Pam Jones, president of Culturally Connected Communications in Little Rock, says that reaching out to minority consumers these days “is not just good business, it’s smart business.” C3, as the agency is known, has offices in the Gans Building on Second Street.
The clicking clock of COVID-19 led Arkansas health officials to bypass typical competitive bidding procedures in awarding $8 million in advertising contracts to three Little Rock marketing firms, officials say, explaining that Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s pandemic emergency order allowed for the expedited process.
The one-year, renewable contracts awarded to the Cranford Co., The Design Group and Culturally Connected Communications were announced in late May, setting off a round of questions from several marketers and ad agencies who said they hadn’t even realized the work was available. The governor’s COVID emergency decree expired at the beginning of June.
“I never saw a request for proposals,” said one Little Rock marketing executive, who asked to remain anonymous. It was a common response in the close-knit Arkansas advertising world.
“At the time, we were operating under emergency orders, which allowed for this expedited process with procurement,” said Meg Mirivel, director of the Office of Health Communication at the Arkansas Department of Health. “We were really under an enormous time crunch to get out mass communication about these important public health issues.”
Once the department had decided to follow an expedited process, it reached out to Cranford Co. “because they had been through the most recent RFP [request for proposals] process with the Arkansas Health Department for a media contract.”
Cranford was already the agency of record for Arkansas’ health outreach efforts on tobacco and smoking cessation, Mirivel said, having won a bid for that advertising last year. “We kind of used that as a proxy for our COVID vaccine activity,” Mirivel said.
Minority-Owned Agencies
Then the state reached out to The Design Group and Culturally Connected Communications for outreach to Arkansas’ Black and Hispanic populations. “We were looking for agencies to specifically work on minority campaigns, so we looked for minority-owned agencies to work on those campaigns,” Mirivel said. “We started working with Design Group first, in December, and later sought out C3, as they’re the only minority-owned agencies that we’re aware of.”
The Design Group’s CEO, Myron Jackson, is Black and a former member of the state’s Black History Commission. Culturally Connected Communications is owned by Pam Jones, another Black entrepreneur.
The Cranford contract is a $4.5 million assignment, with $4 million earmarked for paid media placements and $500,000 devoted for agency time and creativity. The Design Group’s $2.36 million deal calls for ads that target the African American community, allotting $2 million for paid media and $364,800 for agency time and out-of-pocket production costs.
Culturally Connected
Communications received $1 million for media placement and $100,000 for agency time and costs for campaigns directed at Hispanic residents.
The contracts, which were obtained from the state earlier this month by Arkansas Business, call for television, print and radio ads, as well as digital messaging and social media ads. They also reflect a shift in messaging from simple prevention like mask-wearing and social-distancing to an all-out push for vaccination in Arkansas, which last week ranked among the worst seven states in percentage of residents vaccinated: Less than 42% have received at least one shot, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Officials think ads including influencers like former Arkansas Razorback and NBA All-Star Sidney Moncrief will persuade more Arkansans to roll up their sleeves. Another spot aimed at rural and older viewers is an appeal from Lonoke County farmer Laudies Dow Brantley Jr., who promotes the shots in front of his John Deere harvester. “Do it for yourself, your family, and for Arkansas,” Brantley urges.
Separate Strategies
“Each agency kind of has a separate strategy based on their target,” Mirivel said. “So Cranford has a little more of a statewide view, including rural Arkansas, of what they’re trying to do. We have a lot of data, and it shows rural Arkansas is a place where maybe vaccination rates are low and where things need to be targeted.”
All three firms are using outdoor, broadcast, cable, radio, social media posts and targeted digital marketing, Mirivel said.
The goal is to “reach Arkansans with messages about the availability, importance, safety and effectiveness” of COVID-19 vaccines, said Jay Cranford, a principal in the firm with his brothers, Ross and Chris. He noted that the marketing campaign’s budget covers three years, but with “a heavier push for impressions this calendar year in an effort to get more people vaccinated sooner rather than later.”
The primary demographic for media messaging is adults statewide, he said, but various media will target specific audiences, including people who are reluctant to take vaccines, children over 12 and rural audiences across the state.
“The messages have been well received,” Cranford said.
Cranford said that his agency is shaping its strategies by applying current data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. “As access to the vaccine evolves, our messaging evolves in tandem. And as ADH receives data about segments of Arkansas’ population that have lower vaccination rates, we will move paid media to target those groups and create messaging that will resonate with those audiences.”
Jackson, The Design Group leader who has been recovering from open heart surgery for the past two months, said he appreciated the state’s confidence in his firm’s ability to reach the African American community.
“We lead the state because we’re constantly in this space,” he told Arkansas Business by telephone. “It’s one of the things we talk about all the time. We have to overcome some miseducation, some misperceptions about how this virus works. There’s also a sense of apathy affecting communities of color because many young people don’t see themselves as victims of this pandemic. The ads have to make it clear that though things are better, this is not over.
“And the creative aspects must be culturally authentic and relevant. African Americans have been hearing and seeing ads, but they’ve not necessarily responded.”
Jones, owner of Culturally Connected Communications, said she was working with the state on paid media plans and creative content. We’ve got radio and TV running right now, and we’re working on creative for print, digital and social media.”
“As a minority and woman-owned agency, we are proud to partner with the Arkansas Department of Health to support their campaign efforts within the Hispanic community,” Jones told Arkansas Business.
“We are working on a multifaceted creative, digital, social and paid media campaign focused on educating the Hispanic community in a credible, culturally relevant way. Our goal is to help the Hispanic community get the facts to make an informed decision about COVID-19 vaccines.”
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