MPH 602 Week 4 Media and Social Media Campaign Plan Example

Carry It, Pass It On: A Twelve-Month Paid, Earned and Social Media Campaign Plan to Put Naloxone in Every Southern Colorado Household That Needs It

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

MPH/602: Public Health Communication and Advocacy

Week 4 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The county, its campaign, budget, media buys, partners and targets are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources cited.

Once its three audience messages had been pretested, the county health department received its first dedicated campaign budget: $180,000 for twelve months from opioid settlement funds. The question was how to spend it. This paper presents the campaign plan.

Campaign Goal and Objectives

Goal: increase naloxone carrying among households and individuals at risk of witnessing an overdose. Objectives by month twelve: 60% of adults in the county recall seeing a campaign message; naloxone kits distributed rise from 4,200 in the prior year to 9,000; the share of parents of teenagers reporting naloxone at home rises from 8% to 20% in a follow-up survey; and bystander naloxone use reported in overdose responses rises from 31% to 45%.

What Campaigns Can Achieve

Mass media campaigns can change behavior, but conditions matter. Reviewing campaigns on topics from tobacco and road safety to cancer screening, Wakefield and colleagues found that media efforts can shift behavior across whole populations. They also found that campaigns compete with marketing, social norms and habit, that results hinge on whether the promoted product or service is actually at hand and that too many campaigns are too short and too thinly funded to reach people often enough (Wakefield et al., 2010).

Lessons From the Truth Campaign

Sustained exposure pays off. A national cohort of 8,904 adolescents followed from 1997 to 2004 across 210 media markets found that exposure to the truth antismoking campaign was associated with a lower risk of smoking initiation, a relative risk of 0.80, and the authors estimated that about 450,000 adolescents were prevented from trying smoking through 2004 (Farrelly et al., 2009).

Lessons From Tips From Former Smokers

Emotional stories from real people can move behavior quickly. CDC's three-month Tips From Former Smokers campaign featured real people living with smoking-related illness; among smokers in national cohorts, 78% recalled at least one advertisement, quit attempts rose from 31.1% to 34.8%, a 12% relative increase, and an estimated 1.64 million additional smokers made a quit attempt nationally (McAfee et al., 2013). Real people telling true stories did what statistics alone could not.

Applying the Lessons

The campaign runs for twelve months rather than a burst, uses real local people in its advertising and expands naloxone distribution before launch so the messages have a service behind them. It also leans on partners, because trusted messengers extend reach at no cost and lend credibility that paid ads cannot buy.

Services Behind the Messages

Before launch, free naloxone will be available at all 31 county pharmacies through the state standing order, 20 vending machines in libraries, community centers and bars, school nurse offices and the syringe services program. A text line will tell people the nearest location.

The Creative Approach

All paid advertising features real county residents: a mother and son, a bartender, a pharmacist and a peer outreach worker, each describing in their own words why they carry naloxone. Stories were chosen with participants' consent and reviewed by them before release. A consistent visual identity, an orange naloxone box and the phrase carry it, pass it on, ties the audience versions together.

Channels for Parents

Paid: Facebook and Instagram ads targeted to parents in the county, streaming audio ads and pediatric clinic waiting room screens. Owned and partner: school district emails in August and January, the health department's website and newsletters from churches. Earned: a local news story featuring a mother who reversed her son's overdose.

Channels for Young Adults

Paid: Instagram and TikTok ads, bar and venue coasters and restroom posters and streaming music ads on weekend nights. Partner: bartenders and a local musician sharing content. Earned: a feature on bartenders trained to carry naloxone.

Channels for People Who Use Drugs

Partner: peer outreach workers distributing cards and kits daily, the syringe services program and treatment programs. Owned: a text line for refills and alerts. Paid media plays little role for this group; trust flows through people.

Reach, Frequency and Timing

Paid social ads target each audience at least three times a week during flight periods. The campaign runs in three flights: a launch in September, a push in January around New Year's events and a summer flight around festivals. Earned media and partner channels continue throughout.

Social Media Management

The department will post three times a week on its own accounts, respond to comments within a business day and use a moderation policy that removes harassment but keeps honest disagreement. Staff will prepare answers to common objections, such as whether naloxone encourages drug use, and will share partners' posts to extend reach through trusted networks.

Budget

Paid social media, $62,000; streaming audio and video, $28,000; bus shelters and venue materials, $24,000; production of video and photos featuring local people, $30,000; translation and pretesting, $8,000; evaluation, $18,000; and contingency, $10,000.

Partners and Roles

Pharmacies and vending machine hosts provide access. The school district and pediatricians distribute parent messages through their own newsletters and waiting rooms. Bars and venues display materials and train staff. Peer workers reach people who use drugs. Local media receive story ideas and spokespeople.

Timeline

Months one and two: finalize creative, train partners and stock distribution points. Month three: launch. Months four through twelve: flights, earned media and partner activities, with monthly reviews and adjustments. If one platform underperforms for two months, its budget moves to channels showing better results, and creative is refreshed midyear to avoid fatigue.

Process Evaluation

The team will track impressions, reach and frequency by platform, clicks to the location finder, text line sign-ups, earned media stories and partner activities completed each month.

Outcome Evaluation

A county survey at baseline and month twelve will measure recall, knowledge and naloxone at home. Distribution data will track kits by site. Emergency medical services reports will track bystander naloxone use. Changes will be compared with a similar Colorado county that is not running a campaign.

Equity in Reach

Paid targeting can miss people without smartphones or data plans. The plan therefore keeps bus shelters, radio in Spanish and English, printed materials in clinics and peer outreach, and it tracks kit distribution by neighborhood so staff can see whether the east and south sides are reached as well as wealthier areas.

Risks

Risks include platform ad rejections for drug-related content, supply shortages if demand rises quickly and backlash from residents who believe naloxone encourages drug use. The team will prepare approved ad language, secure extra supply and brief spokespeople.

Conclusion

The naloxone campaign plan spends a modest budget on fewer channels with enough exposure to matter, uses real local people in its stories and puts free naloxone within easy reach before launch. Reviews of mass media campaigns and the truth and Tips campaigns support sustained, emotionally compelling efforts with services behind them. Evaluation of exposure and behavior will show whether the campaign works.

References

Farrelly, M. C., Nonnemaker, J., Davis, K. C., & Hussin, A. (2009). The influence of the national truth campaign on smoking initiation. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 36(5), 379-384. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2009.01.019

McAfee, T., Davis, K. C., Alexander, R. L., Pechacek, T. F., & Bunnell, R. (2013). Effect of the first federally funded US antismoking national media campaign. The Lancet, 382(9909), 2003-2011. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61686-4

Wakefield, M. A., Loken, B., & Hornik, R. C. (2010). Use of mass media campaigns to change health behaviour. The Lancet, 376(9748), 1261-1271. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60809-4