• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, February 20, 2014

With millions of people looking for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and health care’s share of the economy set to keep growing, health care advertising is also poised to boom.

To take advantage of the trend, Katz Radio Group is launching a new Health Care Strategies Group serving the healthcare category.
 
KRG has named LaTonya Chenault-Qawwee to lead the outfit as vice president of Health Care Strategies, with responsibility for overseeing sales operations and developing strategic plans for advertisers using KRG’s research resources.

Her responsibilities include working with healthcare companies and federal and state exchanges to incorporate new needs and requirements associated with health-care reforms into advertising campaigns. Chenault-Qawwee will be based in Washington, D.C.
 
Chenault-Qawwee stated: “The Affordable Health Care Act changed the health care industry from business-to-business to business-to-consumer making health care advertising a recent and growing industry. This shift will have a dramatic and positive effect on the advertising economy. One of our biggest priorities is to maximize the full potential of radio for health care advertisers and explore new opportunities to bring them the most compelling media solutions.”
 
Katz Radio Group’s parent company, Katz Media Group, has been reorganizing to keep pace with a changing ad environment. Last year, Katz relaunched its interactive division, formerly known as Katz 360, as PROXi Digital, offering an expanded range of online, mobile and audience targeting products in partnership with KRG and Katz Television Group, as well as a third-party ad network.
 
Katz also introduced a streaming audio ad product called the Secondary Action Unit, which allows advertisers to employ native advertising with custom content in their digital radio campaigns. The SAUs will follow up regular audio advertising with additional content that is both relevant to the advertiser’s product and entertaining for the listener .