Take, for instance, a new campaign from the Alcon division of Novartis, which features print advertisements that carry the headline “This is not your mother’s cataract surgery.” The campaign, now under way, is meant to educate the baby boomer generation about cataract surgery and how, as the ads put it, “today’s advanced technology” enables doctors to offer patients “an opportunity to get your youthful vision back.”
The campaign, with a budget estimated at $3 million, includes, in addition to the print ads, a special Web site, or microsite, and digital ads.
The agencies involved in the campaign include HCB
Health in Austin, Tex., for the creative duties; the Starcom division of the Starcom MediaVest Group, part of the Publicis Groupe, for the media duties; and Tribal Worldwide, part of the DDB Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group, which built the microsite.
The centerpiece of the campaign is a collaboration between Alcon and the AARP Media Sales unit of AARP that involves AARP print and digital properties. More than $1 million of the total ad budget is to be spent in the properties represented by AARP Media Sales, which include AARP The
.
As part of the collaboration, Alcon and AARP teamed for a telephone survey of 1,000 members of AARP, age 50 and older, to find out about their awareness and understanding of cataracts and cataract surgery. The results of the survey helped guide the creation of the campaign.
The partnership is another example of an increasingly popular trend on Madison Avenue known as content marketing, which brings together brands and media companies for advertising that is primarily meant to be entertaining or informative rather than using hard-sell tactics to peddle products.
That fits well with the Alcon campaign because its principal goal is to advocate for cataract surgery in general among consumers rather than promote specific Alcon surgical products to them or medical professionals.
“Typically, our marketing efforts have been geared to professional audiences,” says Seba Leoni, vice president and general manager for United States surgical at Alcon in Fort Worth. “Rarely do we go to consumers.”
“This is a first-of-a-kind campaign,” he adds.
The collaboration with AARP is “for focused objectives aimed at driving awareness,” Mr. Leoni says, “to inform and educate about available options for cataract surgery, and how it can be tailored to individual needs.”
“AARP is critical because it reaches the target audience, 50-plus,” he adds, including people with cataracts who “have not been diagnosed” as well as “people who have been diagnosed but not treated yet.”
In the survey, only two out of five respondents who are cataract patients said they planned to have surgery in the next two years. Among the explanations for putting it off, 44 percent said their vision was “fine for now” and 14 percent said they were afraid, fearful or scared of the surgery.
“Vision health is a top priority” for older people, Mr. Leoni says, and they “are generally aware about cataracts but may not know about all the treatment options available today.” Of course, as the leader in cataract surgery, it is in Alcon’s interest to let them know more about surgical treatments.
That is reflected in a section of the survey devoted to responses from people who had
cataract surgery. Four out of five said it was easier than they expected, according to the survey, and two out of three said it was not painful.
“The outcome is extremely positive, but there may be some hesitation,” Mr. Leoni says, especially among those who are “not aware how far cataract surgery has come” and how other conditions like presbyopia and astigmatism can also be treated during the surgery.
That perception is expressed in the “This is not your mother’s cataract surgery” headline.
“Twenty years ago, they didn’t have the advances in technology they have today,” says Kim Carpenter, vice president for account services at HCB Health.
“We want to educate the baby boomer population that when you’re diagnosed it’s not something to fear,” she adds, “and that cataract surgery is an opportunity to have better vision than you’ve had.”
Ms. Carpenter calls cataracts “one of those silent thieves” that can take a toll among today’s older people who are used to “an active life style.”
“This generation doesn’t accept the status quo,” she says, “and they’re taking better care of themselves” in areas like eye health.
The collaborative campaign represents “a great opportunity for Alcon and a great opportunity for AARP to educate its members,” she adds.
Patricia Lippe Davis, vice president for marketing at AARP Media Sales, notes that “as of next year, 100 percent of boomers will be 50” because the baby boom generation is defined as those Americans born from 1946 through 1964.
Ms. Davis traces the origins of the partnership between AARP and Alcon to an article, “Six Ways to Save Your Eyesight,” that appeared in the September/October 2011 issue of AARP The Magazine.
“There was an Alcon advertisement in that issue, and that ad was extremely successful for the company,” she recalls, which led to Alcon’s reaching out to AARP Media Sales to ask about potential joint initiatives in “the vision space.”
That produced the survey, which was conducted in April, followed by the campaign, which appears in the August/September issue of AARP The Magazine along with an article, “The Truth About Cataracts and Cataract Surgery.”
The growing appeal of content marketing is tempered by concerns about a blurring of the line between advertising and editorial content. In this instance, Ms. Davis says, there was an agreement that the content would be shared by Alcon and AARP but that Alcon “can have no influence on any editorial that was created.”
“This allowed us to create member value,” she adds, “letting us go deeper into a subject affecting our members.”
In addition to the AARP media properties, the campaign is appearing in publications like Golf, Guideposts, Ladies’ Home Journal, Prevention, Reader’s Digest, The Saturday Evening Post and Spry. The other online media outlets include AOL,
Healthgrades and WebMD.
The campaign is scheduled to run through the end of the year. And “we’re already planning for 2014,” says Ms. Carpenter of HCB Health.
The intent is to introduce another creative approach in October and November, she adds, that will be “all about celebrating your independence, your freedom from cataracts,” reflecting how 90 percent of the respondents to the survey said their independence is “extremely important” to them.
