Mobilizing Health Information Through Geo-Location Technology, Advertising and Companion Surveys: The Opportunity of Mobile for Public Health

Background: With more than 80% of Americans owning a cell phone and more than 60% going online wirelessly, mobile technology allows people to have access to all kinds of information on the go – including health information. Specifically, the combination of mobile devices, geo-location technology, and targeted advertisements allows for health services and information to be more easily targeted and disseminated to audiences in real time. Increasingly, it’s important for public health communicators to use mobile strategies to not only reach and engage audiences around important health issues, but also to justify budgets through cost effectiveness and effective evaluation strategies.  

Program background: This presentation will look at a variety of mobile health-related campaigns. One example used mobile advertising to encourage people to get vaccinated. This campaign was targeted both nationally and locally and provided audiences with targeted information and assets.  However, advertising is also only a small piece of the mobile pie. Within this channel, location-based technologies like Foursquare, geo-targeted text messages with promotions of health events, and redemption offers to participate in healthy actions are all possible. This presentation will review these possibilities for public health communication campaigns.

Evaluation Methods and Results: One example generated over 12 million impressions, over 10,000 clicks to the program website, and overall results were triple the average of all other mobile campaigns run through the same network. However, what is most notable is the companion survey that ran in conjunction with the ads that showed statistically significant increases in awareness and behavioral intention. Other findings and key learnings will also be evaluated. 

Conclusions: Mobile advertising - while a newer and smaller market than online advertising - allows for geo-located targeting, real time optimization, and the ability to make health information relevant to health consumers anywhere and anytime. Given this, this channel is valuable for campaigns looking to achieve similar goals; and with the increasing focus on budget and effectiveness, the integration of surveys helps to deepen our understanding of the impact that tactics like this can have. 

Implications for research and/or practice: With the popularity of mobile devices rising in every age and demographic group, this model can be applied to a variety of public health issues and campaigns. Finally, where possible, the addition of mobile surveys allows campaigns to go beyond awareness and gather insights on behavioral intention.