Public Health Wales
Public Health Wales: Content that Wales would relate to
We created a content library that reflected the true diversity of the people it was built to serve.
The challenge
Being overweight or obese is one of the leading contributors to serious illness in Wales. It’s a risk factor in coronary heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes. And the scale of the problem is significant.
- 60% of adults in Wales are currently overweight
- 1 in 4 Welsh adults live with severe obesity
- Obesity costs the Welsh NHS an estimated £73 million every year
To tackle the problem, Public Health Wales launched Healthy Weight Healthy You, a free, evidence-based digital service, designed to help adults across Wales achieve and maintain a healthy weight. The platform offered tailored content and practical guidance, available in both English and Welsh.
They needed content that the people of Wales could see themselves in, so the service felt for them.
Our approach
To achieve the change we needed, we adopted the behavioral science framework, the EAST principles, framing making healthy choices as Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely. In order to engage the audience and build trust in what we were recommending, we needed to ensure that the people of Wales felt represented by our content. So we worked with our Real Folk Panel, and talent agencies, to ensure we were casting a diverse and representative range of people.
We also worked with community-based health and wellbeing groups to ensure that we were representing people of all ages, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds as best as possible.
We made sure to select settings that resonated with residents of both urban and rural environments. Ones that were accessible to the population, and that were location-agnostic, so that our content was applicable to the entirety of Wales.
To ensure accuracy, we collaborated and worked closely with expert nutritionists from Public Health Wales, to ensure that the food and activities captured during the production phase were aligned with the recommendations and advice provided in the Healthy Weight Healthy You journeys.
We attended several community groups, and worked with actors across a two-day production schedule to capture shots and footage for both the photographic library and 30-second videos.
The results
The result was a rich and authentic content library that captured both the practical and emotional dimensions of starting a health journey, grounded in the real lives of the people it was designed to reach.
Created with communities, health experts and representative talent, the library gave Public Health Wales a bank of photography and video assets that represented modern Wales.
More than a collection of images, it became a visual foundation for Healthy Weight Healthy You that helped the service communicate health advice in a way that felt relatable, inclusive and grounded in real, Welsh life.
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