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In: Current Golden World Awards

Go Red For Women 2008 Untold Stories Campaign

One in three U.S. women die of heart disease, but only one in five believes she is at risk. GRFW had to personalize the statistics, making women aware that heart disease happens to “women like me.” GRFW created a rallying cry to “Share Your Untold Story” to give heart disease survivors a prominent platform both to connect and inspire others. The resulting campaign connected thousands of women, empowering them to take action to prevent heart disease. GRFW met or exceeded all of its 2008 objectives, generating 771 million media impressions, impacting awareness, boosting registration and outpacing 2008 fundraising goals.

Statement of the Problem / Opportunity

The AHA is the leading U.S. organization dedicated to funding research and raising awareness of heart disease and stroke. The AHA’s Go Red For Women cause, educates and connects millions of women to build awareness of heart disease in women.

Though women were bombarded with health information, they were missing vital, life-saving facts about heart disease.  Even women who were aware of the risk, failed to personalize it, believing heart disease doesn’t happen to “people like me.” Go Red For Women saw an opportunity to raise awareness by telling the “untold stories,” to build awareness of heart disease as the #1 killer of women in the U.S. and inspire two million women to join GRFW to take action!

Research

According to the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, nine out of 10 women acknowledge they have a risk factor associated with heart disease; only one in five believe that heart disease is their greatest personal health risk. In fact, a 2007 Meredith/NBC Universal study reveals that women are more concerned about diet/weight (56%) than about cardiovascular health (20%).

However, Go Red database research revealed that women who join Go Red take actionable steps to improve their heart health.

• More than 40% have lost weight
• More than half have increased their daily and weekly exercise 
• Six out of 10 have changed their diet
• 53% have checked their cholesterol levels

To have an impact, GRFW needed to personalize the risks and motivate women to take action. 

·         While one in three women in the U.S. is suffering from cardiovascular disease, only one in five believe they are personally at risk. Qualitative and anecdotal research conducted by GRFW found that this disconnect leaves women unmotivated to act. GRFW had to personalize the statistics, by making women understand that heart disease happens to “women like me” in order to promote awareness and action.

·         According to Edelman’s 2006 Trust Barometer, women are most likely to believe and respond to information that is delivered by their peers (i.e., real women or “women like me”) and Comscore reports that 60% of women (18-44) rely on the Internet for health information.

·         GRFW database research indicated that 96% of the women who joined GRFW took an actionable step towards improving their heart health. Thus, once GRFW was able to build awareness and personalize the statistics, driving membership in the GRFW cause would move women from awareness to action.

Planning

From the start of planning, we worked closely with GRFW’s and AHA’s leadership to ensure that the program helped to not only support, but advance AHA’s organizational goal to reduce deaths from heart disease through increased awareness and action.  An AHA cross-functional team focused on GRFW helped to inform planning and integrate tactics through the execution stage to ensure we reached our target audience efficiently and effectively.

Objectives and Measurement

GRFW’s 2008 Media Machine goals aligned directly with GRFW’s overall program objectives:

Objective 1:     Generate awareness that heart disease is the #1 killer of women in the U.S.

Objective 2:     Generate 650 MM national media impressions for the GRFW movement

Objective 3:     Drive women to GoRedForWomen.org to register and complete the Heart CheckUp

·         2010 registration goal – Two million women

·         2010 Go Red Heart CheckUp goal – One million women

Target Audience

Based on GRFW proprietary consumer research and current database analysis of members mix, target women are 35-54, ethnically diverse, married, mothers, employed (75%), college-educated and affluent.

Strategy

·         Create a national rallying cry to “Share Your Untold Story of the Heart,” during peak awareness drives (American Heart Month and National Wear Red Day)

·         Develop a national media partnership to raise broad awareness of heart disease via a television documentary, a PSA campaign, an on-air, online and out-of-home promotional campaign.

·         Raise awareness of heart disease risk at the local level through new data points that bring heart disease “home” for women.

·         Promote GoRedForWomen.org as the online heart health destination that helps women understand their personal risk of heart disease through the AHA science-based information and tools.

Execution

The 2008 GRFW Media Relations campaign accomplished GRFW objectives by leveraging key GRFW assets to create a steady stream of media year-round with a consistent call-to-action to visit GoRedForWomen.org. Assets leveraged included:

·         Shop Go Red site (Dec ’07- Feb ’08): In order to take advantage of seasonal opportunities to raise awareness of GRFW sponsor products that support GRFW fundraising, Edelman conducted outreach to holiday gift guides and February product pages. The outreach included a branded gift guide mailer.

·         American Heart Month and National Wear Red Day (Feb ’08): GRFW leveraged spokesperson Marie Osmond, whose mother and grandmother died of heart disease, and the first-ever “untold stories” casting call to generate buzz and encourage women, TV anchors, corporations and entire cities to Go Red!  Outreach tactics included anchor drops and use of controlled media (SMT/RMT/RNR).

·         Release of the Heart-Friendly Cities study (May ‘08): GRFW developed and released Heart-Friendly Cities(HFC) study to serve up heart-health statistics associated with more than 200 women’s “hometowns” to personalize heart disease risk and prevention factors. Outreach tactics included use of BestPlaces’ Bert Sperling and AHA cardiologist, Dr. Jennifer Mieres in controlled media (RMT/RNR), supplemented by targeted outreach.

·         Premiere of “Untold Stories” Documentary (Sept ’08): Partnered with NBC Universal to bring “real women’s” stories to life through a nationally syndicated documentary. Supporting tactics included a Your Total Health integration, on-air and online promotions and an event sponsorship package with NBC’s Local Health Expos.

Throughout the campaign we held regular meetings with our day-to-day client contacts and conducted check-ins with the AHA GRFW cross-functional team to ensure we were on course to meet our goals and objectives.  As necessary we worked to identify necessary adjustments to programming and course-corrected real time to continue to execute an efficient and effective campaign.

Campaign Outcomes / Monitoring and Evaluation

Objective 1: Generate awareness of heart disease as the #1 killer of women

·         Sixty-five percent of women are now aware, up from 57% in 2006, according to the AHA.

Objective 2: Generate 650 MM national media impressions for the GRFW movement

·      Shop Go Red outreach resulted in more than 22 million impressions, in publications such as Better Homes & Gardens, Woman’s Day, Shape, Women’s Health and more.

·      Feb ‘08 outreach and controlled tactics generated more than 152 million impressions, across outlets such as the TODAY Show, Entertainment Tonight, LIVE with Regis and Kelly, People Magazine, and cnn.com.

·      Heart Friendly Cities revealed the 10 most/least heart-friendly U.S. cities, generating more than 31 million impressions, including Wall Street Journal radio, iVillage, WebMD and HealthDay.

·       “Untold Stories” aired in more than 80 markets; partnership generated more than 80 million impressions.

·      In total, GRFW generated more than 771 million impressions, exceeding our goal by 121 million impressions.

Objective 3: Drive women to GoRedForWomen.org to register and take the Heart CheckUp

·         75,000 MORE unique visitors per month (year-over-year) and more than 220,000 registered.

·         Reached goal of 1 million women taking the GRFW Heart CheckUp, 18 months ahead of schedule.

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