Owning your moves brings you health
Success Achieved
How ISCA & NowWeMOVE has determined 1.8 million people in 1812 cities to join them during Move Week.
Organisation
| Name: | International Sport and Culture Association |
| Member geography: | International |
| Members: | International |
| Based in: | Denmark |
| Website: | https://www.isca.org |
Introduction
Physical inactivity is the 4th leading risk factor for global mortality. The impact of insufficiently-active lifestyles can be seen through comparing inactivity’s role in global mortality with those of other risk factors. Due to the threat of the physical inactivity “pandemic” and related serious health issues, physical activity has climbed international and national political agendas. However, there is still a gap between political agendas and actions.
Our goal is to make people more physically active. It can only be reached by innovative and practical solutions which we are working to implement on a European level through the NowWeMove campaign.
Discovery
Within a few decades, physical inactivity has become one of the leading risks to European citizens’ well-being and a growing challenge for European economies. But despite increasing evidence of dramatic health and economic costs associated with physical inactivity, we still lack sufficient initiatives to reverse this negative trend. Every citizen wants to be healthy and every government aspires to provide a healthy living environment for its citizens. Ensuring citizens’ well-being was also fundamental to the foundation of the European Union, as the first objective
of its constitution indicates: The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.
From this perspective, our citizens, governments and the European Union all share the same objective. But they are not always on the same page when it comes to recognising the threat inactivity poses to our well- being, or how to tackle it. Each year, half a million Europeans are dying from non-communicable diseases linked to being physically inactive (e.g. type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers) and the economic cost of this inactivity is 80.4 billion Euros per year. The numbers present a clear message: An inactivity time bomb is ticking and we need to defuse it!
ISCA’s NowWeMOVE campaign, established in 2012, is dedicated to increasing the uptake of physical activity – that is because we believe that all citizens have the right to enjoy the physical, mental and social benefits of a physically active lifestyle. However, physical activity promotion relies on a multi-sector approach and on effective initiatives that can assist communities and individual citizens in engaging in a more active lifestyle. That is why the campaign strives to be an effective voice that brings these sectors and citizens together and amplifies the overall voice that aims to promote physical activity in Europe.
Objectives
NowWeMOVE is Europe’s biggest campaign promoting sport and physical activity. Its vision is to get “100 million more Europeans active in sport and physical activity by 2020”. The campaign’s overall objectives are to:
- Raise awareness of the benefits of grassroots sport and physical activity among European citizens;
- Develop and promote opportunities to be active in grassroots sport and physical activity;
- Enable sustainable and innovative capacity building for grassroots sport and physical activity providers;
- Advocate for the societal benefits of grassroots sport and physical activity among policy makers.
Project period
October 2012 - 2020
Project Team
- Laska Nenova – NowWeMOVE Campaign Manager,
- Jacob Schouenborg - ISCA General Secretary,
- Saska Benedicic Tomat – Head of Projects,
- Rachel Payne – head of communications,
- Georgi Staykov – digital marketing,
- Georgi Lazarov – branding and desing
Project Partners
- European Cyclist Federation – partner on European level responsible for the activation of the cycling sector
- Graphical Studio “Punkt” – responsible for the brand identity of the campaign
- PR agency “Salve” – responsible for the external communication and media relations
- 32 National coordinating partners – representing Bulgaria, Romania, Denmark, Germany, France, Spain, Iceland, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Portugal, Hungary, FYROM, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Malta, UK, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Albania, Kosovo, Turkey, Czech Republic
Activities
Due to the scope of the campaign, targeting all European countries, and its limited resources, we needed a creative approach to work on a European level. We decided that the best way to implement the campaign on a European level was through building a strong network of nationally based partners.
Activities:
Capacity building of the national partners - 32 national coordinators representing the coordinating organisations. Capacity building activities include:
- Especially organised workshops, seminars, the MOVE Quality process, MOVE Transfer – transfer of knowledge and initiatives on national and international levels;
- Capacity was built in fields such as – marketing, working with media, working with social media, designing value propositions; working with volunteers; advocacy;
- The National Coordinators and other Strategic Partners have a very intensive interaction with the campaign and are expected to dramatically increase their capacities as a consequence, via the training that the project delivers and of course via their own campaign work. This capacity building is also expected to continue after, both in the campaign context as well as a consequence of the enhanced networks and networking opportunities that the campaign enables.
