In 2000, St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis was looking for a way to brand its pediatric wing and increase funding for the hospital's children's programs and services. What
better way than to reach out directly to kids and the adults in their lives?
The hospital's corporate communications department worked with Publicis Dialog to develop a concept that would appeal to the hospital's youngest stakeholders as well as to
their guardians.
The team created a program that it dubbed "A Champion Effort," or ACE for short. It encouraged kids in local Catholic schools to achieve an A in at least one academic area.
Retail sponsors of the program would donate $1 to St. Vincent Children's for each A a child redeemed.
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was the perfect "champion" to serve as spokesman for the initiative. Manning is a well-known supporter of education and was
already affiliated with St. Vincent Children's.
Publicis and the corporate communications department decided to keep the target small for the pilot program: The team would focus on Hamilton County Catholic schools since they
already shared St. Vincent's Catholic mission. Plus, the 576 teachers and 11,520 students and their parents were a manageable audience for executing and measuring the program.
Publicis set the following goals for the program:
- Build brand awareness for the children's hospital
- Secure corporate sponsors
- Raise funds (no set amount was determined since the team didn't know what to expect in terms of the number of A's to be redeemed)
- Obtain 40 percent student participation
Publicis created promotional collateral and other materials for communicating with the media and, more importantly, with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and the principals,
teachers, parents and students in the Hamilton County schools. The agency began securing corporate sponsors, including Papa John's Pizza, The Indianapolis Zoo and The Children's
Museum of Indianapolis. The team also began actively registering teachers for the program and attended the statewide Indiana Non-Public Education Conference to solicit additional
registrations and educate teachers about the program. It also orchestrated visits by Vincent Bear (the St. Vincent Children's mascot) to elementary school classrooms, where
Vincent distributed ACE promotional items from sponsors.
Vincent Bear was also used as the concept for three newsletters distributed to participating students over the course of the program to keep them up-to-date on the
initiative.
Kids also learned about the program through a video featuring Manning. Publicis used the video as a media relations tool to gain more public attention for ACE, as well. Media
relations were especially important during National Catholic Schools Week, a built-in opportunity to get the ACE program in front of the press who already were covering Catholic
schools.
Champion Challenges
St. Vincent originally designated $20,000 for the ACE program. Once Publicis began receiving positive feedback from the schools, however, it was obvious that the budget would
have to go up to meet the demands of printing collateral materials and creating a final celebration to culminate the campaign. The total program cost ended up around $60,000.
And while Manning was the ideal spokesman for ACE, scheduling is never easy when working with celebrities. Publicis engaged in ongoing communications with Manning's agent to be
sure he could make appearances during the campaign, and especially at the final celebration.
Finally, school principals have a lot on their plates, and don't always remember to pass information along to their teachers. The Publicis team was proactive about following up
with principals to ensure that teachers were receiving the ACE materials and messages.
Results
The ACE program culminated with a celebration event in April; all 6,000 students who had participated in the program were invited to attend, along with their teachers and
principals. Peyton Manning was there to pass out Colts promotional items, donated by the Colts community relations team.
And more than 700 students were there, along with the local NBC affiliate, The Indianapolis Star and other media outlets.
The 6,000 kids who received their ACE vouchers for achieving an A exceeded the original goal of 40 percent participation by 12 percent. Plus, 36 out of 38 schools targeted
participated in the program, and St. Vincent not only raised about $4,000 for the children's hospital, but also dramatically raised brand awareness in the community and the
media.
Campaign Stats
Timeframe:
August, 2000-April, 2001
Budget: $60,000
In addition to coverage of the celebration event, the ACE program achieved media coverage reaching about 1.3 million people:
- Four print articles
- Nine televisionsegments
- One radio wire news brief distributed to 60 Indiana stations
- Two minutes of coverage during a special ABC Sports Xtra covering Peyton Manning's community involvement
(Contact: Laurie Kowalevsky, Publicis, 317/639-5135)