TAKE CONTROL & BE CARELESS

Table Of Content

About the Food Standards Agency!!

• History • Online Presence

!Brief!!• The Food Standards Agency’s Problem &

Challenge • Goals & Objectives !Audience !!• Who They Are & What They Do • What They Say & What They Need

!Strategy!!• Key Message • Tactics !Timeline !!Evaluation

About the FSA

The Food Standards Agency is an independent government department led by a board appointed to act in the public interest. It is responsible for food safety and hygiene across the UK (food standards, nutrition, food labelling). !As such, their big mission is to ensure that food produced or sold in the UK is safe to eat and consumers have the information they need to make informed choices about where and what they eat. As part of this big mission, the Food Standards Agency aims at improving the lives of people who suffer from food allergies and intolerances. !Previous campaigns to fight food poisoning consisted of: !

“The Chicken Challenge” aiming at raising awareness of food poisoning caused by chicken. “New allergen rules are here” to raise awareness of new rules in allergen information. “Acting on Campylobacter Together” to tackle a disease caused by cross-contamination from raw poultry. !

Values — Put the health of the consumer first - Rely on evidence to inform their actions - Be open and honest in their communication.!!Purpose — Achieve beneficial change in behaviours - Build and maintain effective, consistent and transparent consumer protection.

Who is the Food Standards Agency?

Facebook!FSA posts 1-3 posts per day on its Facebook account and has 1 155 fans. Posts consist mainly of information, articles and tips about food safety/allergens regimes and legislations with pictures, announcements of campaign launches or reposts from other government organisations like Fire Kills to show support. Steve Wearne, Director of Policy at the Food Standards Agency, also takes position on Facebook challenging an article by the Telegraph on new allergens legislations, which scores with the highest engagement in terms of likes, comments and shares. Overall, even if the community is relatively small, it is very engaged as posts get on average twice as much shares than likes. !Twitter!FSA post 1-3 tweets a day and at least 2 retweets. FSA is followed by 24,1 K. Posts consist of food safety tips, news and alerts but the content is featured and differs from Facebook’s content. Twitter content is less about links to articles, reports and studies and more about engaging the audience by addressing them directly, it also contains more short, striking facts and statistics as well as infographics. !Pinterest!FSA has 100 pins classified in 24 boards corresponding to FSA campaigns or website sections (food hygiene, food safety, food waste, food and health, etc.). Most pins are infographics. !Youtube!!The FSA has 1 570 subscribers and 730,223 views on its Youtube account. They post videos regularly for their campaigns as well as didactical videos (food safety coaching) or testimonials (food allergies and intolerances). !Website!FSA website is very complete with information, studies, reports, statistics and research. It contains an extensive section dedicated to food allergies with information on food allergen labelling, warning and advice on how to read them.

Online Presence

Brief

Problem!Allergies can be fatal and are life changing. An estimated 21 million adults in the UK suffer from at least 1 allergy. Hospital admissions for food allergies have increased by 500% in the UK since 1990*. However, there is no cure for food allergies, the ONLY solution is to avoid the food that make people ill. !On one hand, FSA’s responsibility is to improve the lives of people who suffer from food allergies by providing them with the information and tools to be able to live normally, have control on their allergies and avoid food allergy accidents. However statistics show this aim is not attained. !On the other hand, this rise also implies that people suffering from food allergies are being less and less careful while shopping for food or eating at restaurants and get sick eating food they are allergic to. They thus need better help and tools to manage their allergies in a safer way. !!Challenge!FSA’s challenge is not only to inform and raise awareness of the dangers of food allergies but also to change allergic people’s perceptions and behaviours while shopping for food. !*Source: Gupta (2013) on allergyuk.org

FSA’s Problem & Challenge

Goals!!

The FSA wants to make food shopping simpler so people can manage their allergies better. The FSA wants to decrease the number of hospitalisations for food allergies.

!!Objectives!!

