COMPANY: Alzheimer's Association
PR AGENCY: Porter Novelli
TIMEFRAME: February 2004 -ongoing
More than 10 years of tracking American adult awareness about Alzheimer's disease by the 25-year-old Alzheimer's Association had driven home one incontrovertible fact: People
just didn't want to know about the debilitating disease.
"They tuned it out, thought it was completely hopeless and were afraid if it, even if they had it in their family and might have an increased risk themselves," says Kathryn
Kane, senior vice president/brand management and marketing at the AA. "While there was a high level of knowledge about the disease [from which more than 4.5 million Americans
currently suffer], there was also a high level of denial."
What's more, America's 77 million baby boomers, in particular, just put their fingers in their ears when it came to the subject. "Our traditional messages weren't getting
through and were bouncing back," Kane adds.
In 2003, the association went through a rebranding effort, changing its logo from two people supporting each other and forming the letter "A" to the current graphic of a
human head juxtaposed with a beaker to represent humanity and research. In turn, the association began a search for a PR agency to communicate the new look.
Enter Porter Novelli, the Washington-based PR firm that, during the course of the pitch, conducted its own focus-group research. "What we found was enlightening," says Wendy
Hagen, senior vice president at Porter Novelli. "We realized that when you talk about hope, it brings out this generational thing, this baby boomer's spirit of 'we can make a
difference, we can make a change.' Boomers are very much into prevention and healthy aging, so that was the turning point -- when we realized we could base the campaign around
this. There was some new and encouraging research that supported a prevention message, to which baby boomers are very receptive."
Kane adds: "When you're on the client side, you get immersed in the way you do business and you don't step back and take a look at things. Porter Novelli made us realize that
there actually had been a lot of progress in science, and that it was starting to show the potential for prevention through lifestyle management."
Porter Novelli suggested an entirely new strategy based on prevention. It came up with four pillars -- diet, exercise, social activity and mental activity -- aimed largely at
the boomers. Traditionally, AA's core audience had been caregivers, or people who had a direct connection to the disease because someone in their family was suffering from it.
"This was a realization that we need to broaden who the association was reaching out to," Hagen says.
The campaign was tied to scientific evidence and, for the first time, more scientists got involved. "Scientists are not consumer-oriented at all," Kane says, "so the agency
pointed this out to us, and I took the 'Maintain Your Brain' theme to our scientists. It was sort of a struggle initially to get them to pay attention to us, because it was not
the way they think about science. But once they got into the consumer perspective, they helped us with the messaging."
In February 2004, the association launched its "Maintain Your Brain" consumer education campaign via a press event in New York City that attracted not just the health
journals, but also a broad range of consumer media. It was designed to raise awareness and to reach "influencers," e.g., people who are active and who influence the opinion of
others. Concentrating in four major markets -- New York City; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; and Los Angeles -- the campaign used a combination of newspapers, classical radio stations
and key Web sites.
The first campaign ran through June 2004 and was followed up in January 2005 with a series of PSAs and a paid advertising campaign narrated by actor Peter Gallagher of Fox's
"The OC" and whose mother had Alzheimer's.
Themed "Think Ahead," other elements included a "How To" brochure and "Maintain Your Brain" workshops available nationally via the association's local chapters. In addition
to educating baby boomers and getting them to visit the AA Web site, the campaign also was aimed at both attracting donations and getting people to advocate for increased federal
research funding.
The result was a combined effort driven by marketing communications and PR, and embraced by the whole association. "We're having our first prevention conference in June in
Washington," Kane says. "Prevention is a whole new direction for the association. In terms of organizational change, it's been very significant within a very short period of
time."
Then there was the Ronald Reagan factor. The former U.S. president's death in 2004 resulted in increased awareness and visits to the AA Web site. As for results, "in 2003,
before the campaign started, we had 1 billion news media impressions," Kane says. "As of the middle of this current year, we're at 1.2 billion impressions, just for the first half
of the year. While our news coverage has grown by quantity, more important, the stories are more about what we want to talk about: prevention and progress in science."
Media coverage has been extensive and has included a column by Jane Brody, the medical columnist of the New York Times, along with a series of articles in USA
Today. The association also does a "Share of Voice" database search on all the coverage of Alzheimer's disease, and it examines the quoted source.
"Our 'Share of Voice' has increased from 17.5% in 2003 to 19.5 % today, making us the single most-cited news source on Alzheimer's disease," Kane says. "Plus the combination
of PR and paid advertising has resulted in visits to the Web site increasing by 78%. We've also raised about $80,000 in a six-month period." Not that anyone expects
things to change overnight. "We knew this was a slow buildup in raising awareness as much as we knew that people were resistant to listening to a message about Alzheimer's,
especially healthy boomers," says Hagen. "We knew it was going to take a long time. We are currently at the point of planning the second stage of 'Think Ahead,' and we are looking
for ways to build visibility and to incorporate the four pillars. We're looking for potential partners who might want to associate with the association, and it might be through
crossword puzzles, square dancing or anything within those pillars."
Contacts: Kathryn Kane, 212.377.4228, [email protected]; Wendy Hagen, 202. 933.5812, [email protected]
Chapter And Verse
A key ingredient of the campaign was the involvement of the Alzheimer's Association's 80-plus local chapters that did a lot of work within the community. According to Kathryn
Kane, senior vice president/brand management and marketing, while intrigued about having a new corporate message, the AA wanted more substance. With that in mind, the association
developed a series of brochures and PSAs, giving it a curriculum on which to base seminars and workshops. "It helps to give members something positive they can talk about in their
communities," Kane says. "They love the workshops, and a lot of them have signed up to be trained."