American Diabetes Association partners with Ad Council on PSAs
NEW YORK: The American Diabetes Association (ADA) partnered with the Ad Council for PSAs highlighting the seriousness of diabetes and complications of the disease, including heart attack and stroke.
"This is our second campaign with the Ad Council and [after the first] we did some tracking studies to see how effective we were," said Vaneeda Bennett, EVP of development division for the ADA, mentioning that the initial campaign launched in late 2007 and is still running. "We felt like we moved the needle, but we also wanted to find out if the folks we reached really understood how serious the disease was and the risks of complications."
The target audience is people who are already diagnosed with diabetes, she added, and the campaign also encourages them to work with their healthcare providers to keep the disease under control.
For media relations, the Ad Council and ADA are doing a RMT and SMT, as well as targeting English- and Spanish-language media outlets with spokespeople, such as Paul Robertson, MD and ADA president; Lorena Drago, a certified diabetes educator; and Amparo Gonzalez, president of the American Association of Diabetes Educators. A Spanish-language brochure about the campaign is also available for consumers who call an 800-number.
"We have an extensive PR program that is not just designed to create news and get awareness of the campaign, but to really reach the target audience through other channels," said Heidi Arthur, SVP of campaign management for the Ad Council. This includes a Web site in English and Spanish, and the campaign will have a presence on Facebook and Twitter, and will introduce a widget so consumers can track their personal progress in managing diabetes.
The campaign, which also partnered with the National Council of La Raza to reach the Hispanic community in a different way, is working with New Media Strategies on social media and handling a majority of the PR internally.
