Background:
Healthy habits established in childhood are important for child development and growth. However, it remains challenging to promote, engage and sustain families’ involvement in health behaviour programs, especially parents of young children.
Aim:
The project aimed to promote Podsquad – a play-based wellbeing app, directly to parents of children aged 5 – 9 years, using product marketing strategies delivered through Health and Wellbeing Queensland, the state’s prevention agency.
Methods:
A mix of conventional and innovative approaches, incorporating product marketing strategies, rather than behaviour change campaign approaches, were applied throughout the planning, content development and delivery of this campaign. Strategies included paid and organic social media advertising, digital advertising across Google search and display, YouTube and Finecast/Xasis Video, out of home advertising, earned media (PR), influencers and event partnerships, including the 2023 Royal Queensland Show.
Results:
Across the 6-week promotion campaign, over 16.8 million people were reached through 117 pieces of media coverage. Digital and social media advertising achieved results of more than 12.7 million impressions and 120,000 link clinks for a cost per click of $1.77 (social media) and $9.40 (digital advertising) driving over 35,000 and 85,000 clicks to the website, respectively. Across two distinct event partnerships, over 4.83 million people were reached by a series of live events and associated content, with the app achieving more than 5,000 downloads.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, utilising a mix of conventional and innovative product marketing strategies resulted in increased uptake and engagement with this behaviour change program amongst the target audience, to promote healthy behaviours and increase app downloads, demonstrating a place for mixed method campaign methodologies in public health promotion. Future research is recommended to understand further the key drivers for parents engaging with the promotional content.