign in 2016.
Great Nations Eat seeks funding partners, including companies, foundations, and individuals interested in solving the problem of hunger in America, and/or interests in the fields of health, education, and development outcomes. Exceptional partners will not only provide critical funding, but also lend their voices and communications channels to help raise awareness and increase access at local, state, and national levels.
Great Nations Eat also seeks implementing partners. Ideal partners are organizations that can leverage existing volunteer networks or mobilize new networks to help raise awareness about hunger in America. Ideal partners have large networks with whom they can promote the campaign and are willing to collaborate to provide media opportunities to promote this work.
In addition, Great Nations Eat seeks organizations and individuals to serve as spokespeople and validators in the campaigns donated and earned media efforts.
One of the primary tenets of Share Our Strengths strategy with this campaign is that telling the stories of real people who struggle with hunger in America is the first step towards solving this problem. To that end, Great Nations Eat offers the resources of a multi-million dollar media campaign to help partners tell stories about the great and innovative things they are doing with regard to hunger and related issues. When appropriate, Great Nations Eat can also partner with collaborating organizations on the campaigns donated media, as well as providing support through the campaigns earned media outreach.
