Health-e-Cards, Badges, and Bloggers: Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Promotion through Interactive Media

Background:
Research has shown that multi-channel health marketing campaigns are more likely to lead to behavior change, and that interactive media can increase the impact of communication and marketing. For the 2007-2008 seasonal influenza vaccination promotion campaign, the authors implemented new interactive media components as part of the overall campaign.

Setting:
This campaign was conducted completely in online spaces, included social networks, virtual worlds, and Web sites.

Population:
The campaign targeted multiple interactive media user groups, and specifically created products and messages for moms.

Project Description:
This health marketing campaign included the creation of a number of interactive media influenza vaccination promotion products, including eCards, Web site-embeddable graphical buttons and badges, webinars for “mommy bloggers,” and a flu vaccination activity in the virtual world of Whyville. The objective of the project was to examine how new components of the campaign reached new audiences. The authors measured utilization of each tool to determine user affinity for products and feasibility of using these interactive media products for flu vaccination promotion.

Results/Lessons Learned:
Throughout the seasonal flu campaign, users sent 856 eCards, graphical buttons generated 34,135 “click-throughs” to an educational influenza Web site, 15 bloggers attended the webinar, and 40,919 adolescents were virtually vaccinated against “Whyflu” in Whyville. The interactive media component of the seasonal influenza vaccination promotion campaign demonstrated the feasibility of utilizing both interactive media and multiple channels to reach target audiences, and generalized feedback suggested the interactive media component contributed to a greater reach and impact than previous campaigns and traditional media have allowed.