Abstract
The new Canadian 24-Hr Movement Guidelines recommend youth Sweat, Step, Sleep, and Limit Sitting. However, the majority of Canadian youth are not meeting the Guidelines. Used in order to improve uptake, social marketing strategies such as branding have shown to improve youths' adoption of healthy behaviours. Informed by the Hierarchy of Effects Model and Keller's Brand Equity Pyramid, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of branding the Movement Guidelines on youth's attention to, and recall and uptake of the Guidelines as well as their brand perceptions. Youth participants aged 10-17 years (n=44; Mage=11.87±1.98yrs) were randomly assigned to view the standard, branded Guideline or an unbranded, text-only version. Participants completed a follow-up survey on the Guidelines that targeted brand perceptions. Independent sample t-tests were used to compare group means. While not statistically significant (p<0.05), small to medium sized effects favouring the branded guideline group emerged for brand personality (MB=3.62±0.70; MUB=3.33±0.76; d=0.40) and intentions to follow the Sweat (MB=5.96±1.92; MUB=5.60±1.85; d=0.19) and Step (MB=6.79±1.59; MUB=6.10±1.65; d=0.43) guidelines. These results provide some preliminary evidence that branding should be further investigated as a strategy for enhancing guideline message uptake among children and youth.