Creating resource libraries. Since 2012 ISCA has created hundreds of documents aimed at helping partners, members and national coordinators. We have created - PR toolkits, social media toolkits, off-line campaign materials; company activation pack, Guerrilla marketing toolkits, Good Governance in Grassroots Sport self-assessment tool.
We have provided all National partners with country.moveweek.eu web-sites for free, we are supporting the web-sites 24/7 for all technical questions; we have provided graphical and PR support.
We provided National Coordinators, Partners and MOVE Agents with diverse events concepts through which they can target different groups of the population of their country:
- European No Elevators Day – targeting office employees and the most inactive people by showing them how easy is to increase the daily activity levels.
- MOVE Week – targeting wider group of citizens though outdoor and community activities; Implementing 4 large
- NowWeBike – European cross-border biking tour targeting the people who love to cycle, the active transportation sector
- European flash-mob event – FlashMOVE – targeting citizens, media cities and promoting movement in unity and the European dimension
- European Fitness Day – targeting the For profit Fitness sector and their support in promoting the physical activity for health
- European School Sport day – aimed at activating children in a school environment
The NowWeMOVE campaign and its activities have not been delivered by ISCA alone. Indeed a core objective is to also have an impact on the organisations and entities that provide physical activity opportunities (MOVE Agents), i.e. to build their capacity for sustained action in the field by delivering better and smarter programmes and initiatives to citizens, in particular hard-to-reach groups.
It is important to underline that the above described impact on individuals and organisations (short and long term) is supplemented by the policy/systemic impact of the campaign. Indeed the advocacy objective of the campaign is crucial for the longer term success of the campaign vision, since increased engagement and investment of policy makers and other related stakeholders
management in physical activity promotion is absolutely necessary to address the physical inactivity epidemic.
Challenges
We acknowledge that getting more people to be regularly physically active is an effort that requires several coinciding factors. We have designed the NowWeMOVE campaign to be a contributing factor to this end, but we do not claim that it can raise physical activity levels singlehandedly. The challenges that have stood in front of us, apart from the limited financial resources have been the following:
Diverse capacities among local partners:
ISCA is aiming to be the creator and broker of knowledge, to build useful tools for partners and members, to identify and share the best practices in our sector, and to facilitate networking between its members and beyond. Through networking, providing learning opportunities and peer learning we provide opportunities where our partners and members build their capacities.
Capacity building initiatives:
Insufficient local partner uptake in some countries:
ISCA is making a dedicated effort to map potential partners of the campaign – cities, clubs, organizations – before launching the calls for action to participate in the event. We aim to build on existing partnerships that supported previous ISCA initiatives and also to enlarge the network of partners on national level.
Crowded media space
With a dedicated strategy, budget and time to develop a strong promotional campaign with a strong call for action. With dedicated effort to build working with media capacities in the national partners; By providing centralised support, PR templates, data and information to National Partners.
Physical inactivity is still not accepted as a major threat to the society as a whole.
Educating the public by providing relevant, scientific and economical proof.
Lack of results in awareness creation and media attention on national and local level is another key challenge.
Addressing the challenge: ISCA has systematically taken into account the learnings from the media planning of the initiatives of the NowWeMOVE and has been improving its communicational strategy and communication execution.
Unclear or mixed messaging from national partners and event mobilisers – MOVE Agents.
It is important to ensure consistency in terms of communications and messaging across national partners. ISCA is providing support and having a central role in planning and coordinating key messaging, as well as planning, guidelines and delivery support for national partners.
Success Factors
The NowWeMOVE campaign has number of features that are key to its success and that, we believe, are quite innovative:
It is a network campaign. There is a central coordination by ISCA, but the success of the campaign is dependent on the activation of MOVE Agents and stakeholders and their respective networks. This is both cost-effective and empowering.
It is bottom-up. ISCA delivers a set-up that allows local MOVE Agents to build on existing strengths, activities, and capacities and empowers them to take initiative based on their realities. This is supplemented by the appointment of National Coordinators in all countries, as described below.
It uses new communication channels. With a range of innovations in social media and network communications, including the MOVE Week Flash mob, viral social media messages, offline guerrilla marketing techniques, and a fully-fledged PR campaign, the NWM delivers on its communication ambitions via such innovative and cost- efficient approaches.
It is cross-sector. It is a fundamental priority for ISCA to make sure the NowWeMOVE campaign is positioned to promote physical activity, not only sport. This is the fundamental reason that aims to engage the maximum number of citizens insufficient daily physical activity, not only through sport, but also through work and school-based physical activity, transportation, and other sectors. Moreover, to engage those sectors effectively, the campaign communication should be broad and open enough for them to see themselves in it – hence also the name of the campaign NowWeMOVE.
