Sweet Lies!
Hawai'i countermarketing campaign (January-April 2023) that told caregivers of children 0-8 how beverage companies make sweetened fruit drinks look healthy, and urged them to give water or milk instead. It ran on TV, digital and social media, radio and in malls.
- Years
- 2023
- Reach
- 32M impressions as reported“About 32 million impressions and 37% campaign recall in the post-survey (McGurk 2025).”
- Country
- United States
- Topic
- Nutrition
- Asks people to
- StopSubstitute
- Strategy
- Industry denormalization
- Channel
- EventsRadioSocial (paid)TV
- Audience
- ParentsCaregivers of children aged 0-8 in Hawai'i.
Evidence
ProcessUnknown
About 32 million impressions and 37% campaign recall in the post-survey (McGurk 2025). Pre (n=458) and post (n=482) samples differed too much to compare, and the post-survey showed no differences by exposure in perceived risk or simulated-store purchases.
Sponsor (who paid)
- Hawai'i State Department of Health State local government, funder
Credits (who made it)
Related campaigns
- Pouring on the Pounds 2009–now
- Do You Know What Your Kids Are Drinking? 2011
- Sugar Pack 2011
Sources
- McGurk MD et al. Sweet Lies! Lessons Learned from Hawai'i's Sweetened Fruit Drink Countermarketing Campaign. J Health Commun 2025;30(sup1):14-27 evaluation · 2025 · DOI 10.1080/10810730.2025.2461588 · PMID 40162925
- Healthy Hawaiʻi Evaluation Team: Sweet Lies Campaign Evaluation summary (Oct 2023, PDF) evaluation · 2023
Research notes
Created 2026-10-22 by literature mining (PubMed/OpenAlex); evidence level, outcome and findings are paraphrased from the evaluation abstracts, full texts not read. Sponsor inferred from author affiliations (four Hawai'i Department of Health authors). US-HI. Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: Healthy Hawaiʻi Evaluation Team and Anthology (evaluation summary, Oct 2023: the HHET 'collaborated with CDPHPD' on a pre/post survey; 'Online surveys were administered in Qualtrics by Anthology'). The summary confirms DOH's Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Division developed the campaign, which ran 9 Jan-30 Apr 2023 on TV, digital, mainstream and in-language radio and in malls; a relaunch was announced 7 Apr 2026. Unverified (no page found that credits the agency): creative and media vendor. Procurement search 2026-10-22: a CDPHPD notice seeking an advertising vendor for a sugar-sweetened beverage counter-marketing campaign aimed at parents of children 0-8 (deliverables due 1 May 2022; media to be bought separately by CDPHPD) appears in search results only; no award found on HIePRO.
Record cases/hi-sweet-lies.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign