Company: Capstrat, Raleigh, NC
Company Description: Capstrat is a leading strategic communications agency, focusing on advertising, public relations, digital communications and social media. Founded in 1994, Capstrat focuses on delivering results for clients by helping them tell their stories to the audiences that matter most. Capstrat is a three-time finalist for PRWeek's midsize agency of the year and the recipient of numerous awards.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Awards Categories - Industry
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing Campaign of the Year - Insurance

Nomination Title: Let's Talk Cost: Changing Critical Public Perceptions About Skyrocketing Health Care Costs

Tell the story of this nominated marketing campaign for the judges (up to 525 words). Describe the genesis, planning, execution, and results to date of your campaign. If applicable, remember to describe what's unique or innovative about your campaign:

Background: With health care costs increasing at a rapid and unsustainable rate, the focus of people’s outrage in 2011 was targeted at insurers like Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina.  Blame was becoming a huge distraction from the real issue, cost, so BCBSNC decided to address cost in a direct and transparent way.  It launched the Let’s Talk Cost (LTC) campaign to provoke a balanced conversation, prove its commitment to being part of the solution and bring to light the need for shared responsibility to fix the system.  The campaign elevated BCBSNC’s brand favorability and halved the number of people who blamed insurers for rising medical costs.
 
This success bred a new challenge for 2012: translating talk into action.

Research showed the public wanted to know what BCBSNC was going to do about costs. In truth, BCBSNC was working hard on costs, collaborations and innovations such as an online cost comparison tool. But too few people knew about it, so LTC phase two was designed to drive the point home: BCBSNC was walking the walk.  This phase included clever advertisements depicting people incredulous at the mere suggestion a health insurer would go out of its way to improve health care. The disarming honesty and approachability drove significant traffic to the LTC website, where users could learn about BCBSNC initiatives, discuss the issues and offer their own solutions.

As health care reform rolls out and premiums rise, insurers remain easy targets for blame. To get to the root of the problem, phase three needed to reaffirm LTC’s earlier messages and make them contagious.  So we added an accelerant: inspiring people to engage others in the discussion. The first two phases of LTC included paid and owned media, but getting people to share the message meant earning their attention.  To do this, we made the content easily digestible and emotionally charged so consumers would be more likely to share it within social networks. And share they did. The use of paid, owned and earned media, coupled with a provocative and transparent approach, has inspired thousands to pass the message on to others. To date, more than 2 million North Carolinians—almost half  the population—have seen LTC phase three, and more than 6,000 of them shared, liked or commented on the campaign in its first week.

Phase two of LTC helped BCBSNC earn recognition as a thought and policy leader in North Carolina as well as nationally. Since February 2012, www.letstalkcost.com has received more than 162,000 unique visitors and more than 330 comments. Visitors also posted more than 125 suggested solutions for lowering health care costs. The campaign helped BCBSNC’s brand remain stronger than its competitors with a 74 percent positive brand rating. Because social media was a prominent part of phase three, we are able to measure engagement more directly. Only three weeks have passed since phase three was launched, and already there have been 8,771 social visits to the website (58% of all traffic). We’ve seen 1,321 comments, 4,265 likes, 1,091 shares and 14,251 clicks on LTC content. Twitter has recognized the success of LTC and plans to highlight it as a featured campaign. 

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Provide a brief biography of the leader of the team that planned and executed this marketing campaign (up to 125 words):

Kelly Calabria is Senior Vice President and Group Director at Capstrat, where she oversees the agency’s health care business including clients like Quintiles and GSK. She also brings her leadership to the company’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) account team. Kelly is an accomplished speaker, having been selected to speak at the national PRSA Health Academy, Triangle Chapter of the American Marketing Association and the North Carolina PRSA. She co-authored the cover story of Marketing Health Services. She also serves on the board of directors with the North Carolina Biosciences Organization, the trade association for North Carolina’s life science community. Kelly works with the group to improve North Carolina’s attractiveness as a location for life science discovery, innovation and commercialization.