It is civil-society based. While all sectors need to be involved, as mentioned before, we are proud that the campaign has been initiated by ISCA as a civil-society based organization. We believe this is a strong way to communicate the community ownership of the issue, and not least highlight both the effectiveness and the cost- efficiency of the interventions that are supported by civil society – while inviting both public and private partners to the table.
It is nationality adapted via national coordinators. We believe that one very strict campaign model would not fit the large diversity of the European countries, and so the distributed model of National Coordination is a mechanism to allow these national differences to be taken into account in the implementation of the campaign.
It is inclusive. The campaign targets inactive citizens, and therefore also takes into account that there is a social inequality component to physical activity levels and that several inactive groups do need special attention to become engaged in physical activity. That is why the campaign is encouraging MOVE Agents specifically to address hard-to-reach groups, and the campaign communications are designed for that to happen.
It is accessible. All tools and services of the NWM are developed to lower the barrier to engagement of MOVE Agents. Simply put, the design is made to communicate that becoming a MOVE Agent is beneficial, interesting, fun, and simple.
It is sustainable. The campaign, which will continue beyond 2014, is designed with sustainability of impact in mind – via increased awareness of citizens, capacity of organizations and engagement of political stakeholders.
Achievements
ISCA estimated the number of participants involved in NowWeMOVE campaign activities in 2015 (including its flagship event MOVE Week) to be 1.5 million people in 400 European cities. We anticipated that there would be around 3000 activities organised by 1800 people associated with the campaign.
MoveWeek 2015 results
The final result for 2015 was much higher, and the campaign smashed the participation records it had set in 2014. The European campaign had also inspired Brazil to organise its own MOVE Week in 2013 and 2014, so the aim in 2015 was to inspire even more countries in Latin America to use NowWeMOVE as a vehicle to get more of their citizens active.
Immediate changes:
- A huge uptake from national partners
- Growing capacities of participating partners and members, which is reflected in the growing numbers of people they engaged in their events
- Double the number of European cities staged NowWeMOVE events in 2015 compared with 2014
- The number of Latin American countries taking up the campaign increased from one to five.
Efforts to “defuse” the inactivity time bomb rely on as cross-sector approach among stakeholders, and the NowWeMOVE campaign is a platform to make this happen. While it can’t solve the problem of inactivity singlehandedly, the growing participation and reach numbers presented are an indication that it is exceeding its annual targets and making a strong contribution towards initiating change in European societies.
Targets & Statistics
- MOVE Agents (event organisers): more than 2 450
- Participating cities: 1 812
- Participating countries: 38
- The media monitoring accounted for 1734 pieces dedicated to the campaign in various media channels
- 823 677 440 Aggregated Ads impressions
- 58 834 102* People Reached aggregated (*Ad frequency = 14)
What would we do differently?
We would keep the way we work with partners and national coordinators. What we would change is how we communicate the campaign on European Level and we would invest more in showing off the results and the impact that the NWM Campaign is creating on local and national level.
Feedback & Testimonials
“Iceland has been participating in the campaign from the beginning. We approach the campaign from a long-term perspective, encouraging MOVE Agents to start small and to build on others’ experiences. We share ideas of how to get people engaged in the activities. We have a goal – we want to see the campaign in every municipality in Iceland by 2020. We want every single person in Iceland to know about the vision and recognise the orange colour by that year. With 33 swimming pools participating in a swimming challenge this year, with 450 events, with 55 towns participating, with 35 000 people involved and over 200 volunteers, we believe we are on track reaching our goals. The land of ice and fire got very hot during MOVE Week 2015 – we will be even hotter next year.”
Sabína Steinunn Halldórsdóttir – National Coordinator for Iceland, UMFI
“The Slovak Ministry of Transport, Construction and regional development participated during MOVE Week with their pilot project “On bicycle to school” where 100 schools participated. The schools not only participated in the event but they also came up with conclusions of how to improve conditions for cyclists”
Peter Bakalar, National Coordinator for Slovakia, City of Koshice
“The main purpose of the campaign, besides moving, is to let people to have fun. If they have fun and go home with good experience, then there is a bigger chance that they keep moving even after the MOVE Week is over”
Nina Bay Rasmussen, Danish MOVE Agent, Ollerup Academy of Physical Education
