![]() | Feature: Healthy Living Move for Health | No.49 January 2007 |
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Introduction
For some time, New Zealand has been undertaking
programs to encourage people to be active. This work has been accelerating
since the late 1990s with the inception of the national Push Play campaign.
The campaign is multifaceted and includes social marketing and supporting
programs. The national budget for programs aimed at increasing participation
for the year July 2006 to June 2007 was approximately NZ$38 million and
the social marketing campaign budget from July 2005 to the end of 2006
was NZ$3.7 million. The social marketing campaign includes the use of
media to increase the awareness of the health enhancing physical activity
message as well as to increase participation. In addition to media activities,
there are programs to back up the campaign across a number of settings
including primary health care, workplace and school settings. Such initiatives
are in keeping with the recommendations for countries in the World Health
Organisation’s Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health.
The programs and social marketing initiatives were begun in the 1990s
by a government agency, the Hillary Commission, and were inherited and
further developed by SPARC (Sport and Recreation New Zealand), the government
agency that superseded the Hillary Commission. Social Marketing Campaign
The Push Play campaign has a slogan (“Push Play. 30 minutes a
day”) and a logo, and uses a variety of media to convey messages
including television, radio (including ethnic stations), print (including
newspapers and magazines), internet (using a website), billboards and
brochures (including translations for different ethnic groups), direct
marketing, merchandising and resources. Push Play Day – Push Play Nation
New Zealand’s version of the World Health Organisation’s
Move for Health day is the Push Play Day and it is celebrated in November.
Push Play Day has been running since 2001 and has involved promotions,
events and opportunities for advocacy regarding health enhancing physical
activity. In 2006, a month of promotional activities branded Push Play
Nation preceded Push Play Day. People were encouraged via television
adverts to sign up with a celebrity to a tailored activity program and
receive program mail outs and weekly motivational e-mails. In addition,
each household received a card promoting Push Play Day and instructions
of how to sign up for prizes (sponsored products including bicycles
and sports bags) and a Push Play-branded balloon to tie to their household
mail box to celebrate the day. So Push Play Day dawned with many of
the nation’s mail boxes festooned with green balloons. Direct marketing
An example of direct marketing is a dog-walking promotion to be trialled
in a municipality. In New Zealand, dogs must be relicensed by their
owners every year. Municipalities write to the dog owners regarding
this relicensing and SPARC is going to send a letter out to the dogs
along with the relicensing information. The dogs will be encouraged
to take their owners for a walk and included in the letter will be a
tag for their dog collars saying “Walk me for 30 minutes a day”.
This letter will be followed up six and twelve months later to see if
dog owners have become more active. Supporting Resources
An example of resources supporting the marketing was the distribution
of “activators” as part of the 2005 iteration of the Push Play
campaign. “Activators” were resources made of card that helped
people to find and chose physical activities that they could easily accommodate
in their lifestyles. The “activators” had a magnetic backing
so that people could stick them to their refrigerators. The “activators”
were available at the checkout counters of a supermarket chain and the conveyor
belts at the checkout counters were imprinted with the “Push Play.
30 minutes a day” message and a reminder to customers to ask for their
“activator”. In addition, there was media advertising and in-store
shelf advertising directing people to pick up the “activators”
at the supermarkets. 396,000 “activators” were distributed,
representing approximately one for every ten New Zealanders. An on-line
version of the “activator” was also made available. Framing the marketing to target the inactive
In 2003, SPARC undertook some segmentation research to ensure the campaign
influenced those people who were partially active but not undertaking
enough regular activity to enhance their health (this group represented
45% of the adult population). The research, focussing on both nutrition
and physical activity, was undertaken in partnership with the Cancer
Society and involved investigating a combination of behavioural, demographic
and psychological variables. The target group (those that were not active
enough) were divided into six groups using an iterative process and
statistical analysis and the 2005 and 2006 iteration of the Push Play
campaign was designed to reach out to a number of these six groups.
