Campaign: "Now I Know Better: Kids Tell Kids About Safety"
Company: Yale-New Haven Hospital (New Haven, 203/785-2488)
Campaign Budget: $50,000 (represents 12% of yearly PR budget)
To distinguish Yale-New Haven's emergency pediatric center as the one to turn to for top-notch pediatric services, Tom Urtz conceptualized "Now I Know Better: Kids Tell Kids About Safety" in Fall of 1995 from the notion that "Many times kids won't listen to adults about safety, but they will listen to other kids." From that point forward, the PR team took the ball and ran with it, building a creatively strategic campaign that captured not only the interest of the media but the community's hearts as well.
First, the team announced to the local media that it was looking for "real-life" stories from youngsters about accidents they'd experienced and prevention advice they could offer to other children.
To solicit youth support, the PR department sent letters to local schools. Community response was incredible, generating 700 letters from dozens of Connecticut towns and schools.
Seventy letters, from children ages 5 to 19, were ultimately selected for the 96-page book, which shared heart-wrenching youth accidents and advice on injuries that ranged from bee stings to burns, knife cuts to gunshot wounds.
When the book was published in April 1996, this presented yet another exciting opportunity for mass media coverage. And the media responded in a big way: 58 media outlets (primarily newspapers, with some radio and TV) reached over four million readers and viewers from the New Haven Register and WTNH-TV (New Haven) to the New York Times Health Supplement and Orlando Sentinel.
In addition, the book was such a hit that it caught the attention of Brookfield, Mass.-based Millbrook Press, Inc., a leading publisher of educational books, which released a national edition in August 1996.
Also, in February, the team worked with the state's agency on services for the blind to produce a braille version of the book.
From the initial $50,000 investment, the hospital's return on investment was achieved through selling the book's rights to Millbrook Press ($10,000), minimal advertising to defray printing costs, and sell-through at local book stores and direct mail of 1,300 books. But the tremendous exposure this campaign achieved and continues to receive is what is most impressive.
In addition to the heightened media coverage, immeasurable community awareness was cemented with the distribution of 10,000 books that were given to schools, doctors offices and the local Boy Scouts.
This campaign, which gained momentum from the outset, "truly took on a life of its own," said Urtz. Now, the hospital is well-positioned to develop a host of follow-up community outreach programs. Among them, safety classroom programs and child-safety videos that can be sold to schools, libraries and even children's television programmers. Thanks to the campaign's innovation, Yale-New Haven's name is not only synonymous with expert emergency pediatric care, but compassionate pediatric safety and accident prevention.
The Team
David T. Bachman, M.D., editor; Mary Beth Esposito, RN, (pediatric emergency dept.);
Ken Best, media coordinator;
Jeanne Criscola, publication designer;
Donna Donovan, RN, (pediatric emergency dept);
Katie Krauss, asst. director of public relations;
Michele Mastropetre, administrative assistant;
Jan Taylor, senior writer;
Tom Urtz, director of public relations and associate editor; and
Cathy Zaorski, special projects coordinator.