Department of Health slims down agency partners
pharmafile | December 21, 2011 | News story | Medical Communications | DH, Freud Communications, MEC
The Department of Health has stripped back its use of comms agencies in its public health campaigns by switching to just two consultancies.
A variety of agencies have been employed until now to support single-issue campaigns on various health topics, but from 1 January Freud Communications will manage all public relations and MEC will have a consolidated media planning brief.
The rationale is that by slashing the number of companies delivering the messaging, the consistency of the messages themselves will be improved – but is also aimed at a cost saving of 25 per cent.
“Both MEC and Freud Communications will forego a percentage of their fee if they don’t meet the targets set in their plans,” explained Sheila Mitchell, head of marketing at the Department of Health.
“Too often in the past the Department has held separate conversations with the same people, one day talking to them about their diet, the next about their alcohol consumption without recognising linked behaviour,” a statement says.
To change this, the Department is now adopting a so-called ‘life course’ approach to its social marketing activities, targeting comms at smoking cessation plus three different age groups.
This change of approach means the campaigns run by Freud and MEC will prioritise:
- The Smokefree programme
- Change4Life and Start4Life, which are aimed at families and middle-aged adults: from February 2012 messaging will focus on alcohol consumption, diet and exercise
- Older people, encouraging them and their carers to seek prompt medical advice by highlighting the signs of cancer, for example, and emphasising the need for dignity in old age
- A new programme, targeting young people, seeking to influence behaviour such as smoking, binge drinking, experimenting with drugs and risky sexual activity.
“Our public health social marketing strategy takes us to the next level, adopting a life-stage based approach, which will make our campaigns more effective and save money,” suggests Mitchell.
MEC and Freud went through a tender process run by the Government Procurement Service in which they were required to demonstrate how their plans would target audiences, promote healthy lifestyles and improve health.
Adam Hill
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