This year’s European Social Marketing Conference was in Greece, Thessaloniki. Its purpose - as part of the World Social Marketing Conference event circuit - is to help build a global movement dedicated to capturing, spreading and nurturing good practice in Social Marketing.
The event as a whole consisted of academics, university representatives, public health officials and practitioning agencies all looking to learn from each other.
There were inspirational keynote speeches from: Dimitris Skourogiannis, the mind behind the Petriplus Project; Leah Mortantz, the Head of Communications for Public Health Wales; Peter Economides, Brand Strategist at Felix BNI; Professor Christine Domegan, from University of Ireland; and Professor Doug Evans from George Washington University.
Hitch delivered a Health and Wellbeing track workshop called ‘Designing a theoretically informed obesity campaign using a whole system approach’. It explored a mixed research methods approach to developing an obesity prevention campaign in Medway, aimed at targeting behaviours that are key drivers of obesity in the UK.
Gary Wootten, Managing Director at Hitch commented:
“ESMC22 was an excellent conference where we were inspired by many professionals on theory and practice, from sustainable packaging consumer insights to understanding effective interventions with the emerging adult gaming community. Really pleased Hitch colleagues were able to contribute too.“
The 3-day event included workshops on planning and evaluation, and social marketing as a tool for social change. Awards were presented to celebrate contributions, including best research abstracts.
We won!
Our work with Medway Council earned us the best intervention submission award.
Kate presented the primary research and findings of the Medway Campaign, including survey findings, stakeholder analysis and research on the segmented audiences.
Research Manager, Kate Parsons commented:
“It was a lovely surprise and, actually, I can barely take any credit for it because the entire project has been such a team effort - even the research phase was all hands on deck. The conference itself was a great learning opportunity for me and it was really inspiring to hear all the good work that’s going on around us.”
Also representing us on the European stage was Lewis, who presented the implementation strategy behind the Medway Campaign and website:
Lewis Phillips-Calvert, Strategy and Planning Consultant, commented:
“It is fantastic to see our Research and Behavioural Insight Team receive such a respected award. It highlights the importance of listening to the communities a campaign is aimed at and we’re glad ESM22 recognises that. Successful campaigns always start with a robust evidence base which Kate and the team have produced, so not only is Medway leading the way in being more active, Hitch is also leading the way with insight-driven campaigns. Here’s to many more awards along the way!”
If you would like to learn more about the project, we would be happy to set up an online session to walk you through our research approach, learning and implementation strategy and plan…and evaluation, when we get there. Just get in touch.