Transferability of private food marketing success factors to public food and health policy: An expert Delphi survey

Public policy activities to promote healthy diets have been criticised for their lack of success. Applying a marketing approach to non-commercial policy objectives such as healthy eating, termed social marketing, is an emerging but as yet underdeveloped field. An earlier study conducted a case analysis of recent successful commercial food marketing and identified key success factors that may be further transferred to the public sector. Six of these factors (trend awareness, endorsement, emotion, common value, media coverage, and ‘why and how’) were presented to and discussed by 31 experts in a two-round Delphi survey. The objective was to determine to what extent these factors are used in public information and social marketing campaigns for healthier eating, and what is required to successfully transfer those factors into the public arena.