Food Connects seeks to cultivate healthy food and farm connections in classrooms, cafeterias and communities across southern Vermont. It hired Good Egg Marketing to develop a creative campaign to help schools increase participation in their school meals programs.
School food has improved, especially in Vermont, but many students and parents still perceive it as poor quality, unappetizing, and above all, uncool. After conducting market research, Good Egg and Food Connects decided that our best chance of improving their perceptions would be to emphasize that school meals provide the energy to “power up” for a busy day.
Good Egg Marketing wrote a creative brief and recruited a graphic designer, who developed a logo and social media images that would subtly up the “cool factor” by using colors, type, and images echoing the social media that teens are exposed to every day.
The images were used on Facebook and printed on posters, along with templates for menus. A pilot group of Vermont school food service managers received the materials, along with a summary of best practices for increasing school food participation.
While the campaign materials generated a positive response when they were used, the food service managers were too busy to fully implement the program.
“Good Egg Marketing and the graphic designer, Katie Rutherford, did a great job at developing a message and look and feel that resonated with students,” says Food Connects Executive Director Richard Berkfield. “It was great to hear such positive feedback about the new materials, even though it’s disheartening to be reminded of how little time and support our hard working food services staff has to implement great marketing opportunities like this.”
