The paid advertising portion of our My Family Doctor Cares public campaign has now come to a close. My Family Doctor Cares launched in January as a province-wide awareness and advocacy campaign to bring attention to the value of a long-term relationship with a family doctor, and the difficulty that 700,000 British have accessing a family doctor.
In mid-April, the campaign was revised with new messaging in response to the impact of COVID-19. The revised campaign highlighted that family physicians are now available through phone, virtual, and in-person appointments and that the public should continue to seek care for new and existing conditions. We took the message directly to British Columbians through a new TV public service announcement, digital ads and more.
Campaign successes
The campaign performed well above industry averages across all metrics. Please see here for a full summary of the My Family Doctor Cares campaign, including more detailed insights into the campaign metrics. Highlights include:
While we had to postpone some aspects of our government advocacy, such as our Day at the Legislature (postponed from May 25), we made our voice heard with nearly 900 letters sent to members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) in only 5 weeks advocating for improved access to family physicians.The momentum for our letter-writing campaign had just got underway when the campaign was suspended due to the pandemic.
We hope to reschedule our Day at the Legislature, at which time we will distribute our position paper to MLAs.
Ways you can continue to support
The My Family Doctor Cares website continues to be accessible and provides patients with useful advice about accessing care throughout the pandemic, as well as information demonstrating the importance of comprehensive, longitudinal care from a family doctor. Please continue to share the website and video links with your networks and on your own clinic websites. We will continue to use the #MyFamilyDoctorCares hashtag on social media and encourage you to do the same. We plan to continue using the “My Family Doctor Cares” tagline and logo as it reflects and applies to so much of what you do as family physicans.
Thank you and next steps
It was fantastic to see so many of you add your own unique voice to the campaign. From sharing posts on social media; adding campaign materials to your clinic websites; attending our ambassador training webinars; displaying posters; writing letters to your MLAs; and more, it was wonderful and valuable to have you join us in advocating for the value of family medicine.
We are pleased to have reached so many British Columbians with this campaign. We hope to build on the momentum and reschedule government advocacy initiatives that were postponed due to the pandemic. We continue to reflect on new advocacy initiatives for our organization and look forward to sharing updates with you as they arise.
Please see here for a full summary of the My Family Doctor Cares campaign.
