[JUDGING] We the People
Section: Best Multiplatform Campaign - Paid
Organisation Name: Safefood
Campaign Questions
Name Of Brand Client
Safefood
Campaign Name
The Food Environment - Talk About Food
Personpeople Who Led This Campaign
Aoife O’Reilly, Safefood - Digital Marketing Manager, Aoife Cooney – Strategy & Digital; Augusto Gil – Social-first Creative & Content; Jenny Murphy Byrne – Campaign Coordination & Performance, We the People
Do You Use Alt Text In Your Images And Caption Your Videos
Yes. Accessibility was built into the social content. Campaign videos were fully subtitled/captioned so they could be understood without sound, and alt text was used on static imagery where supported by the platform. Content was also designed for mobile-first consumption, with clear typography, strong contrast and visual information supported by written copy rather than relying on imagery alone.
What Objective For Campaign
The problem was not that people had never heard healthy-eating advice. It was that the public conversation still placed responsibility almost entirely on individuals, while the “food environment” around them, advertising, pricing, placement, availability and promotion, quietly shaped what felt normal, easy and affordable.
Safefood wanted to change that. The campaign had three objectives: explain what the food environment is to adults across the island of Ireland; help people recognise how it influences everyday choices, particularly for children; and stimulate a wider public conversation about the need for change. Ultimately, this was the first step towards building public understanding and support for upstream policy reform, including stronger regulation of food marketing to children.
Outline Your Strategy For This Campaign
We used behavioural science to move audiences from explanation to recognition.
Phase 1, Trusted Voices, established credibility. GPs, behavioural psychologists and marketing scientists each delivered one sharp insight in 30–60 second vertical videos, translated into social-first language for TikTok, Instagram and Meta. The aim was to give people a vocabulary for something they experienced every day but rarely named.
Phase 2, A Day in Ads, changed the perspective completely. Teenagers in Dublin, Belfast and rural Ireland filmed their genuine exposure to food advertising from morning to night. The first-person POV format let audiences experience the cumulative pressure rather than be lectured about it. Brands were anonymised so the issue remained systemic, not accusatory.
Distribution was performance-led: content launched organically first, then only the strongest assets received paid amplification. That meant media spend followed demonstrated audience interest rather than assumption.
Every phase, format and platform had a job: experts explained; young people revealed; organic performance tested; paid media scaled.
What Were The Outcomes For This Campaign Metrics Next Question
The campaign changed the conversation from “people should make better choices” to “what is shaping those choices in the first place?”
Trusted Voices gave audiences a clear, credible explanation of the food environment. A Day in Ads then made that idea personal: comment analysis showed people identifying the same advertising and environmental cues in their own lives, sharing experiences and discussing the issue without prompting. Phase 2 generated stronger engagement than the explanatory first phase, showing that recognition-led storytelling was landing.
The campaign also travelled beyond social. Insights and public response fed into Safefood’s Appetite for Change engagement, bringing policymakers, public-health leaders, researchers and community voices into discussion about food-environment reform.
The result was not awareness for awareness’s sake. Safefood created a shared language for a structural public-health issue and a platform for wider conversation about change.
What Are Your Metrics For This Campaign Real Metrics Please
Real campaign results:
4M+ impressions across TikTok, Instagram and Meta
3.5M+ video plays
30+ video assets
10,700+ link clicks to Safefood resources
6,500+ tracked interactions in Phase 2, including likes, comments and saves
A Day in Ads alone: 596,000+ impressions and 589,000+ views
TikTok delivered the strongest organic engagement
The full campaign was delivered on a €50,000 budget covering strategy, creative, production and distribution. Content was released organically first; paid support was then concentrated behind assets that had already demonstrated audience resonance. Rather than paying to force weak content into feeds, Safefood used performance data to decide what deserved scale.
Is There Anything Else You Want To Add Be Brief
Public-health campaigns about diet usually tell people what to do. This one asked a more uncomfortable question: who designed the environment in which those choices are being made?
On a modest budget, Safefood used behavioural science, social-native storytelling and performance-led paid amplification to turn an unfamiliar policy concept into something people could recognise in their own day and then discuss with each other.
