At Marketing Partners, we’ve worked on dozens of social awareness and behavior change campaigns. (Secretly, they are my favorite kind of campaign!) Our social marketing programs are created to help people make better choices like quit smoking, avoid underage drinking and practice diabetes self care and prevention. The overall goal of a social marketing campaign is to improve society (pretty great, huh?). AND the campaigns are research-based – what’s not to love?

I lead a hectic life—by choice, mind you. I’m not looking for sympathy here. It’s just a fact. With three young daughters and my husband, my job, finding time to exercise, family, friends, the dog (oh, the poor neglected dog!) etc., etc. I feel lucky/blessed. My point is that in the midst of this joyous cacophony, things get overlooked. Namely our yard. Any free moment we aren’t practicing lacrosse with one daughter or jumping rope or painting with another, my husband and I try squeeze in time for ourselves. After biking or running and family time, we are happy to sit on our deck and actually have a conversation (and maybe a glass of wine!). No one wants to do yard work.

Media literacy, children and mindful marketing have been on my mind lately. My nine-year-old daughter has recently become interested in knowing how things work in the world. For example, she’s questioning the existence of the Tooth Fairy (“It’s really you and Dad, right?), confused over the number of different religions (“But which one is right?”), and reading nutritional information on the back of cereal boxes (“Why do they call it Smart Start when it’s a sugar cereal”). She has also been asking lots of questions lately about what my husband and I do for work.