Michelle Obama’s “Let us Move “is a campaign that was
started by the former first lady to target childhood obesity within a
generation and influence children to reach adulthood at a healthy weight.
Obesity is America’s number one leading health epidemic, affecting more than 93
million Americans today (OAC) (Babel 27). Thus, this campaign with Michelle Obama as the
main spokesperson was destined to be a success. Obama served as a role model for women and worked as an advocate for
poverty awareness, education, nutrition, physical activity, and healthy
eating. The campaign’s idea started when Obama saw herself cooking
unhealthy meals to feed her children before becoming the first lady. The
campaign focuses on four key components: making healthy choices, healthier
foods in schools, affordability of healthy foods and focus on physical
education. It was much needed that more
influencers helped promote this campaign. The official ad agency responsible
for the campaign was LEAP agency (“Let’s Move Campaign”). This was a mega agency as per
the definition “Mega agencies provide a range of services from advertising to
Public relation to operating their own inhouse radio stations and tv studios”
(Campbell et al. 706). According to the company they planned the campaign such
that, “We had a vast audience, so we needed a multi-channel media plan to
ensure everyone in Cincinnati and greater southwest Ohio region heard about the
Let’s Move! Campaign” (“Let’s Move Campaign”). The campaign started with radio,
later moved to YouTube where multiple influencers aced as spokesperson for the
cause. Furthermore, there exists a website for the campaign which compiles a
multitude of resources that can be used for people to exercise a healthy life.
(“Onward | Let’s Move!”). Beyonce made a music video “Move your Bodies” as part
of this campaign (Zarque 03:15-05:21) and multiple other celebrities were also
involved in this campaign. The
campaign however suffered a lot of criticism mainly due to the unwise choice of
influencers promoting the camping who were later found doing advertisements for
junk food brand while on one hand promoting the cause of making healthy
choices. Alongside this the campaign suffered more critique for the vision and
plan that was followed in promotion of the cause as well – such as being too
narrow of targeted children.
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| Michelle Obama in the American white House |
The campaign was aimed towards both
the children and the parent. The children were made to realize the importance
of living a healthy life while parents were made aware of how they could
promote healthy choices in their households. Obama herself was seen cooking
healthy meals on online videos and giving healthy eating tips to kids (Cooking Light). The campaign was to
majorly appeal to kids and kids love to hear the words coming from their idols.
Obama bought into the game multiple industry leader to support her cause. The
example of Beyonce has already been shared. Since the two years of the campaign
Shaquille O’Neal joined Obama and visited a school where they taught exercises
to children’s during break (Sifferlin). This is not something new in the ad
industry. In 1970’s “video style adds soon saturated and featured performers
like Paula Abdul, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson ….” (Campbell et al. 704). So,
from a long time featuring influential people in a campaign is a good practice
and this was something the campaign did perfectly.
However, the influencers
that were chosen for the campaign were the reason the campaign was targeted
with criticism. Beyonce’s two years later of her release of the video for
campaign was found drinking Pepsi in one of the ads and Shaq launched his own
chain of soda (Sifferlin). Thus, children once who were told by the same people
to make healthy choices were now seeing their start not doing the same thing.
This had a drastic effect of the persuasiveness of the ad campaign.
The campaign also employed
bandwagon approach. The influencers used showed that they were using the same
healthy practices which they were promoting such as Beyonce taking a big bite
from the apple at the end for her music video (Zarque 03:15-05:21) and Shaq
doing exercise with the school students along with the First Lady. Thus,
implying that as they are doing it and many others are doing it so the children
should also start following the same lifestyle they are prompting. This
technique again lost its impact when the very people prompting it seemed to not
be making those very choices again.
The campaign was also heavily in according to VALS as for
placing their ads. They touched multiple niches of market to promote their
cause. For example to target achievers and experiencers Let’s Move bought in
athletes such as Shaq as, “ VALS data shows that achievers and experiencers
watch more sports and news channels” (Campbell et al. 714). Which meant they
were more likely to be convinced by a sportsman speaking to them while thinker
who “TV dramas and documentaries” (Campbell et al. 714) could be more appeal to
by using celebrities as the spokesperson.
The goal of the campaign was to review programs and policies that relate
to childhood nutrition and physical activity and develop a plan of action that
would reduce the number of childhood obesity cases in America by 2030 (“Onward
| Let’s Move!”). Some cultural ideologies into the
campaign included the target population being school going children. Critics
noted the need to target infants who are aged 0-2 years to ensure that they are
introduced to healthy eating at a young age (“Onward | Let’s
Move!”). The number of young Americans suffering had significantly increased by
the time of the launch of Let’s move campaign. The same media they used to
promote their cause was negating it thus was contradicting the ideology behind
the whole idea of the campaign. A similar campaign was laughed under the name
of Food4Thought by British Heart Foundation (Clark) that shared some of the similar
ideologies and methods of advertisement like Let’s Move who launched a plan to
counter the childhood obesity rather than simply creating awareness as Let’s
Move was initially doing.
The campaign failed to address the current popular cultural trends in
media that actually cause childhood obesity. Telling children what to do and
what not to do is not going to have an impact unless they are taught about it
in a way that seems normal. No school going children will want to bring a apple
to the lunch when his friends are eating junk food. The children rather need to
be told that it is okay to practice such lifestyle even if they are different.
Also such campaigns can have a negative social and political impacts. It on one
hand without a doubt was increasing awareness and having some impact but by
pointing out that obesity is a problem it could lead to obese children being
bullied by their fellows. Also, fighting the companies that produce beverages
and junk food for means that these companies might lose profits, and which can
cause problems with political economy of a country. The campaign could have
rather used cartoon characters instead of celebrities to promote the cause as
it would have had more impact on children instead of using celebrities as we
know how of a healthy lifestyle most of TV icons live. Also addressing this
problem for a much younger audience could have saved the campaign from much
critique.
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