Bringing “Play” to Life: The Use of Experiential Marketing in the VERB™ Campaign

Given the abundance of advertising and media that children and adolescents are exposed to today, it is increasingly important to incorporate nontraditional channels and venues in strategies designed to reach them. One such channel that the CDC's VERB™ campaign employed was experiential marketing, which is defined here as a live event or experience that gives the target audience the opportunity to see a product and experience it for themselves. Experiential marketing and the tactics that the VERB campaign used to reach children aged 9–13 years (tweens) with health messages about physical activity are described, including a discussion about how other public health campaigns might use experiential marketing and other commercial marketing techniques to reach the public with public health messages.