March's Top Ad Winner: Aultman Heart Center's High School Sports "Ticker"

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Media: NextMedia 360, the interactive division of NextMedia Group radio
Market: Canton, Ohio

Advertiser:  Aultman Heart Center
Campaign: Aultman Heart Center Ticker App

Sales representative: Chris Baltzer

Interactive Specialist: Don Guisinger

Challenge: Aultman Hospital, the main hospital in Canton, Ohio, wanted to brand individual branches of the hospital separately. A key objective was to generate local awareness for Aultman Heart Center, a  a separate branch of Aultman Hospital that is devoted solely to cardiac care.

Concept: WHBC radio in Canton had created a football ticker-tape style report that runs on its web site and takes advantage of a family-oriented local-passion:  local sports.   To create the content, a team of producers  at the station follows local games and updates current scores on the website.

In addition to the web site, the station feeds the content via RSS to a free app so fans can track of all the games via iPhone and Android. 

As presenting sponsor of the app, The Aultman Heart Center leveraged all the station's onair promotions for people to download the app, as well as its local sports minute.  The app and website ticker were co-branded as the "Aultman Heart Center Ticker," creating a memorable play on words.  

The campaign ran online, co-branded with every mention to download the app.  Essentially every time the sportline was promoted, so was the heart center, building good will as well as awareness of its programs. 

The onair component now includes on-air mentions anytime the radio station covers a game and gives a score update (a native advertising product called a “Sponsorship Stringer Report”). The broadcaster mentions the sponsor in every update:  “This score update brought to you by Aultman Heart Center.”

Results

By the end of the first year,  more people in the community knew and recognized the Aultman Heart Center brand, and the hospital renewed for another year. It currrently invests $10,000 for three key months of the football season.

“We are the only radio station providing this kind of service, especially in a football town like us. Our biggest competitor is the local newspaper and they’re not doing anything like this. This is unique to a market of our size." 

Judges take: This campaign stood out for its local feel and clever "presented by" line. Branding the Heart Center with a "Sports Ticker" is a great idea and secured a major local sponsor for hyper local news.  There were bigger campaigns and more complex distribution among the runners up the month. But this simple sponsorship won by the  combination of local ingenuity, clever concept, and  how it allows the hospital to connect with families. "The sponsorships most appreciated by real people in the community are often kids sports team, and this one is one of the more sophisticated campaigns within its genre."

To enter TOP ADS click here.  A winner each month until April, 2013 will win $250, and national recognition. Besides LocalMediaInsider and the Reynolds Journalism Institute, co-sponsors of Top Ads include:

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