CARE Ghana Uses Social Media Advertising to Reinforce Positive Nutrition

CARE Ghana created a fictional persona, “Abena,” to guide the development of relevant and relatable ads. Abena is a junior high school graduate and 30-year-old female cocoa farmer who lives with her husband, three children, and extended family. She hopes to have three more children to expand the family’s cocoa farming business, which earns her family a monthly income of about $52 USD. Being able to have many healthy children will help the business grow, and also earn Abena respect in her social and familial networks.

Since WhatsApp is a leading social media platform in Ghana and enables two-way communication with the audience, the ads encouraged people to interact with CARE Ghana’s WhatsApp chatbot. Want to give it a try? Chat ‘Hi’ to +233596992991.

Results

Phase 1 of CARE Ghana’s campaign reached 1.3 million men and women in Brong-Ahafo Region, Central, Eastern and Western regions of Ghana. As a result:

• CARE Ghana observed high engagement rates, with 79% of people having watched the video, liked, commented or shared the post. This was +295% above the initial goal of 20%.
• The rate of posts being shared by audience members was +164% over CARE Ghana’s goal, with women 50 years old or older being the most likely to share content and men being the most likely to comment.

Since the campaign linked to CARE Ghana’s WhatsApp chatbot, we found deeper insights, including:

• 35% of those that tapped to start a chat initiated a conversation. This was +35% above our conversion goal of 26%.
• During the campaign, over 13,350 messages were sent to 5,383 people, equating to about 2.8 messages per user
• The most popular sections of the chatbot included information on nutrition for mothers and children. General information about CARE Ghana’s work was also available.

Brand lift study results

For this campaign, Meta’s brand lift study tool helped to evaluate the possible shift in knowledge and attitudes. In addition to ad recall, the study asked three questions:

1. Approval: If you think of the people whose opinion you value, how much would they approve of including red meat in children’s diets?
2. Importance: How important is it to include fruits and vegetables in the diet of a pregnant woman or child for healthy growth?
3. Knowledge: Which of the following foods are good for children’s growth and health under the age of two years?

Post-campaign results showed that these ads had some of the highest ad recall CARE has seen across any SBCC campaign. Most notably, men aged 55-64 had a +12 percentage point recall, while women 18-24 had a +9.8 point recall.

Based on the 1.3 million people the campaign reached, the brand lift study showed it likely led 9,838 additional men 18-24 to have awareness about which foods were good for children’s growth and health. Furthermore, the campaign likely led 2,291 additional men aged 65+ to express that including fruits and vegetables in the diet of a pregnant woman or child was important for healthy growth.

Most interesting, the baselines for Importance and Knowledge were very high – 91% and 93% respectively. Meaning that 91% of the control group already thought including fruits and vegetables in one’s diet was important. However, the baseline for the Approval question, while high, was much lower than these two at only 45%.

What’s next?

While the brand lift study showed a smaller change in knowledge than CARE Ghana had hoped, the communication and WhatsApp conversation metrics indicated that the campaign messaging resounded with the audience. Additionally, baseline results inspired the team to launch a Phase 2 that will ask: if the target audience already had knowledge about best practices in nutrition, how often were women and children including fruits, vegetables, and red meat into their diets? And how might CARE Ghana’s offline programming continue to help break down the barriers that prevented these positive behaviors from occurring?