Campaign: 2005-2006 Celebrating Women's Health Lecture Series
Winner: Christiana Care Health System
For five years, Christiana Care Health System has celebrated women's health with a lecture series as part of a community education/outreach effort. But the lectures,
although they were presented by prominent health care experts across a wide range of specializations and got good response from their audiences, garnered lackluster
attendance, sometimes numbering a mere 25 attendees per event.
Clearly, the CCHS needed to get the message out to more people. Its goals were to double the number of attendees for each event, while cutting the cost to "fill the
seats" of the lecture halls in half. The group's strategy included reevaluating the vehicles it used to reach attendees; dropping a paid advertising component and turning
to direct mail; identifying opportunities to get the message out more effectively; tweaking the ways the message was presented; and setting up an online registration that
made it possible to sign up for lectures around the clock. Four-color, oversized postcards were designed and mailed out a month ahead of each lecture, teasing the topics of
future events.
The 12,000 pieces were mailed to targeted zip codes within a 10-mile radius of each lecture's location. A Web site was also used to promote the lectures, while enabling
attendees to register online. Banner ads highlighted current lectures, while links provided details. E-blasts were delivered to attendees of previous lectures and events,
and enabled the organization to cut costs by not sending snail mail to anyone for whom they had an e-mail address. Community calendar listings, newsletter announcements,
posters and flyers rounded out the outreach effort, along with postings on the employee intranet.
The goals were more than met: the lecture halls started filling up, with more than twice as many attendees as before, and costs were reduced by two-thirds. Almost half
of the attendees had never attended the lectures in the past, and 85% of them report the quality of the presentations as "excellent."
Honorable mentions
The Office of the Indiana Attorney General's Unclaimed Property Division needed to reunite consumers with unclaimed money and assets totaling more than $262 million.
Hirons & Company Advertising + Public Relations had a plan. A series of humorous TV spots drove consumers to IndianaUnclaimed.com to search for lost assets. Radio ads
highlighted ways owners could be reunited with their lost assets. Billboards also underscored the fun approach to the program, while increasing awareness and driving
traffic to the Web site. The number of claims nearly doubled following the campaign.
The goal of the Read Together Palm Beach County: One Book, One Community campaign was to foster civic participation through a common bond: in this case, a book.
By encouraging people across the county to read a single book together during a six-week period, Florida's Palm Beach County Literacy Coalition aimed to boost literacy and
raise awareness of the importance of reading. Ads in local publications; letters to libraries, chambers of commerce, schools, businesses and organizations; press releases
and press conferences; a public service announcement; and a major kick-off event helped to publicize the campaign and keep people involved. Nearly 35,000 people
participated, a 3% increase from the year before, and 5% more people were aware of the event. And the book? To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
Over the past five years, the number of U.S. home foreclosures has grown at a shockingly high rate. The Homeownership Preservation Foundation set up a hotline for people
facing potential foreclosure to call and get information on how they can avoid losing their homes. Communications pros launched a marketing campaign to rev up its
visibility, using a PSA campaign that focused on markets with higher rates of foreclosure. Thanks to extensive research, the team's use of media kits and media tours, and
their ability to leverage the mortgage industry, the Foundation saw a 550% increase in calls to the hotline.
The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC) faced a costly detrimental problem: pervasive plastic bag litter that accumulated over the year resulted in $1
million in cleanup annually, and local retailers and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management were doing little to incite change. To take matters into their
own hands, RIRRC PR executives launched the ReStore campaign to promote in-store recycling programs within grocery stores, creating enough buzz with research,
grassroots letter-writing, advertising, a partnership with a local zoo and solid branding to achieve impressive results: approximately 3,500,000 media impressions (even
though ReStore launched the week of hurricane Katrina) and a 15% reduction in cleanup costs.