Update: ITA Public Education Campaign

Following the release of a controversial ad in the New York Times and a nationally televised commercial last week, the ITA says the response to its public education campaign has been even bigger than expected. The goal was to create ads that were controversial enough to convince the media to talk about the campaign without having to purchase media time ... and that has been extremely successful. All of the television appearances thus far—including Good Morning America and Fox News—have featured the full-page ad as well as clips of the commercial. Conservative estimates of the dollar amount of this “earned media” is about $375,000. In addition, the ITA has booked two upcoming shows on CNN and Fox News.

While most of the appearances included statements by the opposition, this is the first time they were responding to the ITA’s claims and message, instead of the other way around.

Here’s a recap of the media attention the campaign has received:

Print/Television

• UPI Wire Service (syndicated in papers all over the country)
• ABC’s Good Morning America (edited version ran on ABC affiliates nationwide in addition)
• Inside Edition (syndicated nationally)
• NBC (53 affiliates nationwide)
• Fox 5 New York City
• Fox News (syndicated nationally)
• WWMT TV Kalamazoo, Mich.
• WSYR Syracuse, N.Y.

Online

• Slate.com
• New York Magazine (blog)
• The Oregonian (blog)
• TodayMD.com (blog)
• EFLUX Media
• ENews
• DC Techno

Additionally, the newly created Web site, www.sunlightscam.com had an impressive 3,000 visitors in one day.

All of the materials used in the campaign are being mailed out to ITA members—they should arrive this week. In the coming weeks, the ITA’s plans include:

• Continuing to use media exposure to pitch copycat stories in other media outlets
• Considering a national USA Today ad to run in the next couple of weeks that uses the same “rethinking” tagline, but is more positive
• Continuing to push stories about sunscreen profit motives and dermatologist hypocrisy to our list of media contacts
• Continuing to update www.sunlightscam.com and www.trusttanning.com with new information and research as it comes in

You can do your part by using the ITA media materials in your local market to keep the momentum going.