It's not very often that a PR campaign is viewed as a success from every vantage point - from the perspective of the agency, the client, the media, the public and the trade it's aimed at. But that's what's happened for New York-based PR shop Noonan/Russo Communications which keeps racking up kudos for a PR strategy it headed for Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, the Collegeville, Pa.-based drug licensor of a medication used to treat bed wetting.
Since Noonan Russo began crafting its aggressive PR campaign two years ago, it's been credited with triggering more than 51 million media impressions and, by its client RPR, with a 25 percent surge in sales for the nearly nine-year-old brand, Desmopressin Acetate (DDAVP). The drug nets about $95 million in annual worldwide sales.
The campaign also triggered media coverage in every market - consumer, educational and medical - targeted by Noonan/Russo. Major outlets such as The New York Times, USA Today, the Boston Globe, and Parents and Parenting magazines wrote about the product.
But although there was an increase in media coverage about bed wetting (what's referred to in the medical community as nocturnal enuresis) linked to the campaign, it was a very different story when Noonan/Russo began working at (and for) the campaign. At the outset, it was the noticeable lack of information - the absence of any definitive industry clearinghouse for facts about bed wetting - which gave Noonan/Russo the angle for the PR campaign, which has grown to $800,000.
"This wasn't a campaign built on smoke and mirrors," said Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Marketing Director Phil Imperial. "It came down to substance and Noonan/Russo had a campaign built on succinct messages." The campaign strategy was to get information about bed wetting, not the medication, into the marketplace. And it's a move that's paid off.
"The PR is, without a doubt, one of the biggest driving forces of the drug's success today," added Imperial. "In terms of impressions, based on cost per thousand, the industry average is $3. Our cost per thousand, per consumer, was.4 of one cent." That was because, for RPR and Noonan/Russo, the media is any form people use to communicate and they didn't leave anything out - the Internet, journals, newsletters, radio, television, trade publications and newspapers on the regional, state and national level.
Noonan/Russo realized early on that the media would become the most promising avenues (versus touting the drug with trade product announcements) for it to reach RPR's primary audiences - doctors, parents and pharmacists.
In setting up the campaign, Noonan/Russo decided it would become an advocate for families battling this somewhat hush-hush problem. And it set out to chart a course to debunk the myths surrounding bed wetting, an ailment that is estimated to affect 5 million to 7 million American children. "We weren't selling a product - we were selling the idea to 'go get treatment,' " said Kathryn Metcalfe, senior vice president, product communications for Noonan/Russo. "We personalized it (bed wetting) and brought it to the human level. We found our greatest competitor was apathy (in the medical community) but never in my wildest dreams did I think we could achieve this level of success."
In addition to the sales spike and the heap of media impressions, Noonan Russo also earned a Big Apple Award from the Public Relations Society of America in 1996 for its marketing of an existing healthcare product; and a Galaxy Award from Mercomm, New York, for its public awareness campaign.
The campaign was structured this way:
Getting the Account
When Noonan/Russo vied in January 1995 to win the account, it selected an unusual way to woo the drug licensor.
"We had team members pose as parents of bed wetters and we went to doctors and pharmacists to ask them questions about what treatments were available and what we found was that there was very little information out there," said Metcalfe.
"For instance, I went into a pharmacy to ask a pharmacist what he recommends to parents of bed wetters. He pointed to the adult diapers and told me to 'cut them to fit.' Other pharmacists told us there were no drugs available. We also turned to the Internet and couldn't find any information and we went to libraries and there were limited resources."
Because of that, Noonan/Russo's tactic for the campaign was to push information - not a product.
"Many of the agencies we saw hung their campaigns on one single theme," recalled John Robert George, an RPR product manager. "But Noonan/Russo demonstrated two things - research and an unconventional means of research. The pitch covered the basics well, but Noonan/Russo didn't try the often-used glitzy elements so many PR professionals resort to."
But although the campaign has been a resounding success, there was one stumbling block that provides a lesson all PR practitioners should heed.
During the initial part of the campaign, Noonan/Russo realized that not everyone at RPR quite grasped the purpose of public relations.
"We had to educate them about PR and it made us better able to work with them as a client and from there we able to revamp our plan and make it more specific," Metcalfe said.
(RPR, Phil Imperial and John Robert George, 610/454-8478; Kathryn Metcalfe, 212/696-4455)