This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more
Learn how we use evidence-based behaviour change campaigns to improve and save lives in low-income countries.
Learn about how DMI brings together two different worlds: demonstrable scientific practice and creative storytelling.
Location Nutrition
Poor dietary diversity, caused most directly by a lack of animal source foods (ASF) in the diet, drives persistent undernutrition in Mozambique. DMI produced an evidence-based, results-oriented social and behaviour change campaign (SBC) strategy to increase the frequency of ASF consumption among households in rural and peri-urban settings living on less than USD 3.20 per day. Through Sabor, meaning ‘flavour’ in Portuguese, DMI will implement this SBC strategy to support a wider ASF promotion project by The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) from 2023 – 2026 in the Nacala and Beira corridors in Mozambique.
Mozambique
Nutrition – increase the consumption of animal source foods amongst low-income households
16 x 1-minute radio spots 20 x 15-minute long format recipe spots 3 x 2-minute live action films A range of point of sale (POS) promotional items
DMI developed the SBC strategy over a period of nine weeks between July and September 2022 and will implement it in the Nacala and Beira corridors over the next two and a half years, until January 2026. The campaign will take place in seven provinces in northern Mozambique: Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Manica, Niassa, Sofala, Tete and Zambezia. The corridor is home to about 18 million people.
Science
DMI takes an evidence-informed approach to determine which messages to prioritise in our campaigning to promote behaviour change. The campaign message weightings were informed by the contextual analysis conducted during our preceding project, Frango. These messages are:
Stories
We are building a solid campaign identity using consistent slogans, imagery, characters, and messages across platforms. The campaign will develop an emotional association in the target audience between ASF consumption and ideas of happiness, health, and unity in the family. To promote ASF products to consumers, we are developing a recurring set of characters – A família dos saborizados – a relatable, low-income household which bickers and bonds over food. The audience will grow to know each character and associate with some of them. By featuring the various members of a typical household and making each of them prominent in different stories, the campaign can connect with each sub-group of the target audience (eg. fathers, mothers, adolescents, young children). The slogan for the campaign is “mais sabor, mais amor”, which means “more flavour, more love”.
Saturation
Our communication strategy combines above-the-line (mass media) activities reaching a wider target audience, and more targeted, below-the-line (community level) activities to encourage increased consumption of ASF.
Radio is the most widely consumed of all mass media in Mozambique, with 59% of urban and 52% of rural people listening at least once a week (DHS 2011). Overall, radio presents the most cost-effective means of reaching our target audience. We will be broadcasting our radio spots on five provincial and 22 community radio stations over the course of the campaign.
While only 11% of rural audiences watch TV regularly, we will utilise this medium to generate demand among urban and peri-urban populations through engaging audio-visual content.
We will also use printed materials as a useful additional channel to engage audiences at points of sale, such as shops and markets where individuals can immediately follow the call to action and influence purchasing behaviour.
Project impact
We will conduct monitoring of its campaign in collaboration with Mozambique-based partners. We will use the services of our established radio monitoring partner, VONEKA for data on radio output. Monitoring data for the TV campaign and social media will be obtained from TV channels and Facebook analytics respectively.
To assess the impact of the campaign, the funder for the project, GAIN has contracted Research Triangle Institute (RTI) to conduct evaluation activities for this project. This includes addressing the following research questions:
We are grateful to The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) for supporting this project.