Thanks, Birth Control Day is a national effort to mobilize people to speak positively about all that birth control makes possible for young people, families, and our nation. Thanks, Birth Control is an integrated marketing and communications campaign that consists of social media, traditional media relations activities, entertainment media activation, content creation, and grassroots activation. The primary goal of Thanks, Birth Control is to give people the opportunity to share their love for their birth control and everything it has made possible for them, from graduating college to managing a painful medical condition to preventing pregnancy.
The Thanks, Birth Control (TBC) campaign issues four main calls to action:
Take care of your own health, Activate your friends/family to take care of their sexual reproductive health, Advocate for contraceptive access locally, and Advocate for contraceptive access nationally.
What we know is that birth control is popular. Eighty-five percent of all adults agree that birth control is a basic part of women’s health care. By talking about it, we hope to correct the misperception that birth control is controversial and acknowledge how much it makes possible for individuals, couples, and families everywhere.
On November 18, 2020, Power to Decide celebrated its eighth annual Thanks, Birth Control Day. Thanks, Birth Control is an integrated campaign consisting of media outreach and content activities across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We asked media partners, influencers, partner organizations, politicians, and the public to say #ThxBirthControl.
On the day, Power to Decide released its annual, national poll showing 51% of respondents (including 59% of birth control users age 18-34) are concerned over the ability of the public to afford or access their preferred method of contraception considering the most recent change in the Supreme Court. Despite this, 84% of respondents are thankful that birth control allows them to decide if, when, and under what circumstances to get pregnant and have a child.
On November 16, we launched our Power Talk series, #ThxBirthControl edition. Interim CEO, Gillian Sealy, spoke with Dr. Megan Stubbs and Dr. Staci Tanouye, in a conversation moderated by Roxy Szal from Ms. Magazine, our media partner. The four spoke about all that birth control does for people and the pandemic’s effect on reproductive health care. Live streamed on Power to Decide and Ms. Magazine’s Facebook pages to over 300,000 followers, we captured the discussion and posted it on our social media platforms, including YouTube.
Our annual Twitter Storm served as a catalyst for conversation with over 3,800 tweets during the hour and 69 million impressions, causing the hashtag to trend nationally. We produced and provided a toolkit to our media partners and partner organizations prior to Thanks, Birth Control day with social media copy, data, graphics, articles, and more. Throughout the month of November, Power to Decide released new Thanks, Birth Control graphics and GIPHYs onto our Bedsider GIPHY channel.
Our key entertainment media partners (MTV, Dr. Drew, Emily Morse, and Freeform) took to social media to participate. Notable influencers also participated, Dr. Oma Nzeh, Dr. Tosin Odunsi, Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, Dr. Charis, Tallie, and Deja Foxx. MTV and ViacomCBS donated their iconic billboard in Times Square to Thanks, Birth Control, running our artwork pro bono in its 24-hour rotation.
Media outlets also participated and covered Thanks, Birth Control day with articles posted on Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, Ms. Magazine, Refinery29, and Rewire. Cosmopolitan dedicated a full Instagram story to their 3.3M followers about birth control during COVID-19 for the day.
At least 27 national policy partners including The National Women’s Health Network, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-Choice America, In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, and Black Women’s Health Imperative, posted messages supporting Thanks, Birth Control on their social media accounts.
In addition, Gillian Sealy, Power to Decide’s Interim CEO, conducted a national radio media tour to celebrate Thanks, Birth Control Day. Especially newsworthy were her airings on statewide networks in Maryland (Maryland News Network and Delmarva Public Radio) and Texas (Texas State Networks) and on metro-area networks in Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville, Savannah, and Charleston—all totaling 454,600 airings nationally.
The Thanks, Birth Control campaign was an overall success in its eighth year. Between November 1-30, there were over 174 million potential impressions, an increase of 60% over 2019. The hashtag was mentioned across several platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit, and it trended nationally for much of the afternoon on Twitter which resulted in a 361% increase in engagement compared to last year.
In the month of November:
There were 16,052 mentions of the hashtag, with nearly 175 million potential impressions. The impression reach was 70% higher than 2019. There were 3 million engagements (shares, comments, likes, video, media and story views, etc.) with the hashtag, a 361% increase in engagement compared to 2019. There were 1,134,214 views on our Thanks, Birth Control GIFs. Our top four performing gifs were Cardi B Cat, Peach & Eggplant, Hand full of condoms, and Boston Terrier Fur Baby. Sentiment for the hashtag was 99% positive, a 3% increase from 2019.
