North Carolina Doctors’ Day Campaign

The North Carolina Medical Society (NCMS) is the largest physician organization in North Carolina, devoted to representing the interests of physicians and protecting the quality of patient care. Established in 1849, the NCMS has more than 13,000 members.

The NCMS reached out to Signal to design a campaign to tie in with the observance of National Doctors’ Day on March 30. The NCMS wished to take the opportunity to make North Carolina doctors feel appreciated and remind them of their invaluable contribution to their state. The objectives of the campaign were to create excitement and give patients, health care staff and members of the public an opportunity to express gratitude to NC physicians and “show them some love.”

Creative Concepting

The Signal team brainstormed a number of campaign concepts and decided on a new, homegrown tradition: North Carolina Doctors’ Day. To mark the event, the team recommended that the NCMS sponsor a 2015 North Carolina Doctor of the Year Award, allowing patients and the public to honor great physicians. The NCMS would also donate a $5,000 grand prize, to be used to further the winner’s professional mission.

The Signal creative team developed a NC Doctors’ Day logo and the tagline: “Great doctors. Grateful patients.” The messaging captured the open, appreciative and social nature of the event – and created alignment across multiple channels.

Microsite

Signal created a dedicated website, www.ncdoctorsday.org, for the event. The website educated visitors about the event and the NC Doctor of the Year Award. It also allowed members of the public, patients and colleagues to nominate doctors for the award using a quick form. It also featured profiles of the top ten finalists that visitors could vote on – and announced the winner on March 30.

The site was done in the same fresh, fun color palette and look as the logo. It also featured a social “Wall of Gratitude,” showcasing the latest posts, tweets and news about NC Doctors’ Day – all in real time.

Social strategy / promoted social ads

The Signal team created Facebook and Twitter pages to promote the day, gather nominations for the award and votes for the finalists. They also put together a detailed social strategy for the NCMS team to deploy, which included a weekly editorial calendar of posts, tweets and ads.

Media/PR

The NCMS partnered with a number of co-sponsors – organizations in the medical and healthcare industries – to increase awareness about the event and create buzz. To support the partner component of the campaign, Signal created a customizable partner toolkit, containing information on the event, key messages – and sample posts, tweets and press releases. The toolkit was featured as password-protected content on the microsite and it also included downloadable graphics for partners to use.

Results

• Media coverage from 23 sources across the state, including both General and Specialty media
• Nearly 71,000 website sessions over an eight-week period
• More than 19,000 participating voters
• 17 sponsors signed up to help NCMS support the event
• Social media exposure, including more than 35,000 referrals from Facebook
• Searches for “NC Medical Society” doubled compared to last year