Read about Hill & Knowlton's work on the text4baby campaign from H&K vice president Stacie Paxton and Judy Meehan, chief executive officer of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition.

1. G O O D B E G I N N I N G S : text4baby, a
free, weekly sms text message service that is
timed to a mother’s due date, was developed to
be a resource for expectant and new mothers,
making them aware of proper prenatal care and
essential tips for a baby’s first year.
12
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2. pregnancy
Education
goes Mobile
Timely text messages reach out to expectant mothers
13
T
By J u dy M E E H A n A n d S tAC i E pA x tO n
HE STATiSTiCS ArE SHoCKing: Each
year more than 500,000 American babies
are born prematurely, and approximately
28,000 die before their first birthday.
While medical experts can’t fully explain
the cause, they do know that awareness of
proper prenatal care—which includes good nutrition,
regular prenatal doctor visits and avoiding cigarettes
and alcohol—can help a mother deliver a healthy baby.
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3. Recognizing both the scope of •Create buzz about text4baby at
this public health problem and the launch through earned media coverage;
potential of mobile technology, the •generate free coverage with a local
National Healthy Mothers, Healthy radio public service announcement
Babies Coalition, founding partners campaign featuring a pro bono celebrity
Voxiva, CTiA-The Wireless Associa- spokesman or spokeswoman;
tion and Grey Healthcare Group and •Secure a media partnership; and
founding sponsor Johnson & Johnson •Encourage national, state and
joined forces to create text4baby. This local outreach partners to promote the
free service is the first of its kind to use service to their constituents and clients
weekly text messages to alert women and to deliver the message directly and
on ways to protect their babies’ health through their own earned media efforts.
during pregnancy and postpartum. The plan also focused on an
It was created to provide pregnant integrated social media campaign to
and new mothers with easy access to increase awareness. “Mommy blog-
critical health information. gers” were engaged to secure stories
Women who sign up for the service on popular sites like BabyCenter.com,
by texting BABY (or BEBE in Spanish) MomslikeMe.com, Babygooroo.com
to 511411 receive free SMS text mes- and MochaMoms.org, as well as social
sages each week timed to their due networks like Facebook.
date. The service offers women an easy, “i smoked cigarettes until
convenient and contemporary medium i found out i was pregnant, the Buzz. To create buzz,
they trust to get information about The Associated Press was offered exclu-
their health and that of their children. and i quit for my child. sive coverage, followed by a next-day
14 Text4baby makes it easier for young a text like this could help announcement by U.S. Federal Chief
women to receive guidelines for proper someone who wants to Technology officer Aneesh Chopra at a
prenatal care by delivering information key health conference.
directly to their mobile devices, where smoke again think about The founding partners issued a
it’s more likely to be read, as 90 percent having that cigarette.” joint news release in both English and
of Americans have a mobile phone. Hill -mom and text4baby user, maryland Spanish, and the White House office of
& Knowlton, an international com- Science and Technology policy (oSTp)
munications consultancy, was recruited to help launch and did the same. Chopra wrote a post on the White House blog as
promote this valuable resource. well, providing an opportunity to highlight the support of the
The primary audience is young, pregnant women and obama administration. Twenty partner organizations issued
new mothers from various backgrounds, who sometimes their own news releases and tweeted about their involvement.
lack proper health care services. According to the Centers The launch was also covered by national television networks
for Disease Control & Prevention, the infant mortality and their local affiliates throughout the country. immediately
rate among African-American women is 2.4 times that of
non-Hispanic white women. young, lower-income African-
American women are a particularly important audience, as
they have the highest infant mortality rates and receive the
least prenatal care. Need More Marketing Power?
the plan. As with many deserving public health GO TO marketingpower.com
campaigns with limited budgets, the plan relied on earned
Articles
media and outreach by partner organizations. The goals were transforming consumer health, Journal of Public Policy &
to increase awareness of text4baby, recruit subscribers, gain the Marketing, 2011
trust of users and third parties as a credible source of health
diversity marketing redefined, Marketing News, 2011
information, create a broad coalition of partners to promote
the service to pregnant women and new moms, and enlist the
Webcast
federal government and lawmakers to assist in spreading the wikibrands, wikicommunities—how to manage the world of
word about text4baby. engaged brands, sponsored by Ramius, 2011
The plan employed several tactics:
M a r k e t i n g h e a lt h s e r v i c e s | Sp r i n g 2 011

4. following the launch, text4baby released a radio PSA in target valuable tool that will help ensure that information reaches the
markets nationwide. A number of factors were used in select- women who can benefit from it,” Capps says.
ing a celebrity to record the pro bono pSA. These included age, With increased support from Johnson & Johnson and a
ethnicity, tone, accessibility and relevance to the target audi- multiyear commitment announced recently, text4baby aims
ence. All this research led to Sherri Shepherd of “The View,” to reach one million moms by December 2012. mhs
whose son had prematurity-related health issues and who
might appeal to an African-American audience. The pSA ran in ✒ Judy Meehan is the chief executive officer of the national Healthy
Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition. stacie paxton, a vice president in Hill
target markets shortly after the national launch. & Knowlton’s Washington, d.C. office, led the public relations effort around
MTV, the top media partner choice, signed on as an early the launch of text4baby. they may be reached at jmeehan@hmhb.org and
media sponsor. MTV highlighted text4baby in the finale stacie.paxton@hillandknowlton.com, respectively. please visit
www.text4baby.org for more information.
special, “Teen Mom with Dr. Drew,” resulting in nearly
1,500 new text4baby subscribers immediately following
the airing. MTV also featured a bonus clip of “16 and
Pregnant,” in which one mother shared important
health messages she received through text4baby.
B A B Y T A L K : with
the Launch. Text4baby’s more than 180,000
launch received significant earned media subscribers, text4baby has
coverage with more than 650 place- grown to a 500-plus coalition
of active public and private
ments and 75 million impressions, sector partners including
driving more than 180,000 sub- government agencies, hospitals,
scribers (and counting) with 96 corporations and academic
percent saying that they would institutions. ads featuring the
recommend text4baby to a baby seen here and ones similar
to the ad on page 14 were used
friend. The radio pSA with heavily throughout the launch. 15
Shepherd received 15,750
broadcasts, reaching 32
million listeners. The
text4baby Facebook
page currently has more
than 2,700 "likes" and
continues to grow.
From a handful of initial
founding partners, text4baby has grown to a
500-plus coalition of active public and private sector
partners comprised of government agencies, professional
associations, hospitals, corporations, academic institutions
and nonprofit organizations. These include the oSTp, the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the
Department of Defense Military Health System and more than
22 state agencies, including New York City, which advertises
the program through its distribution of birth certificates.
Text4baby was honored by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
with the prestigious HHSinnovates award, given to innovations
that have improved HHS service. it also received the prestigious
Silver Anvil Best of Show Award from Public Relations Soci-
ety of America. in addition, text4baby hosted a congressional
briefing and secured a recommendation letter from California
Congresswoman lois Capps, who encouraged members of
Congress to promote the service.
“Text4baby provides essential health information to
pregnant women and new moms during a critical time of life.
I was so pleased to be able to help spread the word about this