Cancer Campaign Ends Sponsorship to Expand Media Coverage

Vollmer's pro bono campaign, the equivalent of $20,000 in billings, earned industry kudos from The Public Relations Society of America-Houston Chapter with a Gold Excalibur award earlier this month.

The business decision to end the exclusive sponsorship had to be handled with kid gloves, says Renee Catacalos, Vollmer's account supervisor. "The financial reality of the station was that its public service budget was becoming more restricted and from Komen's perspective, although KTRK is the highest rated station in that market, the campaign still was not getting the broadest reach in the market [from other stations]."

To preserve its strong relationship with KTRK, Komen said it would not seek exclusive relationships with other TV stations for the event that took place on Oct. 4. The goodwill gesture landed Komen significant pre- and same-day race coverage from KTRK starting as early as September, comparable to $61,850 in advertising.

Overall, TV coverage for the campaign generated the equivalent of more than $110,000 in advertising on five other TV stations.

Conveying Ethnic/Gender Diversity

In addition to targeting female runners in the Greater Houston area and women affected by breast cancer (including family and friends), the campaign's awareness goal was expanded to include a minority-specific effort. Komen research found that breast cancer among African-American and Hispanic women can be more deadly because these groups tend to have low awareness of risk factors and the latest treatment opportunities. To reach these audience segments, Vollmer's strategy included:

• making minority interviewees available to the media;
• including minority women in PSAs, producing the ads in both English and Spanish; and
• pitching media on the first man with breast cancer to run in the race.

"We were successful with communicating to the media that breast cancer can touch anyone, including different ethnic groups, age ranges, as well as men," says Catacalos.

The minority focus resulted in coverage by an African-American community newspaper and survivor interviews aired on Spanish-language TV stations.

Getting Personal

Komen's Houston office, which uses only one full-time staffer, depends almost entirely on a team of 300 volunteers to promote and coordinate the race. Although Houston's philanthropic spirit is high, (last year, area organizations donated $320,000 to the race), the ongoing challenge is expanding its reach to the corporate community, says Shirley Coskey, a member of the race's board of directors and chair of the philanthropy committee.

Highly personal communications, which can be difficult to achieve is the most effective way to win corporate support. In addition to its mass mailing of more than 1,500 media kits about sponsorship, Komen also tries to get as much "face time" as possible with on-site employer presentations.

Komen is targeting Houston's energy organizations. But Coskey concedes that "there's always the feeling that you can never do enough, we'd like to reach corporations across the board, but that's next to impossible." (Vollmer Public Relations, Renee Catacalos, 713/546-2230; Komen Foundation, Shirley Coskey, 713/688-3644; http://www.komen.org)

Getting Ink

For Komen's Race for the Cure campaign, print coverage was key for promoting race forms, event announcements and calendar listings. The print strategy, which resulted in more than $54,000 in equivalent advertising support in Houston's major newspapers and magazines, included:

• Pitching the race to sports editors as well as general lifestyle reporters;
• Highlighting story angles that runners and walkers should participate;
• Targeting minority community newspapers that reach African-Americans and Hispanics.

Source: Vollmer Public Relations