Winner: Marina Maher Communications - No Woman Should Die Giving Life: Merck for Mothers Builds and Engages a Facebook Community to Get Informed About Maternal Mortality
Every day approximately 800 women die from complications during pregnancy or childbirth. While maternal mortality in the U.S. has doubled over the last 20 years, a survey sponsored by Merck of more than 2,000 U.S. adults confirmed that awareness of maternal mortality in the U.S. is extremely low.
As a result of this troubling reality, the communications objectives of this Marina Maher Communications (MMC) and Merck campaign were to build both U.S. awareness about maternal mortality and Merck’s initiatives towards creating a world where no woman dies giving life. Because their target audience is active on social networks, MMC and Merck focused on Facebook to create and nurture a highly engaged fan base.
By providing a balance of positive, inspirational messages and educational content; optimizing engagement based on metrics; engaging in real time; and reaching beyond the page to encourage women to join the conversation, this campaign turned an issue that many people didn’t know about, and that only a handful cared about, into a community of more than 90,000 highly engaged “fans.”
The Merck for Mothers fan base is now larger and has more engagement than any other leading pages focused on maternal health, such as Every Mother Counts or the White Ribbon Alliance. The page’s success has been lauded by the U.S government, NGOs and policymakers as evidence of Merck’s leadership on the issue.
Honorable Mentions:
- The Axis Agency - Kaiser Permanente Viva Bien
- DeVries Global - Vidal Sassoon Pro Series “Show Your Genius” Program
- Hallmark Channel - Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove