ADA Marketing Proposal Heads for Vote

By David G. Jones

Article copyright 1998 Journal of the California Dental Association.
Photographs copyright of the authors.

Delegates to the ADA House in October will decide whether a sweeping attempt to boost public awareness about the benefits of good oral health is worth the significant price attached.

The proposed public awareness campaign will be made up of messages in several forms of mass media, but its centerpiece will be national television spots designed to convey the relevance of oral health in people's lives and to enhance dentistry's image.

If delegates give the program a green light during the annual ADA meeting Oct. 24-28 in San Francisco, cost to the association will be $30 million a year for three years, bringing with it a $300-per-year dues increase for ADA members. The high cost of the proposed campaign, and the resulting possibility of losing members, led the CDA Board of Trustees at their May 15-16 meeting to pass a resolution to recommend that the 13th District caucus oppose it.

As ADA continues to try to educate members about the campaign, a key point is the association's attempt to distinguish its national public awareness program from state-level programs.

ADA's proposed campaign would provide a broad-brush approach in which a mass audience is targeted to receive key messages. State programs, on the other hand, typically target specific geographic market segments or demographic groups. They communicate their key messages because the messages are developed and aimed directly at specific groups of people.

The difference in the choice of marketing technique is in the audience selected to receive the key messages.

"The major difference between state and national programs revolves around the target audience," said Susan Wall, CDA marketing manager.

"As your target audience gets larger, and there's a greater variety of psychographic characteristics, it becomes more difficult to effectively deliver advertising messages that effectively make an impact. It will be possible to create an image for an organization, but it will be unrealistic to expect that a single message delivered through mass media, such as network television, will motivate the entire mass audience to take action."

Of state marketing programs such as California's, Wall said there will still be some of the same challenges, but the smaller audience can be more easily separated into market segments by factors such as geographic area (urban or rural); parental status; and education levels, among others.

"Once the segments are identified, appropriate advertising media can be more finely selected, as in running a radio spot discussing the importance of mouth guards on the local sports/talk station," Wall said. "The various messages, all supporting a single objective, can be targeted to a wide variety of market segments within a single community."

Finally, Wall said that a state program will have other benefits for the association and its members.

"For instance, 'CDA' means something to California lawmakers, but an increase in awareness for the ADA name has little effect on local politics or legislative activities," she said.

Tom Kochheiser, MDA's director of marketing and public information

An example of the effectiveness of a state marketing program can be found in Michigan. The Michigan Dental Society has for more than a decade operated a successful statewide campaign. Its advertising program has gone through several phases, but it has gotten more specific through placement of an MDA tag at the end of each television commercial to help create awareness of state dental societies and local dentistry issues, according to Tom Kochheiser, MDA's director of marketing and public information.

"After this, recognition of our members skyrocketed," Kochheiser said.

A 1988 public survey showed awareness of MDA was at 38 percent. By 1997, the figure had climbed to 88 percent.

Kochheiser said that last year MDA moved into the issues of managed care and freedom of choice through a campaign featuring statewide radio and Michigan editions of Newsweek, Time, and People magazines. Now, MDA is focusing on specific freedom-of-choice issues in more populous areas of the state.

In one part of the campaign that has been considered particularly successful, MDA created a continuing billboard message that has been placed near the main employee entrance of the sprawling General Motors plant in Detroit and at subsidiary manufacturing plants in Grand Rapids, Flint, and Lansing. Its message is clear to the intended audience -- auto workers. The billboard depicts a pile of lemons in the background and the words: "If you can't visit your own dentist, trade in your dental plan."

Although MDA has had success with its program, delegates considered dropping it because of the cost of ADA's program if approved in October.

"Our House decided to continue our statewide program because we've spent a lot of money over the years getting specific Michigan issues to specific markets, which would be lacking in the ADA campaign," Kochheiser said.

As early as 1979, the ADA House approved a Board of Trustee-proposed national institutional advertising program that emphasized print advertisements in consumer magazines and limited television advertising in three test market cities. "Sparkle," as the campaign was called, sought to persuade consumers that regular dental care would improve the overall quality of their lives by contributing to their feeling of well-being. The ADA House withdrew the campaign after one year to allow more research into the total spectrum of effective marketing of dental services.

In 1984, ADA considered another House-directed national advertising campaign, one focusing entirely on television. It combined what was thought to be two important messages: periodontal disease is epidemic, and regular dental care can prevent discomfort and tooth loss. The three-year campaign was to have cost $12.5 million per year, funded by a $125 dues increase, but it failed to gain the required two-thirds House majority.

ADA's associate executive director for communications stressed that the 1984 campaign was staff-generated, whereas delegates representing ADA membership approved the current national campaign concept.

Clay Mickel, ADA's Associate Executive Director of Communications

"We want people to realize that this isn't something the staff dreamed up. This came from a member on the floor of the House, and we're doing what the House told us to do," Clay Mickel said.

The proposed campaign will feature network and cable TV spots and national magazine ads designed to enhance dentistry's image and stress the relevance of good oral public health. In-office merchandising materials will help to educate patients about the need for good oral health, and direct marketing materials will be made available for dentists to offer their patients. The proposed campaign's theme line is "For the look that will last."

Mickel and other ADA staff members are in the process of traveling to every state to inform members about the proposed campaign.

"Most of the questions are in the membership realm, i.e., 'What effect will a dues increase to pay for the campaign have on membership?' " Mickel said. "That's exactly where the focus should be. That's the decision everyone has to make, whether the campaign's value outweighs any potential negative impact to the membership."

Mickel said it's much too soon to make a prediction on the chances of the resolution's passage.

"The dues increase will require a two-thirds vote, and that is difficult to get," he said.