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Sharing the Spotlight

While sponsoring a nonprofit group, P&G, Wal-Mart and Lifetime have developed a valuable platform for reaching key consumers

Dianne Dunkelman had a hunch that women would respond in a big way to a little pampering, delivered along with valuable information about how to take charge of their healthcare. Six years later, Speaking of Women’s Health, the nonprofit group she founded, hosts annual conferences in more than 30 cities across the U.S. The organization has also spawned a weekly TV show, a quarterly newsletter, a Web site and literature, offering advice on everything from alternative medicine to osteoporosis, distributed free in nearly 3,000 stores across the U.S.

For founding sponsors Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart and Lifetime Television, Speaking of Women’s Health has brought more than an opportunity to further a good cause. By working together, the three sponsors have developed an integrated approach that allows them to tie into the nonprofit’s mission while turning a spotlight on their own brands.

“A big part of Speaking of Women’s Health’s success lies in the way it communicates,” says Lynn Picard, executive vice president of advertising sales at Lifetime Television. “Their whole message is about empowering women to take responsibility for their health and wellness."

Even as it arms women with valuable information on nutrition, skin care and avoiding domestic violence, it treats them to a little fun. Conferences are decorated to celebrate femininity and attendees receive gift bags full of treats like bath pillows and self-help books. Speakers poke fun while delivering their advice and attendees have access to free massages, health screenings and advice.“

The atmosphere is very sisterly,” Picard says. “It’s like a day of fun. You have a good time while learning all kinds of valuable information.”

Lifetime signed on early as a sponsor of SWH’s local seminars, and before long, the idea of a TV show began to develop. “We knew that Speaking of Women’s Health could get us access to all kinds of expertise, such as the doctors and researchers who speak during their conferences,” Picard says.

She approached another early SWH sponsor, P&G, about helping to develop the show. No stranger to program production, P&G came on board, securing an ownership position in the program and negotiating exclusivities for several categories of advertising that would appear in it.

About this time, Wal-Mart began sponsoring SWH seminars and the idea of local outreach, through the company’s nearly 3,000 stores, began to germinate. SWH created a series of free informational brochures that could be distributed through Wal-Mart end-aisle displays. It also developed a File for Healthy Living, which helps women keep track of when they and members of their family need check-ups, tests and immunizations. “The File is basically a reminder, and a place to keep records all together,” explains Kevin Moran, Lifetime director of sales. So far, the File has been distributed to 1.5 million women, including all who have attended SWH conferences.

Lifetime’s Speaking of Women’s Health, a weekly half hour that airs Saturdays at 11:30 a.m., premiered on Nov. 10. Episodes move quickly through segments on health, fitness, emotional wellness and looking good by being healthy. Longer pieces are interspersed with shorts on busting stress, the best exercise clothes and equipment and other topics. Hosts are former ABC News anchor and reporter JuJu Chang, physicians Winnie King and Lisa Rowland Callahan, and nutritionist and author Carrie Latt Wiatt.

P&G and Wal-Mart buy much of the ad time in the show, but there are no heavy-handed billboards naming the two as sponsors. Content in the show is left primarily to Lifetime producers and their advisors from Speaking of Women’s Health, which surveys women attending its conferences about issues that concern them most.

Speaking of Women’s Health end-aisle displays sporting the organization’s signature pink logo and graphics began appearing in Wal-Mart stores on Feb. 2. Smaller stores have one display, but larger ones have displays in both the food and personal care sections.

The brochures, which cover topics ranging from PMS to financial health, were immediately popular. “Our first printing was of 19 million copies,” Dunkelman says. “A week after they went into stores, we ran out and had to start printing again.”

Along with the brochures, each Wal-Mart store has committed to holding one in-store event a year. These are often health screenings and feature the store’s pharmacists offering advice.

“This is really a grassroots effort to bring Speaking of Women’s Health information right to women in the community,” Dunkelman says. “Wal-Mart has 100 million shoppers a week. How better could we get our message out than to share it with their customers?”

Other outreach comes from Lifetime’s Web site, which devotes a whole section to Speaking of Women’s Health. Users can look up stories that have been presented on the TV show’s past episodes and read about issues like keeping bones healthy, reducing stress and enhancing one’s sex life.

For P&G, the relationship with Speaking of Women’s Health brought “a unique opportunity to deliver on the exact target for a number of brands,” said Mel Berning, president of MediaVest, who spoke about the relationship at February’s Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau convention in New York. Brands involved in the SWH relationship include Actonel, Cover Girl, Max Factor, Metamucil, Olay, Pantene, Thermacare, Secret and Crest.

P&G ties into local SWH conferences by sponsoring in-store screenings at nearby Wal-Mart locations, Berning said. It has also supplied gift-bag items for seminar participants.

Procter & Gamble has been involved in creating programming for 30 years, Berning notes, but with Lifetime’s Speaking of Women’s Health, the marketer took that effort to a new level. “They’ve refined the concept. Instead of just a movie or special or awards show, we have a very targeted programming environment that is completely compatible with our brand message.”

“What is unique about Speaking of Women’s Health is its approach,” adds Jim Stengel, global marketing officer at P&G. “Lifetime provides health and lifestyle content that delivers solutions to issues real women face in a credible, yet entertaining manner.”

The integrated campaign that has grown up around Speaking of Women’s Health “is a partnership that, in all its details across many media, needs to be exact,” Berning continues, “But the execution online, in print, in-store, on the radio and on TV comes together in a powerful way on the air.”

“[In Lifetime’s Speaking of Women’s Health], we have a very targeted programming environment that is completely compatible with our brand message.”

—Mel Berning, President, MediaVest

Reprinted with the permission of Adweek Magazines.

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