L.A. County and Sensis partner to develop teen-focused obesity-fighting social network.

Los Angeles County is helping teenagers fight back against obesity by providing them with an avenue to discuss, inform and act. The county‚s Department of Public Health has partnered with Los Angeles-based interactive advertising agency Sensis to develop and promote a Youth Activism Against Obesity (YAAO) social marketing campaign and Web site. Capitalizing on teenagers‚ affinity for social media, the YAAO site will be a social network comprised of a community of peers providing mutual support and shared resources for peer and media awareness of healthy eating and increased physical activity. The site will serve as a point for activism to highlight and negate youth-targeted food marketing that encourages overeating and fast food.

YAAO builds on the existing framework of the Healthy Eating Active Communities (HEAC) initiative, a four-year program funded by The California Endowment, and is designed to address physical activity, nutrition and obesity in school-aged children. This project was made possible by a grant from the Vitamin Cases Consumer Settlement Fund. Created as a result of an antitrust class action, one of the purposes of the fund is to improve the health and nutrition of California consumers. Forty youth leaders, who will be identified by a YAAO project manager and two youth coordinators, will participate in the development and design of the social marketing campaign and the content of the Web site.

“Today’s youth no longer react to traditional media as their older generations do. A cell phone and the Internet are key components of any teenagers‚ daily life, and digital communications are essential for a relevant, insightful and targeted campaign that will successfully reach this demographic,” Sensis CEO Jose Villa said. “We will work hand in hand with YAAO’s youth leaders to create and promote the social networking site where a community of teens will be empowered to drive awareness of youth obesity.”

In addition to creating YAAO’s social network, Sensis will develop an integrated marketing campaign that will help launch and drive activity on the Web site. The agency will leverage targeted social media outlets, like Facebook, that allow advertisers to target recipients by age, gender, location and interest. In addition to paid advertising on social media, Sensis will launch a year-long social media campaign leveraging social content aggregators, social bookmarking and viral online video. Furthermore, the media plan will include local guerrilla offline components such as wild postings and out-of-home advertising. Because of L.A. County‚s diverse and multicultural-dominant population, Sensis‚ ads will be geo-targeted and designed to reach Hispanic and African American audiences. Sensis also will team with Mockingbird Communications to launch a multi-pronged public relations campaign to support the digital and traditional advertising.