So media messages and images were designed to influence segmented groups
of inactive people. What is happening to participation?
One criticism of social marketing campaigns is that they only increase
peoples’ awareness that active lifestyles are important rather
than change participation behaviour. It is true that awareness has increased
with the Push Play campaign but participation is also rising. There
have been significant increases in awareness of the message (30% in
1999 and 52% in 2002), in awareness of the logo (14% in 1999 and 52%
in 2002) and in the intention to be more active (1.8% in 1999 and 9.45%
in 2002). Alongside the increased awareness, there was a 3% increase
in adult participation in sport and physical recreation from 1997 to
2001. Increases were also seen in the proportion of active New Zealanders
over the period from May 2003 (45% active) to March 2006 (62% active)
from a continuous weekly telephone monitoring survey. Programs in different settings
There are a number of national Push Play-branded programs supporting
the social marketing campaign and they address a number of settings
including health care, workplace and school settings and demographic
groups, for example Maori (the indigenous population of New Zealand).
Health Care Setting
In the health care setting, there is the Green Prescription (GRx) program
in which primary health care professionals prescribe exercise and physical
activity to patients with stable medical conditions. These patients
are followed up with motivational telephone calls. The program began
in 1999 and is ongoing; in 2000 over 50% of primary health care doctors
were prescribing the GRx to patients. School Setting
In the school setting, there is a fundamental movement skills program,
Active Movement, aimed at enhancing activity in early childhood education
settings. For the five to twelve year olds, there is the Active Schools
program which includes a toolkit of cross-curricular resources for teachers,
Active Schools facilitators who provide assistance for schools to develop
their activity programs, and a resource for fostering the culture of
activity at schools. Indigenous People’s Program
Maori programs aimed at enhancing their participation in exercise, recreation
and sport began in 1989 and, since 1997, the He Oranga Poutama program
has been running. This program involves kaiwhakahaere (coordinators)
who facilitate Maori physical activity through a combination of information
provision, advocacy, coordination, capability development and the provision
of on-going traditional and culturally appropriate activities and events
for Maori. Concluding comments
Features of New Zealand’s promotion of active lifestyles are that
there has been a comprehensive social marketing campaign in place since
1999 and a suite of programs and initiatives supporting the campaign
addressing a number of settings and demographic groups. Bibliography
Bauman, A., McLean, G., Hurdle, D., Walker, S., Boyd, J., van Aalst,
H. & Carr H. (2003). Evaluation of the national “Push Play”
campaign in New Zealand – creating population awareness of physical
activity. NZ Medical J;116,:1179.
Deloitte. Sport and Recreation New Zealand. Review
of the performance of SPARC during the 2002-2006 period. Wellington: Deloitte;
2006. www.sparc.org.nz.
Accessed 18 November, 2006.
Ministry of Health. Healthy Eating – Healthy
Action. What’s happening now. www.moh.govt.nz
Accessed 10 November, 2006.
Physical Activity Taskforce. Physical Activity Taskforce Report. Wellington:
Hillary Commission; 1998.
SPARC. SPARC Facts. Results of the New Zealand Sports and Physical
Activity surveys (1997-2001). Wellington: SPARC; 2003.
SPARC. An introduction to active movement. Koringa Hihiko. Wellington:
SPARC; 2004.
SPARC. Active Schools Plan. Wellington: SPARC; 2004.
SPARC. Green Prescription and He Oranga Poutama. www.sparc.org.nz.
Accessed 25 October, 2006.
SPARC. Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2006. Wellington: SPARC;
2006.
Sullivan C, Oakden J, Young J, Butcher H, & Lawson R. (2003) Obstacles
to action. A study of New Zealanders’ physical activity and nutrition.
Wellington: SPARC.
World Health Organization. Global Strategy on diet, physical activity
and health. Geneva: World Health Organisation; 2004. Contact
Dr Ross has also been a Board Member of Sport and Recreation New Zealand
since 2001.
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