School food campaign targets teens

In a drive to help young people understand the changes taking place with school food and why these have positive benefits for their future health, the Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA) and the School Food Trust are launching an advertising campaign in the teenage media. Aimed at 11–14 year old secondary students, the campaign will feature a combination of full page full colour press advertisements in monthly and weekly magazines as well as other advertising mechanics in popular online media. The £122,000 multi-media campaign has been timed to break from October onwards to coincide with LACA's National School Meals Week 2007 (October 15 – 19). The campaign, which will run through to March 2008, bears the strapline 'Cool School Fuel' and will commence with the magazine ads in October followed by online media in November. Magazine titles will include Mizz and Bliss for girls and Match and Shoot! for boys as well as crossover publications that span both sexes such as Top of the Pops and Flipside. Among the online media outlets will be bebo, Nickelodeon and RuneScape. The creative approach focuses on relating the benefits a healthy diet makes to physical performance outside as well as in school and how what you eat can have major affect on success and achievement in key aspects of teenagers' lifestyle. The new strapline aims to link the concept of 'fuel' with the campaign's focus on 'performance'. The ads also communicate an important message about how new school food can make a major contribution to a healthier diet. The chosen creative work was the outcome of extensive consumer research among 250 young people aged 11-14 years old. The campaign comprises a series of three different visual concepts each for girls and boys. The advertisements all depict lifestyle and sporting activities popular with young people. The message in each is that the poorer performer in the ad is on the wrong diet with the top performer having made the healthier dietary choices. A new website www.coolschoolfuel.com has been set up to support the advertising campaign. Each advertisement will endeavour to encourage young people to visit the site through the chance to enter a competition and win an iPod. The site will carry more information about why the changes are taking place in school food and how this can be beneficial to performance both in and out of school. The site links to both the School Food Trust and LACA websites. Commenting on the campaign, LACA chairman Sandra Russell said: "The changes taking place within school food has come as something of a culture shock to a number of secondary students and many have voted with their feet. "We are all aware that the move to change young people's diets has to be seen as a long term process. It is about engaging with young people in their environment and communicating in a style that is directly relevant to their lifestyle aspirations and through the activities they enjoy." Judy Hargadon, chief executive of the School Food Trust said: "The campaign, as with the changes, is not about enforcing change but allowing them to come to terms with the message and to amend their eating habits of their own accord. "We see this new advertising campaign as a positive means of supporting school meal providers in a bid to both reverse the drop in secondary school meal uptake and to gradually change young people's eating habits for the better in the future." To link to the new website click on the following www.coolschoolfuel.com.