Implementation of Customer Orientation Benchmark in “Unpack the Salt” Campaign

About the Campaign

In 2014, The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth), an organisation funded by the State Government of Victoria, established the Salt Reduction Partnership Group (also known as VicSalt Partnership). This partnership worked to initiate the strategy to reduce salt consumption in Victoria. For that, they released the “Unpack the Salt” campaign in May 2015. This campaign was created in response to the high salt intake among Australian adults which is about 8 to 9 g/day, which was almost double the recommended intake (Grimes et al., 2017). The main goal was to achieve commitment and consensus from the public, government, and industry to take action in reducing the population salt in Victoria. While the expected outcome was to achieve a 1 g/day reduction in average salt intake for both adulta and children by the end of 2019 (Salt Reduction in Victoria, n.d.).

Customer Orientation Benchmark

This essay will assess the implementation of the customer orientation benchmark in the “Unpack the Salt” campaign. This benchmark is about developing an understanding of the customer, including their characteristic, knowledge, attitude, behaviour, and needs, through research analysis (Suggs & Speranza, 2022). The research will be helpful to determine the strategic marketing decision that is needed to solve the issue (Grier & Bryant, 2005). Therefore, the campaign will be well executed, right on target, and powerful enough to change their behaviour.

In 2015, research was conducted to understand the knowledge, attitude, and behaviour related to salt intake among Victorian (Grimes et al., 2017). The result became the source of information that was useful to decide the campaign strategy. Later on, the data can be used to investigate if there is any change in knowledge, attitude, and behaviour at the end of the campaign period. This research was conducted by using a cross-sectional design with a total of 2398 participants, aged from 18 to 65 years. Adults from 18 to 65 were chosen as the sample as they will become the campaign target. They did not state why choosing this group as their target, yet it was most likely because adults have the ability and resources to reduce their salt intake. Even though the expected outcome is also reducing the salt intake in children, their salt intake usually depends on their parents.

Understanding the Knowledge

The research shows that the majority understand the fact that high salt intake will damage their health and is related to high blood pressure and health disease (Grimes et al., 2017). However, fewer people understand that salt intake is also related to stroke and kidney disease. This should be a concern knowing that stroke is among the top five leading causes of death in Australia in 2020 (Deaths in Australia, Leading Causes of Death - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, n.d.). The good thing is that 75% of them had already known that processed food is the main source of their dietary salt. However, only one-third of participants understood the way sodium is related to salt, the maximum amount of salt they can consume, and the possibility that their own intake might be more than the dietary recommendation. Actually, this is reasonable that general people did not know about the relation between salt and sodium since they did not study or work in the nutrition field. It is also understandable that they failed to measure their salt intake because they might not know how to measure or how much salt is allowed if it is measured using a spoon or other tools they usually use rather than using a scale. Nevertheless, it will be great if they have this knowledge for their own good.

By doing research, it is possible to understand how the level of knowledge is different in each sample group. It certainly will be beneficial for the marketing strategy because segmentation can be created so that the approach for each group can be more specific. The research shows that overall, women had better knowledge about the dietary source of salt and how it impacts health in general. As the younger participant tend to know more about the link between sodium and salt and the recommended intake, which is more theoretical, older know more about the dietary source of salt, which is more practical. It might happen as the older had more cooking experience than the younger participant, so they were better at identifying the cooking ingredients that contains a high amount of salt. The older participant also had better awareness of health conditions linked to the excessive intake of salt.

This campaign used many of different paid media, such as Google Search, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, Instagram influencers, etc, to spread the messages (Salt Reduction in Victoria, n.d.). Using these kinds of paid media makes it easier to send the message to a certain target group as wanted. For example, content about the dietary source of salt and the health impact of consuming too much salt be delivered to a younger user. As result, the ads will only appear on certain people’s page depending on how it is set up. For more blanket coverage, they also use owned media such as website and social media.

Understanding the Attitude

Attitude assessment through the research indicates that only less than half of the participants believe that they can improve their health by reducing the amount of salt intake. Seems that even though most of them knew about the effect of excessive salt intake on their health, their attitude did not in line. Another finding shows that more than half participants thought it was difficult to find the low salt option in restaurants (Grimes et al., 2017). It was such a potential for the campaign to include restaurant owners as the campaign target as they might be willing to reduce the amount of salt they use if their customers want it.

More than half participants thought that there should be a regulation to limit the amount of salt in manufactured food. This result shows that there is a positive link between knowledge and attitude. This attitude came after knowing that their salt intake mostly comes from packed and processed food. Almost half participants agreed that understanding food labels related to salt intake is difficult. This is a result of the low understanding of the link between salt and sodium. It is known that in the nutritional information label, the amount of salt is not stated. It only shows the amount of sodium. No. wonder that it is hard to understand, especially for those who do not know the link between salt and sodium. Besides, participants also stated that the amount of salt was not the one they are really concerned about. Participants put more concern on the amount of sugar and saturated fat intake. Therefore, raising awareness and concern about salt became a part of this campaign.

Understanding the Behaviour

Behaviour assessment shows that almost half participants had tried to reduce their salt intake. They did it mostly by using more herbs and spices to give more flavour instead of adding salt. Half of them also tried not to eat from fastfood outlets and avoid processed and manufactured-packed food as they usually contain a lot of salt (Grimes et al., 2017). These behaviours most likely to be performed by those who already had knowledge about the source of salt in dietary products and had a high concern about the amount of salt intake. Even though some people had already tried to cut their salt intake, more people are still needed to join this movement, so that the population’s salt intake can decrease.

Campaign Execution

After understanding more about the characteristic of their customer, it was clear that they need to execute the campaign based on their needs. To deal with the lack of knowledge and awareness, educational contents focusing on the type of food that contains a high amount of salt were released. To deal with the lack of policy that regulates the amount of salt in manufactured food, they tried to talk to the federal government as food supply comes from national-level companies. They asked the government to set a target for companies in reducing the amount of salt. To provide a wider range of choices of low salt food, they released the “Victorian Salt Reduction Innovation Grants” to get attention from food factories, so that they were willing to reduce the amount of salt in their products (McKenzie et al., 2019).

Conclusion

To summarize, it is important to do research before creating a social campaign Through research, it is possible to identify the current state of the marketing target, including, knowledge, attitude, current behaviour, needs, or any other thing that is needed. This information is vital for the formulation of the campaign strategy. The “Unpack the Salt” campaign shows that they can get useful information from the research and use that information to decide what intervention is needed to solve the problem.

Reference

Deaths in Australia, Leading causes of death - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (n.d.). Retrieved 16 September 2022, from https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/life-expectancy-death/deaths-in-australia/contents/leading-causes-of-death

Grier, S. & Bryant, C. A. (2005). Social marketing in public health. Annual Review of Public Health, 26(February), 319–339. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.26.021304.144610

Grimes, C. A., Kelley, S. J., Stanley, S., Bolam, B., Webster, J., Khokhar, D. & Nowson, C. A. (2017). Knowledge, attitudes and behaviours related to dietary salt among adults in the state of Victoria, Australia 2015. BMC Public Health, 17(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4451-0

McKenzie, B., Trieu, K., Grimes, C. A., Reimers, J. & Webster, J. (2019). Understanding barriers and enablers to state action on salt: Analysis of stakeholder perceptions of the vichealth salt reduction partnership. Nutrients, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11010184

Salt Reduction in Victoria. (n.d.). Retrieved 15 September 2022, from https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/programs-and-projects/salt-reduction

Suggs, L. S. & Speranza, C. (2022). Social Marketing Benchmark Criteria. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Social Marketing, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14449-4_134-1