Food Protection Trends - September/October 2020 - 346

advertisement] doesn't have that eye-catching appeal and
there's nothing there to validate that is a safe something to
click on." Participants also shared that, "I'm just leery about
clicking on things" and "I just won't click on anything unless I
know specifically if it's associated with a well-known website
that it will take me to." With the virus, scams, and safety
concerns surrounding the Internet currently, most people
are hesitant to click on banner advertisements on webpages.
Therefore, banner advertisements are assumed to not be a
very reliable way to reach consumers directly.
Suggestions from the focus groups for moving forward
included advertising on social media because that is where
most of the population can be reached; placing the video
advertisement on monitors located in the meat department
of grocery stores; including a food thermometer coupon as
a portion of the advertisement; placing the advertisements
on grocery store phone apps and online ordering websites;
placing a "160° is Good" sticker on ground beef packages;
educating kids, who will then encourage their parents to use a
food thermometer; providing an informational pamphlet on
proper cooking and thermometer use with a grill purchase;
and encouraging television chefs and recipe websites to
include internal temperatures in their presentations and to
promote the campaign. These suggestions provide insight
into where consumers themselves feel food safety advertising
would be most effective in reaching the population.
Overview and significance of findings
Scientifically sound regulations and validated control
strategies implemented since the early 1990s by food safety
professionals at all points along the beef chain continuum
have lowered the occurrence and load of STEC on beef.
However, the current numbers and severity of STEC
infections attributable to beef, along with the frequency
and volume of recalls due to raw beef contaminated with
STEC, provide justification and urgency for continued
research to further lower the prevalence and levels of this
bacterium in beef. Also needed are additional messaging and
outreach efforts related to the requirements for and benefits
of proper cooking and thermometer use to mitigate risk for
end users (consumers). To this end, the entirety of the "160°
is Good" campaign resulted in an estimated 11,502,718
million impressions within a 16-week span within and near
Fayetteville, NC. The 8,328,300 radio impressions equate to
a 73% reach in the Fayetteville market, with almost twothirds of the residents within the six target zip codes seeing
or hearing a work product/advertisement at least one time
(data not shown). Thus, it seems likely that the targeted
market was adequately saturated with the message. The
absence of statistically significant differences in thermometer
use between pre- and post-campaign persons queried via
phone would suggest that perhaps the message content,
format, and/or method and timing of delivery were not
optimal. In fact, a primary take-home message from focus

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Food Protection Trends September/October

group participants was that delivery of the message to a
captive audience, for example those attending a movie, was
more desirable and effective than other modalities, especially
radio spots. In retrospect, perhaps a far greater number of
individuals should have been interviewed by phone both
pre- and post-campaign, and perhaps only/primarily folks
hearing or seeing the message should have been interviewed
post-campaign to determine if they experienced changes in
behavior from directly viewing or hearing the "160° is Good"
work products/advertisements.
More effective campaign methods targeting large
populations must be developed to better communicate the
importance of using a digital food thermometer to determine
doneness of burgers. Findings from the "160° is Good"
campaign suggest that those who were able to recall this
advertising did have increased awareness of the importance
and need to use a food thermometer for food safety purposes.
Therefore, response-efficacy surrounding food thermometer
use was increased. Although the campaign influenced food
safety behaviors, room for improvement is obvious. The more
comfortable consumers are with talking about food safety
and practicing safe food procedures, the more likely they
are to exhibit safe food handling and preparation behaviors.
Explanations for why "160° is Good" did not evoke sufficient
emotion to persuade consumers to appreciably change their
food safety behaviors may include the following: (i) it did
not adequately emphasize the health risks of contracting
a foodborne illness, (ii) message components were not
relatable to the audience, or (iii) the audience did not engage
with the campaign for whatever reasons, thus creating no
emotional ties to the information. A food safety campaign
should induce a strong emotion that will be remembered by
consumers when they are grilling burgers so that they feel
the need to use a food thermometer to check for doneness.
Of note, a beef food safety campaign should not create a fear
of the cattle and livestock industry, but instead should place
emphasis on the importance and responsibility the consumer
assumes once the raw beef product is in their possession
during storage, preparation, and cooking. It is important for
consumers to understand the role they play in their health
and well-being rather than placing food safety concerns
solely on the industry or regulatory authorities. Food safety
advocates can help consumers realize this by stressing the
responsibility consumers have to adopt food safety practices
in their homes.
Our results highlight the limitations related to media
campaigns that are focused on changing risky behaviors.
Not only does it require market penetration of a message
(which arguably occurred with >11 million impressions over
a 16-week period by ca. 210,000 individuals living in the
vicinity of Fayetteville, NC), but a campaign must include
a message that has impact. While this campaign reached
many people, it demonstrates the difficulty in measuring
impact and the challenges of quantifying a change in
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