The Demand Generation Alliance (DGA) has been established with a single vision to make nutritious and sustainable food, the preferred consumer choice.
Our mission is to drive societal preferences towards nutritious and sustainable food by leveraging social and cultural strategies.
WHY SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STRATEGIES?
To achieve 2030 sustainability goals, we need to radically change how we think and act about food. Society and culture underpin and greatly shape consumer food choices: they set up lifelong preferences and habits, which are often hard to break, and they influence what is acceptable and appropriate.
Food preferences are driven by food norms, beliefs, values, social groups, social institutions, and technology.
We prioritise the sociocultural drivers in the enabling environment
Society & Cultural Drivers
Religious and traditional beliefs
Norms (i.e. values, attitudes, beliefs)
Technology (fuel, water, mobile, media)
Social groups (e.g. class, gender, sub-groups) and institutions
Society and culture profoundly impact what we eat. We leverage these society-wide, socio-cultural drivers to unlock downstream interventions to transform demand for nutritious and sustainable foods.
Socio-cultural interventions
Changes in societal preferences and beliefs
Enabling environment
Creates the will for:
- Governments to pass new regulations, economic incentives/taxation
- Multi-lateral institutions to develop and evolve guidelines, standards and best practices
- Technical and socio-cultural institutions to invest in research and information dissemination
Food environment
Creates the will for:
- Food retailers to change how consumers choose food
- Food manufacturers to develop new models and market offerings
- Public agencies and industry associations to develop higher standards
- Public agencies and NGOs to expand access for healthy food options
Individual context
Creates the will for:
- Public agencies, educational institutions and NGOs to increase knowledge among consumers
- Food retailers and brands to support the evolution of consumer preference
- Public and private actors to inspire behaviour change in food choices
- Consumers to feel equipped and empowered in adopting preferences
The shift in mindset and preferences will come through coordinated, collaborative action that enables and shapes consumer demand, rather than waiting for it to emerge organically. These actions must be society-wide that complement and support ongoing initiatives. Cross-sector collaboration is necessary because no one sector can fully address consumer demand.
We also know that legislative victories happen when societal attitudes are in favour of a proposed change. For example, marriage equality in the U.S. has been fought in the court of public opinion through the media’s portrayal of LGBTQ over a 10–15-year period, which has led to new attitudes, societal norms, and laws.
We have developed a proprietary model to effect change at the societal level. The DGA will activate key levers of change across multiple channels of engagement. Certain actors are better positioned to influence different levers of change and work through different channels.
There is a critical space within the societal level for collaborative engagement. Demand cannot be created by one factor or one actor alone. Our proprietary model, with 5 levers of change, facilitates multi-stakeholder, cross-sector collaboration.
To effect change at societal level the DGA will shape the social and cultural drivers through five levers of change and across four channels of engagement
Five levers of change
Shaping Narrative
Raising Awareness
Consumption Models
Expert Guidance and Standards
Mobilize Collective Action
Platforms
Places
People
Institutions
DGA Operating Model
The DGA has an ambitious 3-pillar model to deliver on its mission.
Pillar one: Build Knowledge
Our actions are based on evidence, drawing from multiple disciplines, and ensuring that the work we do is strong. The DGA will:
- Integrate evidence and knowledge to support decision making and build awareness on social and cultural action
- Generate hypotheses about what works to catalyse additional research and test further, and
- In collaboration with coalitions and action groups, disseminate learnings to support translation into practice via tools
Pillar two: Strengthen Collaboration
Effective coalitions emerge from a shared understanding of the issues, trust amongst partners across sectors and coordination of efforts. We will work toward increasing the number of connections and social capital across sectors. To ensure aligned and effective coalitions are formed, the DGA will:
- Convene and support dialogues and workshops in countries and regions
- Identify connections across sectors and create opportunities for cross-sector work
- Facilitate shared learning to spur collaborative action to increase demand of nutritious and sustainable food at scale
Pillar three: Enable Action
The nature of our ambition means that stakeholders in countries need to be able to work together on different subjects. Ensuring that we have multiple perspectives and strengths informing our actions is critical to achieving our mission.
Building on the work of our coalitions, we will support:
- The creation of issue-based action groups in countries and help them to generate proof of concepts that address a food preference issue.
- The development and application of tools to address consumer food preferences via social and cultural strategies
- Action groups to generate further evidence and learnings to support our mission
We will generate accessible public tools that meet high standards of evidence and are developed using a transparent and inclusive process.
DGA membership will open in 2023 to institutions or organisations at global, regional or country level that seek to address topics that align with its mission. Members must adhere to UN Global Compact principles.