Carol A. Bryant on "Breastfeeding Dissemination"

...when we took our consumer research results and translated them into a strategy, as we always do, we made that strategy multi-faceted; and the material, tangible products that we created to help different people realize the sort of marketing plan were a series of television ads, which we strongly recommend that they place and pay to have aired instead of PSAs -- public sound asleep. And we have found that to be true in the states that have taken that advice. Radio ads -- and these are originally in English and Spanish -- and in print material, a series of pamphlets that go one devoted to each of the major costs that our research identified so that a counselor could use the three-step counseling strategy, identify a concern, and then, “Look, here is a piece of information that goes with that you can take home after we’ve gone through the three steps and talked about what would work for you.” And then we have, of course, the three-step counseling training program that allows people to know how to approach all of this and integrate it.

We have a provider’s kit. We know that women are benefiting a great deal from all that WIC is doing, or one of the agencies out there on the very cutting edge. But it’s very hard for a woman who hears about it in WIC and then goes to a prenatal care provider and doesn’t hear a complimentary message. So we now have a package that will allow that provider to hook up with WIC by using the same educational logo and messages, and in that packet are -- particularly for providers who are trained earlier or even more recently but didn’t get a lot of training in breastfeeding promotion -- questions that you are likely to receive and good answers that are consistent with our data and also approved by people, you know, other physicians in the field, and tear-off sheets that you can give to mothers, a letter that you could send to people in your practice saying how you recommend breastfeeding and discussing why, and a little pocket guidebook that allows you to quickly look up information you might need that you don’t store in your head, and a variety of other things so that we’re enabling WIC to do something, but also other providers in the community.

And there are quite a few other tangible products that people can order from Best Start Social Marketing that will go with this whole campaign that reinforce the brand, such as shirts that have the logo, coffee cups that have the logo – and all of these are designed to replace what the formula companies used to be able to distribute and are really nice things to help really drive that branding home.

And while we’re very pleased with the materials and have pre-tested those and now we have them for Native American populations as well, they really are not the heart of this program. The heart of this program has to do with the people and how they approach this and their ability to integrate all of the messages and materials and strategies. It’s not enough just to do the media and not have WIC ready to go. It’s not enough just to have WIC ready to go and not have any supports for WIC. Each of these can do something, but if you put them all together you get a magical synergy. And what we’re hoping for -- and what, as a social marketer, I would love to see public health finally embrace -- is that we stop thinking we need something new every two years. We stop thinking that we’re going to change our logos and our approach every three years. Imagine that Coca-Cola would take its $13 billion worth brand and change it. It would make no sense. So we’ve invested many years now in building Loving Support, and what we would hope to see is that this becomes a sort of brand under which all kinds of other activities can start to grow but that people develop a relationship with this brand that they see and feel and have impressions all around Loving Support makes breastfeeding work that makes them feel good about going to WIC and makes them feel good about going to your hospital or going to your clinic; and that many, many partners in this will come together and work over time. I mean, you have to keep the messages fresh and keep the materials up to date and proliferate, but you don’t want to keep changing the brand.