Garcia360° & Manu Ginobili Team Up For The CDC.

As part of an ongoing media campaign to encourage physical activity among multicultural tweens, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and agency Garcia360° (www.garcia360.com) called upon a man who knows quite a bit about staying active, San Antonio Spurs guard and Olympic gold medalist Emanuel “Manu” Ginobili, to star in two television PSAs.

Both spots, “Incomplete” and “We See” (:30), feature Ginobili on a basketball court displaying his skills. “Incomplete” has him going through the motions of driving the lane, and while the sounds are present, the ball is absent. When the ball suddenly appears, his voice-over explains that without the encouragement from his parents to be an active child, he wouldn’t be as successful as he is today.

“We See” shows Ginobili in a gym. The voice-over compares what one sees on the outside ­ a rising star, a world basketball champion and a reining gold medalist ­ with what one can’t necessarily see on the inside ­ a grown man that was physically active as a child. The message is that his involvement in physical activity as a child not only helped him avoid health problems, but also helped him to develop leadership skills and a greater self-esteem. The two spots are in Ginobili’s native Spanish language to reach Hispanic parents.

Longtime CDC agency Garcia360°developed these spots as part of the ongoing “Niños Activos. Familias Sanas” (“Healthy Kids. Active Families”) campaign. “Niños Activos. Familias Sanas” is the Spanish-language parent extension of the CDC’s “VERB. It’s what you do,” obesity prevention campaign. The goal of this national, integrated, multicultural campaign is to educate target audiences about the need to get tweens (9 to 13 year-olds) involved in one hour of physical activity every day.

To effectively reach out to the Hispanic/Latino community, campaign efforts by Garcia360° target parents and adult influencers with culturally relevant, bilingual messages. The campaign uses television, radio, print ads, and the Internet to reach parents across the country. Other components of the campaign include partnerships with media, private companies and community-based organizations, in conjunction with research and evaluation efforts.