Running a Public Health Education Campaign
We launched a public health campaign to celebrate a federal health agency’s flagship National Health Observance (NHO). The campaign won the Gold Award for Excellence in Public Health Communications by the National Public Health Information Coalition.
Overview
The Why: The agency established the NHO to bring eye health and vision to the national spotlight and to encourage Americans to prioritize healthy vision. Many vision problems and eye diseases are not easily noticeable and do not have early warning signs. Each year, the agency uses its flagship NHO to encourage people to adopt eye-healthy behaviors, including getting comprehensive eye exams.
Outcome: The client was thrilled because our team planned the campaign well in advance and delivered excellent results, despite a tight budget.
Campaign Design
Based on the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s call to encourage eye and vision health across the lifespan, we set the campaign’s target audience as young adults ages 25 to 35. The agency conducted user research through focus groups to determine campaign messaging and activities.
The campaign’s goals included:
Educating young adults ages 25 to 35 about the importance of eye health
Inspiring young adults ages 25 to 35 to adopt healthy behaviors to preserve their vision
Mobilizing campaign partners to spread the word about healthy vision
Campaign Tactics and Activities
We developed key campaign messages and campaign graphics to meet the first 2 goals. We leveraged existing partnerships and established new ones to reach the target audience, and made campaign messages and materials available to partners through an online toolkit on the campaign website for promotion.
The agency and partners also promoted the campaign and healthy vision through social media, website features, and email newsletters. We collaborated with partners to host a Twitter Chat and Facebook Live event to dive deeper into the topic of healthy vision. We also initiated a user-generated social media campaign and engaged social media influencers to increase the campaign’s engagement and reach.
The agency had multiple major priorities during the fiscal year, so fewer resources were available for the 2019 campaign compared to campaigns in previous years. The campaign was promoted solely through partnerships and organic digital promotion.
Campaign Results
The NHO hashtag garnered 40 million organic impressions on social media over the course of the month. We exceeded the objective for toolkit (campaign messages and materials) downloads by 75%.
A shareable social media graphic that we developed for the campaign.