Swap Up's Watermercial

Oklahoma has the eighth highest youth obesity rate in the country, with an estimated 150,000 children who are classified as overweight or obese. Obesity prevalence is significantly higher among those living in rural counties, where Indigenous groups are the largest population of color. Though most teens want to be and feel healthy, our research has found that they often don’t consider how their food choices impact their health. Instead, they gravitate toward foods their peers eat, taste good, or that are cheap and convenient. In partnership with the TSET Healthy Youth Initiative, we sought to deliver specific, realistic, and memorable nutrition advice that teens can easily incorporate into their daily lives.

Research has found that natural foods are linked to higher rates of happiness, and kids who eat more fruits and vegetables are more likely to do better in school. Meanwhile, processed foods are linked to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and stress. Additionally, they can affect your focus and memory and are shown to be associated with poorer attention and poorer visual learning. However, teens are more likely to appreciate the importance of food choices if they are tied to concrete, immediate effects on their lives. Gaining weight in the future, developing diabetes one day, or just feeling generally better is not motivating or specific enough.

We created a message package called Watermercial containing a 30-second flagship video along with a library of creative social assets to increase knowledge about the immediate impact of food on the body and mind. Watermercial was activated on multiple channels, including:
Radio
Television
Cable
OTT Media
Snapchat
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube