AdvaMed Publicity Campaign Promotes Value of Medical Technology

Originally Published MX July/August 2006

BUSINESS NEWS

Industry association AdvaMed (Washington, DC) is setting out to raise the profile of the medical technology industry. On June 22, the group formally kicked off a $1 million education and advertising campaign designed to convey the value of medical technology to both policymakers and the general public in Washington, DC.

The campaign will include print advertisements in Capitol Hill publications and throughout the Metro system in Washington, DC. Radio ads will run on the Beltway area's National Public Radio stations. In addition, AdvaMed has launched a new Web site, www.progressyoucansee.org, which features detailed personal profiles of patients whose lives have been changed by medical technology, plus industry facts and figures, and other interactive tools.

The campaign focuses on a wide variety of medical device sectors. "From the very beginning, we agreed that this campaign was not to be about one particular technology or one particular sector," says Mark Brager, communications director at AdvaMed. "It's designed to raise the profile of the industry as a whole."

A campaign launch event was held on Capitol Hill on June 22. AdvaMed member companies, members of Congress, and patients featured in the campaign were in attendance. Patients include national and government celebrities, such as U.S. Olympian Bonnie Blair and former White House deputy chief of staff Mike Deaver.

"This campaign is the first of its kind in the medical device industry," says Michael J. McGarry, executive vice president for public affairs at AdvaMed. "If this targeted campaign inside the Beltway is successful, we could look at broadening it out nationally."

Although the current campaign focuses on the Washington, DC, area, AdvaMed hopes to achieve a broader reach by having the campaign's featured patients also talk to local press within their hometowns to discuss the three cornerstones of the AdvaMed campaign: medical technology's value, dependability, and innovation.

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