Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Games for Health Project

Since 2007, ELISE has worked with the Games for Health Project, a funded initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio, to promote its annual conference as well as the theme of games supporting health and healthcare. Having worked with the team that created the first virtual 3D Exergame, ELISE was able to parlay its familiarity with the games for health space into a successful media campaign for the Games for Health Conference, earning over 500 million media impressions.

APPROACH

In late 2009, ELISE began collaborating with RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio and Games for Health to develop an integrated marketing plan for the 2010 Games for Health Conference to be held in Boston in May.

In addition to increasing the overall visibility for Games for Health, our objectives included expanding community support and growing participation in the conversation surrounding health, fitness and gaming. We crafted a strategy focused on both traditional and social media; assisted with planning a satellite media tour; secured videographers to record B-roll to send to local TV and radio; and collaborated on marketing opportunities with Sony and GE Healthymagination. To help drive a successful campaign with multiple parties, we identified social media milestones, created messaging and communication guidelines for partners and utilized an interactive social media press release to ensure an ongoing and consistent dialogue within our community and to increase awareness and excitement around the 2010 conference in all forms of media.

RESULTS

We secured stories that were published by About.com, The Boston Globe, BostInnovation.com, MedGadget.com and USAToday.com. A Reuters story that included an interview with Dr. John Lumpkin, a senior vice president at RWJF who offered a keynote at the conference, was picked up by over two dozen print and online outlets in at least four different languages, and led to interest from a producer at ABC News NOW’s Good Morning America Health. In August 2010, ABC ran a six-minute story—airing on multiple media platforms—about games being used to treat movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Cerebral palsy. Our earned media results reached an audience of more than 620 million in the months following the May 2010 conference.