A public-health message, a captive audience

By Alan Snel
6/6/2008 (c) Florida Health News

TAMPA -- Jessica Reynolds, community outreach manager for Healthy Start Coalition of Hillsborough County, has $12,000 a year to sell the message: Don’t drink or smoke if you’re pregnant.

Aside from radio spots, magazine ads and billboards, Reynolds spends $4,000-$5,000 for “stall mall” ads in 30 bars, restaurants and workout centers in Hillsborough County, Reynolds said.

It’s an unconventional yet effective way to reach women of child-bearing age at a time when they have little else to look at besides the ad on the stall wall, she said.

The bathroom-as-advertising-medium makes perfect educational outreach sense, Reynolds said. People laugh at first, she said, “and then a light bulb goes on and they say, ‘Wow, that’s a great idea.’ The bathroom ads are “the most efficient use for our dollars,” she said. “And it’s the most fun form of advertising we do.”

Healthy Start ad posters are posted on the inside of women’s bathroom stalls in bars and eateries throughout the county, including Beef O’Brady’s, Margarita Mamas, Banana Joe’s, Coyote Ugly, Dallas Bull, Gaspar’s Grottto, Dogwater Café and the Improv Comedy Theatre.

Clearwater-based Strategic Media handles the ad installations. Sean Connelly, general manager, said people notice the ads not only because of the placement but the vivid art and direct messages. “It’s not a traditional advertisement,” he said.

Four posters have been developed for the coalition’s “Zero Exposure Project,” three of which feature the bulging torsos of pregnant women. Two of those are aimed at women: “A pregnant woman never drinks alone. No amount is safe,” says one. Another says: “A pregnant woman never smokes alone. Quit for two.”

The third poster aimed at women shows two women’s hands holding cocktails, with the message: “Half of all pregnancies are unplanned. Are you pregnant? If so, don’t drink. No amount is safe.”

The fourth poster, aimed at men, shows a man embracing a woman, holding her baby bulge. It says: “Protect your baby. Help her stay substance-free.” The poster hangs above urinals in men’s bathrooms in places such as Dave Anderychuk’s(CQ?) Grille and Peabody Billiards.

Men’s bathrooms are targeted, Reynolds said, because the Healthy Start agency fields many calls from men who fear their pregnant partners are drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes or taking illegal drugs.

The bathroom ads are a great bang for the agency’s buck because in a three-month period an estimated 600,000 people see them (EACH ONE OR TOTAL?), she said.

The owner of Strategic Media, Chuck Nelms, said a woman spends an average of one to three minutes in a bathroom stall, while a man is at a urinal for 30 to 60 seconds.

Not only is that a captive audience for Healthy Start’s messages but the ads are posted in the places where women might be drinking.

“With the stall mall, people have more time to look at the ads and we can go exactly where we want the messages to be read. It’s usually a younger crowd where alcohol is served,” Reynolds said.

Pregnant women who drink risk delivering babies with fetal alcohol syndrome, which can result in brain damage, facial deformities, learning disabilities, low birthweight and behavioral problems.

The campaign aims to dispel the common notion that a small amount of drinking or smoking during pregnancy is okay. It’s not, Reynolds said.

Healthy Start, formed by the state 17 years ago to lower the infant mortality rate, began working with Strategic Media two years ago to overcome resistance from establishments that sell alcohol to a request to display health-care posters.

Bathroom stalls are an effective advertising venue, Connelly said. “Our ads are put in places where people have disposable incomes. If you’re out in the restaurant, obviously you’re spending money,” he said.

Planned Parenthood and a host of health-care clients, such as weight-loss and acupuncture clinics, advertise their services in bathrooms, he said.

“At first, people had what we called ‘potty phobia,’” Connelly said. “But now we have doctors taking ads.”