Client: ACT Health
Industry: Public Health
Objective: To help Canberrans decide to buy healthier foods when they are shopping for groceries
Background
Healthier Choices Canberra, an initiative of the ACT Health Directorate, partnered with Melba IGA, a local grocery store, for a 10-week campaign to give shoppers healthy recipe options to encourage them to buy healthier food as an alternative or companion to whatever they had originally planned to purchase at the IGA.
Challenges
ACT Health faced several challenges in creating a healthier food experience for shoppers:
- Lack of knowledge: Customers may not know which foods are healthy or how to use them in recipes.
- Lack of time: Customers may not want to take the time to add these foods to their shopping list or locate them in the store.
- Lack of engagement: Customers may not be sufficiently engaged by the idea of healthy eating suggestions to access the recipes.
- Lack of data: This was a pilot project, so Healthier Choices Canberra had no baseline data to understand the level of engagement and the reach of the campaign.
Solution
A series of information stacks were created in the Tiparra app that included general information about Healthier Choices Canberra, details about the partnership with the Melba IGA, and 5 healthy recipes, one released each fortnight over a 10-week period. The app addressed the challenges by including the following features:
- QR Codes to Access Information: These codes gave shoppers a launch point to access the campaign information and the recipes. A corflute sign stood at the entrance to the store, while marketing flyers and printed colouring-in sheets included the QR code as well. In addition, QR code tags placed next to the key ingredients of the fortnight’s recipe increased in-store awareness about the campaign and directed shoppers to the current recipe.
- Customer Engagement and Interaction: By accessing the recipes, shoppers learned about healthier foods to buy and how to prepare them. Each recipe listed ingredients and the method, along with interactive elements that allowed customers to vote on the recipe. The app saved time by listing ingredients in a “shopping list” format that allowed customers to check-off items as they added them to their basket. The app also provided a customised map to quickly locate each ingredient. Previous recipes remained visible in the app, so customers could access them throughout the campaign. Other popular interactions included a survey about healthier choices and a colouring-in competition for children, who could pick up the sheet at the store or download and print it via the app.
- Data-driven insights: The app collected and analysed anonymised user data on the number of unique users and interactions, and which sections of the app those interactions were recorded against. ACT Health learned which recipe was the most popular, what information attracted the most users, and which interactions customers found the most engaging. ACT Health was able to use the customer poll results and survey answers to guide future campaigns.
Results
The Healthier Choices initiative successfully achieved its objective, leading Canberrans to make decisions about buying healthier food items while shopping. The app provided results in the following areas:
- Campaign awareness: Customers used the QR codes to access information about healthier eating, the recipes, shopping list, and store maps.
- Customer engagement: Customers interacted with the polls and survey, and the colouring-in competition was popular with children.
- Driver for the future: The data analytics allowed ACT Health to refine and customise future campaigns.
- Win-win situation: The local IGA also benefitted by receiving free publicity related to the campaign, resulting in increased foot traffic for the store.
Conclusion
With the Tiparra mobile app and stacks created to meet the needs of the target audience, ACT Health achieved its objective of encouraging customers to buy healthier foods and received customised data to help guide future campaigns.