To find a so lu t i on aga ins t t ime consuming, unclear food label reading. To help food businesses provide consumers with safe shopping in their stores. To inform of the dangers of food allergies bu t g i ve so l u t i ons and change perceptions that food allergies are so difficult to fight by showing how easily they can be avoided.

Goals & Objectives

Audience

Young people with food allergies and intolerances aged 15 to 25 years’ old.!!

Teenagers and young adults are statistically the most at risk from severe reactions to food allergies*. They are students and start to take their independence by living on their own, away from home, in university halls for example. They take increasing control and responsibility for managing their allergies and have to shop for themselves. Their increased independence leads to risk taking behaviours like not reading food labels or not carrying emergency medication. They want to eat the same foods as their peers and may “try” a food to “see what happens”. !

Young people have a tendency to be careless whereas people with food allergies have to be extremely careful about what they eat. That is why food labelling is so important as there can be potentially serious consequences from eating food that they are allergic to. !!*Source: Anaphylaxis Campaign survey, www.news-medical.net

Who They Are & What They Do

What They Say & What They Need

Sarah, 23, senior year at university: “Since I was young I’ve been intolerant to raw tomato seeds. It took a while to figure out, which I now realise shouldn’t have been the case, but even once I did I was barely any more cautious. I never thought it was a big deal. In fact, I regularly ate things I knew had tomato in. Sometimes I was lucky and there were no seeds, others I wasn’t so lucky. I was ignorant and didn’t know better because the education and awareness about allergies is too limited. There is not enough awareness or information about allergy and this can lead to many naïve mistakes, and sometimes these can be deadly.” !Leo, 19, first year living in university hall:!“When I was younger my allergy was never much of an issue because I wasn't in control of my own food. However, when I became a teenager, I started buying snacks for myself so it started to become more of an issue to deal with. Reading food labels is not easy, it’s something that you really need to learn how to do. It is very tedious and takes ages which can be embarrassing when you’re shopping with your friends or just stopping to buy a snack. I realise know I took too many risks, I think I was trying to be cool by being careless”

Strategy

Key Message

Take control of your allergies & be safely careless.

Don’t let your allergies get in the way, the FSA helps you to shop safely in a simple, quick, careless way.

Tactics

Tactic 1: Shop Carefree App!!

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!Tactic 2: Infographics!!!Tactic 3: “Share Your Careless Story” ! Challenge!

Provides a solution against time consuming, unclear food label reading.

Change perceptions that food allergies are so difficult to fight by showing how easily they can be avoided .

Inform about the dangers of food allergies and give solutions, tips to fight and avoid them.

Raise awareness of the dangers of food allergies and engage in starting the conversation.

Help food businesses provide consumers with safe shopping in their stores by promoting the app.

How it works!!The Shop Carefree app gives young people suffering from food allergies the opportunity to be careless in a safe way. The app allows to scan and check for allergens any products with a barcode in any supermarket. It is designed to make food shopping simpler, avoiding tedious and time-consuming label reading, so that young people can manage their allergies better and in a simpler way. !!As such, the app works in the simplest and most obvious way possible, in 3 steps: Point the barcode - Scan it - Get a green smiley (if it does not match any of the allergens) or a red skull (if it contains one or more allergens). !!The first step after downloading the free app is to personalise it through the “Settings” section from the menu. The user can check the ingredients they are allergic or intolerant to from an extensive list of existing allergens. They can then save their personalised configuration. If the product matches the food allergies, more information on the specific allergenic ingredients contained in the food can be accessed. There is also a “Favourites” section in the app menu where safe food can be stored and shared with friends via social media. !!How it is promoted!!

On FSA website in the “Food allergies and intolerances” section, create a category dedicated to the app and how to download/use it.!On every FSA social platforms: posts on Facebook and Twitter with pictures of the app and direct links to the FSA webpage dedicated to the app , a board in Pinterest with screenshots of the app.!Public figures with allergies share the launching post on their platforms in support for the campaign: actresses Michel Collins and Sarah Hadland, world champion and olympic swimmer Mark Foster and Michelin-starred, television chef Giorgio Locatelli; who all already showed their support to the cause. See p.18.!On Youtube, create a video with a demo of the app.!The app is promoted in partnership with food retailers in store. Promoting the app allows them to improve their CSR communication by showing their customers they care for their health and safety. It also allows them to showcase some allergen free products in an effective and relevant way, driving sales. The partners food retailers are: Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and The Co-operative.

