The Hub has been invited to present its ‘Be A Star’ breastfeeding initiation campaign as a best practice case study at the World Social Marketing Conference in Brighton.

The presentation – delivered jointly by The Hub and Little Angels, the third sector breastfeeding support group involved in implementing the campaign – will discuss the background to the development of the project and the rationale behind making such a departure from previous approaches employed in the breastfeeding initiation area.

Elements of the campaign of specific interest to social marketers include:

• maximising buy-in by co-opting the audience into the campaign
• maximising reach through peer-to-peer transmission
• leveraging trust networks to bring about long term behaviour change
• the role of communications in redefining social norms
• the use of online social networking media in social marketing
• the benefits of a partnership approach in a social marketing context.

The campaign has also been selected for a poster presentation within the ‘campaign innovations’ category and Helen Johnson from The Hub will be holding a question and answer session directly before the main presentation.

The ‘Be A Star’ campaign was originally commissioned by Central Lancashire PCT and Little Angels in March 2008. After returning unprecedented early results, the campaign has since been adopted by 8 other PCTs across the country and is being developed for international audiences.

The overwhelming response to the project has seen the campaign blog (www.beastar.org.uk) inundated with positive feedback and enquiries from public health agencies across the globe. The Brighton presentation comes just 6 weeks after The Hub appeared at the National Health Communication Marketing and Media Conference in Atlanta, Georgia where it introduced ‘Be A Star’ to an international audience of social marketing academics and practioners.

The invitation to the WSMC came directly from the National Social Marketing Centre, who are currently carrying out a full evaluation of the campaign and developing it as a flagship best practice case study for its website.

Helen Johnson, Managing Director at The Hub, said “As an agency, we’re very keen to drive the social marketing discipline forward in whatever way we can. In addition to holding our own workshops and seminars locally, we are taking every opportunity to share the experiences and insights that led to Be A Star with the social marketing community. After the response we received in Atlanta, we’re delighted to have the opportunity to talk about this inspiring campaign at such an important conference in our own country.”