Conventional wisdom in nutrition communications has been to provide information and messages to consumers in a "one-way-street" fashion. Nutrition messages have been delivered to the consumer, but it was not known how and if these messages were understood and what impacts these messages had.
Consumer research on food and nutrition knowledge and perceptions has begun to tell the story about how consumers receive and perceive messages about food and nutrition, as well as how these messages can be delivered with greater impact. Research conducted by the American Dietetic Association (ADA) in 2000 indicated that 85 percent of consumers believed that diet and nutrition were important to them. However, only 28 percent said they had made any significant changes to achieve a healthful diet. The International Food Information Council's qualitative research, conducted in 1998, found that when people did think about nutrition, they generally associated the available messages with negative feelings such as guilt, worry, fear, anger, and helplessness.
How Do You Have a New Nutrition Conversation?
In response, the International Food Information Council designed the New Nutrition Conversation with Consumers, an innovative program that provides tools for health professionals and nutrition communicators to develop and deliver consumer-tested nutrition messages and tips. This program is founded on the principle that it is more effective to talk
with consumers about food and nutrition than
at them. The New Nutrition Conversation is truly about giving consumers the opportunity to tell the health professional what resonates with them and which messages they find doable. After all, isn't that the whole point—doing it?
The New Nutrition Conversation with Consumers takes a consumer-oriented communications approach. But exactly what are consumer-oriented communications?
The first priority of consumer-oriented communications is getting to know your audience—that is, coming to understand what consumers know, believe, value, and do relating to food, diet, and nutrition. The best way to adopt this consumer orientation is to LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN, and LEARN from the consumers themselves. This can be accomplished formally (through focus groups, in-home observation, and surveys) or informally (through conversations and discussions among friends, coworkers, family members, etc.) with successful results.
A traditional marketing model is used in the consumer message and tip development process. In this model, issues are defined, initial message (and/or tip) concepts are developed, concepts are assessed through qualitative research, messages are fine-tuned, and finally, messages are quantitatively validated.
What resources and tools are available to assist health professionals in beginning their own new nutrition conversation with consumers?
A Web site has been developed for this express purpose. Log on to
www.newconversation.org, where you will find all the tools you need to get started!
- The Web site provides a summary of all the consumer research and provides links to full reports, which can be downloaded as Adobe Acrobat portable document format (pdf) files.
- You can walk through the marketing model step by step and view message development guidelines, all of which are designed to aid you in developing your own consumer-tested messages and tips.
- Case studies help make the information relevant, and a tip bank allows you and your colleagues to share your own tips with each other. Visit the Web site, submit your tips, and check back. The Top 10 Tips are posted every month…. Learn from your colleagues and look for your own tip online.
Also available is full access to interactive presentations. You can order a video demonstrating how real people view food and nutrition and how they react to consumer-tested messages. This video provides the health professional with tremendous insight into reaching his or her audience with actionable nutrition advice. A New Nutrition Conversation with Consumers Microsoft PowerPoint presentation and a highlighted preview of the “person-on-the-street” video can be downloaded right from the site.
Helpful information is available at www.newconversation.org. Browse the site to gain access to consumer research. Find consumer-tested messages and tips to bolster your client and consumer communications. Join the mailing list. Submit your own tips. Order a video. Download a presentation. It's all literally right at your fingertips.
And, after your visit the Web site, please let Food Insight know what you think by logging on to
http://ific.org and sending us a message. Feedback from the audience (whether it be health professionals, consumers, or otherwise) is essential to the success and effectiveness of any communications tool. We look forward to hearing from you.
