The Ohio SNAP-Ed Social Marketing Campaign, Celebrate Your Plate (CYP), provides budget-friendly recipes, shopping and cooking tips, and around town resources through our website, CelebrateYourPlate.org. CYP recipes and resources are used in direct education and media efforts throughout Ohio. SNAP-eligible families can turn to CYP as a trusted, friendly source of knowledge and information as they try to increase their fruit and vegetable consumption.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted SNAP-Ed efforts in a variety of ways. Celebrate Your Plate used this time as a chance to review website resources and media outreach provided throughout our state.
During summer of 2021, CYP worked with a media agency to perform a complete English-to-Spanish translation of their website to reach a broader audience within Ohio. Included in the translation were:
- Recipe PDFs
- Video Subtitles
- CYP Newsletters
Below are two photos of the English and Spanish versions of CelebrateYourPlate.org. Using this process as a model, in the coming years CYP hopes to translate their website to other languages commonly spoken in Ohio by the SNAP-Ed target audience.
During late summer of 2021, the CYP team worked to create additional resources for those spending more time at home due to the pandemic. They created a Video Tips section of the website. This section features various cooking, gardening, and budget-friendly-shopping skills from SNAP-Ed and Extension programs across the country.
Around this same time, the CYP team launched Kids Activity Sheets, which allow families and educators to easily pair CYP recipes with related activities, such as books, crafts, and gardening projects. With each activity sheet centered around a different food group, learning has never been so easy, tasty, and fun!
Increasing media efforts and presence were very important to the CYP team. In early-spring and late-summer of 2021, CYP launched two flights of outdoor billboards across Ohio. Each billboard flight featured a CYP recipe and some highlights of our campaign. A photo of a first-flight CYP billboard is shown below.
To further reach the target audience, the CYP team worked to create Celebrate Your Plate all-screen videos, each featuring depictions of various families within the CYP audience. These videos speak about the advantages and elements of the CYP website. They feature the diversity of families and cultures throughout Ohio. The videos were shared across different streaming services, internet ad placements, CYP social media, and those of partners.
CYP also created testimonial videos, where two Ohio SNAP-Ed program assistants, and two Ohio SNAP-Ed participants were interviewed about their experiences of teaching, learning, and utilizing CYP. These videos were posted on various pages on the CYP website and were also shared on social media platforms. SNAP-Ed program assistants were encouraged to use these videos when establishing new programming in the community, as well as during their classes. Stills from our all-screen and testimonial videos are displayed below.
Ohio SNAP-Ed is looking forward to further expand CYP, both as a social marketing campaign and as a brand that helps the target audience increase fruit and vegetable consumption. The expansion of CYP media and messaging in 2021 helped to achieve an aided recall rate of about 23% within our statewide target population.1 In addition, in FY21, impressions and reach were increased by 1,309% and 21%, respectively, compared to FY20.2
CYP has shown to be an outstanding platform to reach Ohioans during pandemic times. Keeping SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework Indicator R2 at the forefront of campaign planning and implementation processes, we anticipate the continuation of Celebrate Your Plate’s expansion, as well as the impact that it has in the lives of SNAP-eligible Ohioans.
1 Holley, S., Souhleris, P., (December, 2021), OSU Extension SNAP-Ed Program: Celebrate Your Plate Campaign Evaluation Study Findings and Insights, Scott Holley Consulting, LLC.
2 Zubieta, A. C., (December, 2021), Celebrate Your Plate Total Impressions Report, Ohio SNAP-Ed., The Ohio State University.