Your Pharmacist 2008 Goes Outdoors, UK

Main Category: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 28 Apr 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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Ask Your Pharmacist (AYP) 2008 builds on AYP 2007 raising consumer awareness of the availability and benefits of newer pharmacy services. The campaign will utilise new and old media:

- a poster campaign
- radio
- website
- social marketing.

The campaign focuses on three topical services areas:

- Medicines Use Reviews (minor ailments in Scotland and Northern Ireland)
- Health checks
- Sexual health.

"The 2008 Ask Your Pharmacist campaign is a 'Demand and deliver' campaign. We will be driving demand from consumers and providing the necessary support for NPA members to deliver."

Virginia-Mead Herbert, NPA Sales and Marketing Director
NPA Poster Campaign 2008

Large scale posters will be placed in community areas throughout the UK, within a 100 metres of a community pharmacy. To ensure maximum impact all NPA members have received a copy of the launch poster for use in their pharmacy. In response to members' feedback, other campaign materials can now be personalised and downloaded from the members' area of the website.

"With members currently displaying the campaign posters in their pharmacies and the AYP website driving the public to their local pharmacies to seek out a particular service, we have integrated the campaign and maximised the impact."

Tina Cardy, NPA Head of Marketing

Campaign Time Structure

Phase 1: MUR support and activity Quarters 1 and 2
Phase 2: Health Checks support and activity Quarters 3 and 4
Phase 3: Sexual Health support and activity Quarter 4

Radio

Members of the public will also be exposed to the Ask Your Pharmacist message while they are out in their cars or at home. The NPA has commissioned research to provide relevant and regional statistics to be used in 'drive time' and other radio programmes.

Regional coverage will be secured based on the stories generated from the research findings and interviews will be arranged with appropriate spokespeople from the NPA. Including NPA members in the locality.

"Radio acts as a trusted voice for the community, to entertain, advise and inform on issues that affect the public locally and nationally. Radio is a companion to its audience, which they will listen to usually while doing something else. A strong story positioned as part of the editorial output of a station will encourage listeners to engage with the story and act on what is being said."

Neal Patel, NPA Head of Communications
Ask Your Pharmacist website
The NPA website http://www.askyourpharmacist.com has been re designed to link in with the 2008 campaign; focusing on the three service areas. The Ask Your Pharmacist website includes a pharmacy finder. The public can enter a postcode to find a list of pharmacies in their locality. Consumers will be able to search either for a particular pharmacy or a particular service. Once set up we envisage it being a useful tool that allows members to provide information to the public about the services their pharmacy offers.

http://www.npa.co.uk/members will continue to be developed adding further resources for members. Our campaign builder section is currently being updated so that members can bespoke posters (including the new AYP 2008 ones) and other NPA marketing materials with their pharmacy details.

"I am delighted with the response we have had from members even before http://www.askyourpharmacist.co.uk was redeveloped . We have a virtuous circle - the richer the detail we have about pharmacy services the easier it is for the public to find them. On http://www.npa.co.uk we have used member feedback and now members can bespoke the AYP campaign materials with their own branding on-line."

Jennifer Swallow, NPA E-commerce manager
Social marketing
'Ask Your Pharmacist' Facebook has been developed, to engage with a younger audience and those with less exposure to traditional media. This will provide links back to the Ask Your Pharmacist website to educate the audience of the services and the level of advice that they can receive at their pharmacy. Those living away from home can use the pharmacy finder to locate pharmacies near to them.

After the runaway success of the 'beer mat' campaign of 2007, in 2008 we are re-launching the initiative with new creative. The NPA will work with student unions and in partnership with the NUS to deliver eye-catching health messages.

Students will be directed to the Facebook AYP site, encouraged to sign up as a fan and forward the information to their friends. The NPA also anticipate that the page will provide an effective feedback mechanism for both the social and traditional media elements of the campaign.

"NUS is thrilled that students unions have embraced this campaign…we're really encouraged that NPA have innovated so effectively to reach out to such a vital audience in the quest to reduce the number of smokers, and ultimately to promote the health of smokers and passive smokers alike."

Feedback from 2007, NUS Vice President (Welfare) Veronica King
Member support
Support for NPA members in the delivery of related services will be provided. To help members set up or develop services, the NPA has a range of Brief Guides currently covering 10 services. Full resource packs for MURs, minor ailments, chlamydia and cardiovascular disease will all be available for members to link in with campaign timings of the related topical service areas. Additionally the NPA Professional Services team will offer further advice where necessary.

"Successful implementation of pharmacy services is about sustainability. The NPA is, wherever possible, removing barriers to implementation. However we rely on feedback to tell us if we are getting it right. Accessibility of materials on line was a clear message from members, as was a complete solution to service set up. This year we have focussed on meeting those needs with a fully integrated campaign."
Neal Patel, NPA Head of communications

Notes

1. Radio days will be set up to discuss the stories developed with an appropriate regional spokesperson. Radio days usually consist of 12-15 interviews back to back with radio stations across the country. The number of interviews can also vary depending on the weighting and response to any given story by radio stations.

National Pharmacy Association

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