More than 27,000 moms, dads and caregivers have made a Gerber pledge enabled by Clearspring Widgets
Gerber's Start Healthy, Stay HealthyTM I Pledge campaign uses Clearspring widgets for easy sharing of parent pledges and valuable nutritional information
MCLEAN, Va. - June 3, 2009 — The most popular vegetable consumed by American children as young as 15 months old is the french fry.
Gerber and Nestlé are trying to change that surprising statistic with the Start Healthy, Stay HealthyTM I Pledge program — inviting parents to join their unwavering commitment to nourish a healthier generation, one baby at a time, by making their own pledge to the healthy growth and development of their young children.
Clearspring Technologies, the leading widget network, is providing Gerber with its services, including the creation, distribution and tracking of I Pledge widgets.
Pledges can be created at Gerber.com/pledge by uploading photos, entering promises to children, and customizing the design and accompanying soundtrack. A widget is then available, allowing the custom pledge to be posted and shared to more than 70 popular online destinations. The widget contains three components — a personal pledge, a gallery of others pledges and videos that provide educational information about children's eating habits. Both the widget and Web site were conceptualized and designed by O'Grady Meyers.
The widget empowers parents and caregivers to share their pledge in public places on the Web, immediately increasing the reach of the Gerber message and exposure to new audiences. Since its inception in March more than 28,000 pledges have been created.
"Making and sharing your commitment to your baby's healthy growth and development is a meaningful way to connect with other parents," said Anna Mohl, vice president of integrated marketing at Nestlé Infant Nutrition. "The widget allows users to create and share their pledge in their own space, with personalization and share-ability increasing the power of the pledge."
The I Pledge widget provides a dynamic experience, encouraging self-expression with the creation of a pledge and photo slideshow, connecting to others with the ability to view others pledges and educating through short, helpful videos relaying important nutritional information. The widget has been viewed more than 3.5 million times since March.
"Sharing is the heart of the social Web. The I Pledge widget makes sharing a personal pledge simple," said Peggy Fry, senior vice president of Media Services at Clearspring. "By having the widget on Twitter, blogs or Facebook pages, it becomes a daily reminder of the sincere pledge these busy moms and caregivers have made to their children. Gerber is a trusted brand that is taking a new approach to helping families share an important message."
Since its creation in March, nearly 16,000 hours have been spent viewing the widget, demonstrating the compelling content in this mom-generated widget. Because the content is so personal, the average interaction rate is extremely high at 10 percent. Parents and caregivers have been so eager to share pledges and help raise a healthier generation that the I Pledge widget has been installed over 100,000 times since March, and has garnered nearly 700,000 unique visitors.
"We hope that the ability to share a pledge will inspire others to make similar promises to their children," said Mohl. "We want to foster a community of parents and caregivers who are working together to nourish a healthier generation, one baby at a time."
To create a pledge, visit: www.Gerber.com/pledge
Helpful Links
Nutrition & Feeding Advice: www.gerber.com/Nutrition_Feeding/Default.aspx
Useful Tools for Babies & Toddlers: www.gerber.com/Tools/
Expert Advice on Child Nutrition: www.gerber.com/Expert_Advice/Default.aspx
See the widget here: www.clearspring.com/widgets/497f7f9366594b48
About Gerber
Gerber Products Company, founded in 1928, officially joined the Nestlé family on September 1, 2007. Nestlé and Gerber's combined resources and scientific research expertise have enabled the company to become the worldwide leaders in early childhood nutrition. With headquarters in Florham Park, N.J., Gerber produces more than 200 food products ranging from cereals to GERBER® 1st FOODS® purees to GRADUATES® meals and snacks for toddlers and preschoolers.
Start Healthy, Stay HealthyTM is Gerber and Nestlé's unwavering commitment to nourish a healthier generation, one baby at a time. Start Healthy, Stay Healthy is an integrated nutritional system that combines products, education and services - designed to foster healthy growth and development and the early establishment of healthy eating habits in children from birth to pre-school.
Nestlé/Gerber first launched this initiative in 2002 in response to the alarming number of young children in the United States who are overweight. In fact, the number of overweight children has doubled during the last 20 years. We believe that by providing parents and caregivers with the right nutritional information and products at the right time, we can help them make the best choices for their children and positively influence early childhood nutrition and feeding habits in the US.
If consumers would like to learn more, please visit www.StartHealthyStayHealthy.com or contact the Start Healthy Stay Healthy Resource Center (U.S. only) at 1-800-4-GERBER.
About Nestlé Nutrition
Nestlé Nutrition, part of Nestlé S.A., the world leader in nutrition, health and wellness is dedicated to infant nutrition, healthcare nutrition, performance nutrition and weight management. For consumer information about Nestlé Infant Nutrition products in the U.S. visit www.StartHealthyStayHealthy.com.
About O'Grady Meyers
Founded in 1993, O'Grady Meyers is a full-service digital marketing agency with significant expertise in the consumer goods, health, wellness and nutrition categories. To learn more, visit www.ogm.com
Travis Murdock
A&R Edelman for Clearspring
(650) 762-2807
Travis.murdock@ar-edelman.com
David Mortazavi
Head of Corporate Communications - NIN
(973) 593-7460
David.mortazavi@us.nestle.com
About Clearspring
Clearspring is the leader in social distribution, connecting publishers and advertisers to audiences on the social Web. Clearspring's content sharing products, ranked No. 1 by comScore, enable publishers, developers and advertisers to easily distribute and track digital content such as widgets, videos, photos and links to the most popular destinations, including social networks, start pages, bookmarking sites, blogs, mobile devices and desktop platforms. The company provides additional distribution of content on a paid performance basis to the world's leading brands through a targeted social distribution network of affiliate partners. The company reaches over 534 millionusers worldwide. Its tools are served billions of times monthly and they power programs for many major brands and over 400,000 other long-tail developers. To learn more, visit www.clearspring.com.