Company: HausCo
Company Description: HausCo is a Chicago-based marketing communication firm, specializing in brand activation, creative execution and paid media management. Founded in 2017 by Kevin Hauswirth, HausCo has a small but mighty team of 15 passionate writers, creators and digital storytellers ready to make a difference in the world. HausCo has been recognized by The Stevie Awards, Golden Trumpet Awards and Reed Awards.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Categories - Industry
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing Campaign of the Year - Healthcare - Services
 Nomination Title: With Pleasure - Howard Brown Health
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this first question: Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
June 5th, 2023
- Which will you submit for this nomination, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the nominated campaign or program, OR written answers to the questions for this category? CHOOSE ONE:
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this second question: Describe the genesis of the nominated campaign or program: the reasons it was initiated, the challenges it was created to address, the problems it was developed to solve, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 241 words used.
Howard Brown Health is a Chicago-based healthcare provider that offers excellent, affirming, and accessible patient care to all, rooted in LGBTQ+ liberation and human dignity. Howard Brown is also a pillar in the LGBTQ+ community, largely known for its historic role in innovative research and providing medical treatment to HIV/AIDS patients back when the epidemic was at its height.
Since Howard Brown is primarily perceived as a direct go-to for STI prevention services within the queer community, there is much lower awareness of other key services Howard Brown provided, such as primary care, psychiatric care, and geriatric care, especially in communities around Chicago’s South Side.
H/Co was tasked to address two distinct target audiences and their specific needs: LGBTQ folks with sexual health care needs across the city of Chicago and any South Side residents with basic health needs.
There were three main challenges that Howard Brown seeked to address at the time:
1) Create space to celebrate its role as a critical provider in healthcare, particularly preventative healthcare for the LGBTQ+ community.
2) With MPox and COVID levels on the rise, Howard Brown aimed to create a new branded campaign that would motivate largely queer male Chicagoans to get vaccinated - all while trying to stand out in the advertising clutter during pride month.
3) Address the basic health needs on the South Side of Chicago, as all of the clinics in that area were struggling to drive appointment sign-ups.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this third question: Describe the development of the campaign or program: the planning process, the goal setting, the creative and media development, the scheduling, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 242 words used.
Howard Brown Health recruited HausCo to execute a very unique city-wide targeted media campaign from scratch since the organization had not previously done message segmentation/testing. First, HausCo conducted multiple brainstorming sessions to land on a single creative strategy. Two messaging strategies were created to engage specific demographics in Chicago: pride-focused and care-focused. Now, the challenge was to create an overarching campaign theme that could house both needs.
After multiple rounds of writing and conceptualizing, HausCo landed on With Pleasure, a creative campaign rooted in queer sexual liberation and resource sharing, which helped to communicate to Chicagoans the critical resources Howard Brown has to offer. As a part of With Pleasure, the pride-focused messaging aimed to increase general brand awareness, and motivate the LGBTQ+ community to get vaccinated. The care-focused messaging was used to drive awareness of resources, and encourage South Side residents to sign up for appointments at their local Howard Brown clinic.
The “With Pleasure” frame could play up fun, sex-positive messaging for one audience, while emphasizing the care-centric and affirming service everyone gets at Howard Brown.
HausCo created a With Pleasure media kit for Howard Brown to use for their own summer activations. HausCo also planned a paid social campaign to run on Facebook/Instagram targeted to two audiences: a general city-wide LGBTQ+ interests audience and a South Side geo-targeted audience. Two paid assets were created for each messaging type, with all four creatives targeted to both audiences to test effectiveness.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this fourth question: Outline the activities and concrete results of this campaign or program since the beginning of 2019. Even if your initiative started before 2022, limit your response to activities and results since the beginning of 2022 only (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
Howard Brown Health was able to take the media kit and create a variety of marketing materials for pride month. This allowed the With Pleasure campaign to be showcased during the Chicago Pride Parade via OOH placements. From t-shirts to parade banners, With Pleasure was at the forefront of the discussion and significantly increased brand awareness.
After running for two weeks, the paid social campaign generated 1.8M impressions and 1.5K engagements, reaching over 963K individuals. These results helped to establish a benchmark for future brand awareness campaigns. Howard Brown Health also monitored the appointments pages for each of the South Side clinics, and noticed a slight increase in appointment sign-ups during the campaign flight period.
The campaign achieved a secondary goal of gathering message testing insights to optimize creative. For example, care-focused messaging outperformed pride-focused messaging: Messages that involved language around “comprehensive care” or “whole person care” really resonated across all audiences, especially when messaging included specific examples of types of care that Howard Brown offers.
While younger audiences (18-34) were served ads the most, older audiences (54+) clicked and engaged at higher rates - especially if the content was care-related. This signaled to Howard Brown Health that older audiences are more in-market for healthcare services as opposed to younger audiences. From this, they were able to successfully understand their target audiences to optimize their messaging in alignment with community needs. All insights gathered from this campaign had longevity and informed strategy for future Howard Brown activations.
- You have the option to reference here any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 95 words used.
- With Pleasure Paid Media Recap Deck - to understand the impact that the paid activation had on the execution of the campaign.
- With Pleasure Brand Playbook - a glimpse into the design process for the logo revamp and creative execution.
- Final Paid Assets (4) - to see how the two different messaging concepts were effectively communicated within a single design concept
- Pride 2023 Pictures - to understand how the media kit was used for public promotion during Pride Month events.
- HBH Campaign Webpage - to understand how the media kit was used on agency communications.
| Attachments/Videos/Links: |
|---|
|
