Objective

The opioid crisis presents significant challenges in the U.S., but it also highlights the resilience of communities and the potential for impactful solutions. Over 107,000 overdose deaths took place in 2023, equivalent to nearly 300 deaths daily, according to the CDC. Despite strong evidence supporting methadone and other treatments as effective interventions that reduce substance use, overdose mortality, and infectious disease risk while improving the quality of life for those with opioid use disorder, access to Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) remains insufficient. Expansion efforts are hindered by complex barriers, including strict federal and state regulations, historical and social challenges, prolonged wait times, and administrative burdens that limit treatment availability and engagement.

This is a plan to use marketing as a form of public health intervention that is - as designed and proposed here - measurable, scalable, and repeatable.

Campaign Goals:

1. Raise Awareness: Highlight the availability of opioid treatment resources and the importance of seeking help.
2. Reduce Stigma: Promote understanding and compassion for individuals and families affected by opioid use disorder, celebrating their journeys toward recovery
3. Encourage Action: Connect individuals to local treatment services through APT and include the cost of NOT taking ANY action. 

Strategy

Campaign Target Area: Geo-fenced in New Haven County. Population 867,000. Focusing on the community level of the social-ecological framework

Campaign Structure:

Using the classic storyline narrative, we break it down into these stages

1. We introduce the challenge of the opioid crisis and the preventable deaths that it causes. (i.e. the ‘villain,’ in marketing terms)
2. Scale/impact of the harm. Implementation gap. (Supply vs Demand) 
3. Widespread acceptance of the status quo. (Artificial Barriers that support stigma and low access to Treatment)
4. What’s at stake (Health Equity, Loved One’s Lives)
5. The success of the APT Foundation’s open-access model (The Hero)
6. Urgent need to scale up this model (Call to Action)

Creative Treatment:

Building on past experiences, this campaign aims to create a powerful narrative that resonates with individuals and inspires action. Clear, provocative language and engaging visuals will make them memorable.

We proposed telling the main stories in a Graphic novel style. The combination of visual and textual storytelling helps readers decode complex narratives. They learn to infer meaning from the text and the images.

Campaign Elements:

1. Digital Outreach

• Targeted Social Media Ads: Geo-fenced into New Haven County, all social channels of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube 
• SEO Search Campaign: To drive search traffic to a new landing page 
• Omnichannel streaming: Animated video series delivered on all social, YouTube, and all 3rd party channels
• Multichannel Hearst Media campaign that will run on all digital and print 
• Podcast interviews eg https://calmnola.org/podcast/

2. Traditional Print

• Transit Ads: Transit ads for buses

• Billboards: Digital assets rotated around 12 sites.

3. Mass Media

• Local News: Scripted interviews on Channel 8
• WICC radio interview and ad package
• NPR: Interview
• New Haven Register - Hearst Package 
• TedXTalk in New Haven
• Widespread circulation of Op-Ed 

Results

We use marketing as a form of public health intervention. The metrics we gather are focused on impact. All of the digital outreach will be collected on a dashboard that compares this campaign to industry standards. Vanity metrics like impressions are the starting point but engagement will be the key measurable metric:

1. Increase in landing page visits
2. Increase in phone call inquiries
3. Increase in email subscribers
4. Increase in patient volume 

We will also be measuring community sentiment using geofenced survey tools pre and post campaign to measure impact.

We will repeat the survey to the same population at the end of August and compare the results. This will inform us on the effect/impact of the campaign and should educate us on our communication strategy moving forward.

It will also provide initial data on the ROI of investing in public health interventions vs the cost of “business as usual” (ie $96B)

Media