Tactic 1: Shop Carefree App

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Shop Carefree

English actress and TV presenter Michelle Collins experiences allergy through close friend and family.

English actress Sarah Hadland suffered an anaphylactic shock caused by food allergy.

Mark Foster, amongst the most successful British swimmers of all-time, lost his close friend and athlete Ross Baillee who died from an anaphylactic shock caused by food allergy in 1999.

Michelin-starred, television chef Giorgio Locatelli’s daughter Margherita, 16, suffers from multiple food allergies.

Why infographics?!!Infographics allow:!

to inform of the danger of food allergies (what can happen concretely)!to convey striking statistics that (“Hospital admissions for food allergies have increased by 500% in the UK since 1990*” - “The UK is one of the top three countries in the world for the highest incident of allergy**” - Only 1/3 of young allergic from 15 to 25 years’ old carry their emergency medication***”)!to give concrete tips and solutions to avoid those dangers, adopting a funny cool tone (“Do not eat some nuts and then kiss your allergic boyfriend”)!

! They inform and thus induce perceptions change that can lead to behaviour change.!!Where are they released?!!

On Facebook and Twitter as posts enticing to check the infographics, on Pinterest as part of the “Food allergy” board.!On the FSA website section dedicated to food allergies.!!

Source*: Gupta, 2013!Source**: The Allergenic Invasion, 2009!Source***: Allergy Statistics, allergyuk.org, 2014

Tactic 2: Infographics

The “Share your Careless Story” Challenge takes place on Facebook and lasts 3 months. It consists of creating a “Careless Stories” closed group to which members of the FSA community on Facebook can be added by clicking on the link appearing on the launching post of the challenge, on FSA’s timeline.!

!On the group page, young people are invited to share their most awkward, funny or scary allergy moments. The most liked story each month win a (safe!) gastronomic dinner for two at Duck & Waffle, the highest restaurant in the UK or another gastronomic restaurant to choose from a list if outside London.!

!Celebs ambassadors Michelle Collins, Sarah Hadland, Mark Foster and Giorgio Locatelli agree to share their own story on the group page, creating interest for the challenge.!

!The challenge allows to raise awareness of the dangers of food allergies, engage in starting the conversation and create visibility for the FSA organisation as well as the app.

Tactic 3: “Share Your Careless Story” Challenge

Careless

Join the group CarelessStories!

Share your most awkward, funny, scary allergy moments and get a chance to win a (safe!) gastronomic dinner for two at Duck & Waffle, the highest restaurant in the UK !

Timeline

TimelineWEEK 1!

Launch of the app on social media - Release of a demo of the app on Youtube - Creation of a webpage dedicated to the app on FSA’s website. !The launch of the app during the first week allow to gather visibility and raise awareness of the other tactics.

WEEK 2!Release of the infographics on social media and website. !The infographics inform of the dangers and thus entice to download the app that has just been released.

WEEK 3!Launch of the Facebook challenge with celebs sharing their stories on the group. !The challenge refuels the campaign by having the conversation started on food allergies amongst young people, now that they are fully aware of the campaign thanks to previous tactics.

Evaluation

Evaluation

In 3 months!Number of app downloads Number of reviews on the app Tone analysis of reviews on the app Number of views/comments/likes/dislikes on Youtube for the app demo Number of Facebook likes/shares/comments (for 3 tactics) Tone analysis of comments on Facebook and Youtube Number of retweets/favourites on Twitter (for 3 tactics) Number of people entering the Facebook group for the Careless Stories Challenge Number of stories posted on the group Number of people viewing the stories Comments/likes/shares on stories Stories content and tone analysis !After 6 months Percentage of accidents and hospitalisations due to food allergies for young people aged 15 to 25.

Thank You