Objectives

The goal of Operation Good Food & Beverages™ (OGF&B) – A Black Community Imperative – is to address a growing and urgent health crisis in the Black community. With 70% of all food and beverage advertising promoting unhealthy choices, coupled with the fact that Black youth are doubly and triply exposed to these messages, the Evoke team set out to create a youth-inspired, pro bono response to these and other eye-opening statistics, e.g. $168 million is spent on advertising unhealthy food options to Black youth, $0 is spent on healthy options. By leveraging key community organizations and social media influencers, this national initiative raised awareness of the importance of healthier, culture-forward eating.

Working with the youth leadership from Heart Smiles, an enrichment and development Program in Baltimore and the Council on Black Health, a research and action network dedicated to improving Black health nationwide, the Evoke team addressed the longstanding and unfavorable pattern of food marketing to communities of color – head on.

Our campaign objectives were ambitious, sparking a food justice movement that positively impacted Black communities. We were able to:

• Utilize years of academic research in the application of real-world tactics
• Generate national awareness of our mission to educate Black youth about the need to promote a healthier food ecosystem in their communities
• Mount a petition on change.org asking the National Restaurant Association to provide healthier menu options in Black communities
• Create a foundational campaign platform to build momentum for future campaign growth
• Uncover key learnings for campaign optimization & expansion

Strategy and Execution

We developed our overall campaign strategy of Platform for Change, as we call it, in collaboration with our youth consultants at HeartSmiles. To get to the Platform, we defined the Human Truth of our target audience and Brand Truth of our movement.

Human Truth: The bigger forces at play that have had the upper hand in dominating the Cultural narrative around food and beverages, need to finally be challenged by a different voice.

Brand Truth: The food justice initiative led by the Council on Black Health is the catalyst fighting to introduce a new voice, a new perspective around food and beverages in Black communities.

Platform for Change: The Joy of Good Food is a celebration of clean, honest, nourishing food – food that is healthy for the mind, body, and spirit. The Joy of Good Food moves away from the negative language associated with food justice, pushes the conversation forward without bashing and builds off of a Black imperative now, calling upon all to reclaim their “joy” – physical, emotional, psychological, and social.

Campaign execution included:

• Operation Good Food & Beverages™ brand development: brand name, logo, color palette, core design elements and copy
• Culture-first content creation: including the history of Black food excellence, food justice and the history of the civil rights movement, healthy recipes for traditional foods and from a Black vegan chef, and the petition on change.org
• Established online presence: Website - desktop, mobile; user experience, behavior-based design
• Built social media voice: Instagram, TikTok, content calendars, influencers, social media guidelines
• Engaged media, community: Paid media buy, outreach to targeted Black media and community organizations
• Social media toolkit: Enabling users to spread the message and encourage petition signatures on their own social media channels

Results

Operation Good Food and Beverages™ successfully launched and established a foundation for future expansion and success for the Council on Black Health. Success metrics for the campaign included 50% higher than average time spent on the website, 55% conversion rate to view our petition to the National Restaurant  Association, as well as the 3M+ targeted impressions generated by a paid media budget of just $25k.

We have some big numbers to be proud of:

• 3,148,869 paid media impressions
• Over 3,800 site sessions. Average time on site 1 min 51s for overall period (24% higher than industry site averages.) Petition CTA on the site was clicked over 468 times
• 10,164 organic social media reach. Operaton Good Food & Beverages™ experienced a whirlwind of organic social media activity, June through August, leading to a solid foundational start for the campaign. The team’s collaboration with Dion Dawson resulted in achieving extensive reach for the brand and paved the way for further opportunities to collaborate with their influential voices.
• 1,077 petition signatures – 28% conversion rate
• 2,758 video views (owned and partnered)

Media