• by Les Luchter , 7 hours ago

In partnership with the American Medical Association (AMA), the Ad Council has launched a new phase of its “Agree to Agree” gun safety campaign aimed directly at doctors and other healthcare professionals (HCPs).

A :60 PSA, developed with WPP’s Ogilvy Health, is specifically seeking donated media from “digital and social platforms, to reach health care professionals where they consume content, and are designed to reflect the realities of clinical care,” Ro Patrick, Ad Council senior vice president, group campaign director, tells Marketing Daily.

CMI Media Group is leading the campaign’s media strategy and placement, “ensuring the campaign reaches HCPs in their work mindset and environment through high-impact, relevant channels,” Patrick says.

The PSA features a doctor explaining that she may ask parents about their kids’ eating habits, screentime, smoking/vaping use, body changes and mental health, so “If we feel comfortable asking these questions, shouldn't we also be asking, ‘How do you store firearms in your home?’”

Explaining that firearm injuries are the leading cause of death for American children and teens, the doctor then states, “It’s our responsibility to have a conversation about firearm injury prevention, because questions about safety are questions about health.”

The spot ends by advising HCPs to visit AgreeToAgree.org/HealthCare, a new hub that “offers practical resources designed to support clinicians in having compassionate, effective discussions about firearm injury prevention,” says Patrick. “The AMA is encouraging clinicians to incorporate firearm safety questions into routine care, including child well visits, to help normalize these conversations.”

One stat cited on the hub: 86% of adults say they have never had an HCP ask if they own a gun or if there are guns in the home, per KFF research. But, says AMA and the Ad Council, “when these conversations do occur, patients are more likely to adopt safe storage practices.”

The AMA plans to actively promote the hub through its two-year-old Firearm Injury Prevention task force, which helped develop the site. “This includes leveraging its extensive network of state and specialty medical societies to distribute the ‘Agree to Agree’ campaign materials…directly to physicians and healthcare professionals,” explains Patick.

For the PSA, in addition to CMI Media Group, Real Chemistry and Datonics are helping the Ad Council target HCPs: Real Chemistry through PR and Datonics with “data-driven media targeting, using audience insights to optimize reach and engagement across digital platforms,” Patrick says.

In addition to the AMA, the Ad Council initiative has received funding from over 20 other healthcare leaders, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Association, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Kaiser Permanente and Northwell Health.

The new PSA follows four films, also targeting HCPs, that the Ad Council released in association with the AMA when the overall $40 million “Agree to Agree” campaign launched in February. Those films, from Electric Park, were designed to foster “nonjudgmental, collaborative conversations with patients and families,” the Council said at the time.

“Talking about firearms and safe storage is just part of the medicine that we give,” a pediatrician said in one of the films. She then brought up car booster seats as a precedent: “Back in the early 2000s, motor vehicle crashes used to be the number-one cause of death in children and teens, and there was this huge advocacy campaign around that. We did a really good job about decreasing the rate of death caused by motor vehicle crashes. We can do the same around firearm injury prevention.”