Empowered Health: A Strategic And Visual Guide To Fight Childhood Obesity
Date
2016-05
Authors
Parker, Guy Allen
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Abstract
Most companies, organizations or brands are good at producing a product or delivering a service, but are faced with the challenge of how to market that product or service to an appropriate audience. Just because your company has a good product doesn't mean that customers will magically rush to buy what you have. As David Olgivy (1983) stated in his book 'Olgivy on Advertising,' "[it seems] everyone involved has a vested interest in prolonging the myth that all advertising increases sales to some degree. It doesn't." He goes on to explain the importance of doing your homework to completely understand the product, the company and most importantly the customer and what they care about. This is what "informed design" attempts to do: bridge the gap between analytical thinking and intuitive thinking with a better understanding of the company, its product, and how it relates to the needs of its customers. The process involves doing extensive research of the current situation of the company, the product or service offerings, brand attributes, the problem, competition and the customers to develop informed strategies and smart creative solutions that are relevant to the target audience and their interests.
This thesis will use informed design to rebrand an existing research program at the Nutrition and Foods School of Family and Consumer Services at Texas State University, the "Best Food FITS" program. Best Food FITS (best food for families with infants and toddlers) is "a community-based intervention designed to address childhood obesity." The objective was to improve access to healthier diets through partnerships with restaurants by removing sugar-sweetened beverages, decreasing high-calorie entrées and increasing fruits and vegetables on menus. More than one third of Americans are suffering from the most preventable cause of death. Obesity is the leading public health problem in America, lowering the quality of life and contributing to increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, type 2-diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems and certain cancers (Trust for America's Health, 2013). The information to help fight obesity is in abundance from online forums, websites, medical clinics, community groups, school programs, public service platforms and an unbridled flood of quick weight loss solicitations. This ongoing bombardment of messages, without the ability to verify their accuracy, present a significant communication challenge for those providing valid information to specific audience groups.
This "Empowered Health" thesis will develop the branding system necessary to open communication channels with the Best Food FITS primary audience of parents with infants, toddlers and teens in the San Marcos area. The goal is to create a platform that allows Best Food FITS to share the information that parents seek to help them make healthier dietary decisions for their families and improve their overall health.
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Keywords
Obesity, Childhood obesity, Informed design, Design thinking, Wicked problems, San Marcos, Healthcare, Brand development, Branding, Brand toolkit, Best Food FITS
Citation
Parker, G. A. (2016). <i>Empowered health: A strategic and visual guide to fight childhood obesity</i> (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.