Advertising: Songs and Sunscreen Spread the Health Insurance Message

Songs and Sunscreen Spread the Health Insurance Message

In one ad for the Oregon insurance exchange, the singer Matt Sheehy performs an anthemic song, “Long Live Oregonians.”

THE part of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act that requires Americans to obtain health insurance has been a contentious issue politically, but new advertising from the 17 states setting up marketplaces where residents will buy insurance tends to be buoyant.

New commercials for the Oregon exchange, called Cover Oregon, for example, resemble something from a tourism bureau. In one commercial, the singer Matt Sheehy performs an anthemic song, “Long Live Oregonians,” that is reminiscent of “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie.

“From Hart Mountain, to the Skidmore Fountain, from the shores of Gold Beach, to the gorge out east,” sings Mr. Sheehy, who wears a plaid flannel shirt and appears strumming his guitar in each new location as he refers to it. “We’re free to be healthy, gonna breathe that fresh air, wanna get the best care, that a state can get.”

Neither this commercial, nor others featuring the singer Laura Gibson or the hip-hop group Lifesavas, mention insurance, although they do conclude with the exchange’s Web address.

A recent survey of uninsured Oregonians commissioned by Cover Oregon found that 87 percent of respondents were unfamiliar with the exchange, while 9 percent had a favorable opinion of it and 3 percent an unfavorable opinion. The first phase of the campaign, which was introduced on July 9, aims to familiarize Oregonians with the name of the organization. Subsequent ads will promote enrollment in the program, which, like other states’, begins Oct. 1 for coverage that takes effect Jan. 1.

“If all we were doing is what we’re doing right now, I’d be nervous,” said Amy Fauver, chief communications officer of Cover Oregon, referring to the first phase of the campaign. “But we needed to get our name out there, and get positive associations with our name, and in the fall we’re shifting to a more direct call to action.”

The campaign, by North, a Portland branding and advertising agency, also features other Oregon musicians in Web-only music videos, television and radio commercials. Work by Oregon visual artists is featured in print ads and on billboards. A promotional budget of almost $10 million includes placing advertising, the agency fee and the public relations efforts.

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey in April found that 59 percent of Americans with household incomes under $30,000, a group more apt to be uninsured, were unaware that the Affordable Care Act and its insurance requirement were the law of the land.

The first state to introduce an ad campaign was Colorado, which in May began running television commercials for Connect for Health Colorado. As with other states, the Colorado online marketplace resembles travel sites like Expedia, with competing insurance companies and a choice of coverage levels, and the commercials open with residents navigating the site.

After actors in the spots choose a plan, the walls of their homes slide away to reveal other settings, and they end up either celebrating a win in a casino, being sprayed with Champagne in a locker room or astride a horse in a winner’s circle. The ads close with a voice-over, “When health insurance companies compete, there’s only one winner: you.”

The campaign, which includes print, radio and billboard ads, is by Pilgrim, an advertising and digital marketing agency in Denver. Connect for Health Colorado is projected to spend more than $21 million on marketing and advertising, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Decidedly more somber is a campaign that began July 15 for Nevada’s marketplace, with a documentary-style approach that focuses on the perils of not having coverage.

“I live fast and play hard,” says the text for one print ad, with a portrait of a man in his early 20s. “But I don’t have health insurance and that scares me.”

C. J. Bawden, communications officer for the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange, said that focus groups of Nevadans indicated a preference for a serious tone.

The focus groups “said health care is a serious matter so please don’t trivialize it and make funny ads about it because we want the facts,” Mr. Bawden said.

The campaign, by KPS3, a marketing and advertising agency in Reno, Nev., includes spots on TV, radio, billboards, newspapers and social media, with projected advertising placement expenditures at about $2.8 million.

In August, beachgoers in Connecticut will be handed packets of sunscreen printed with “Get Covered” and the logo and Web site for Access Health CT, the state’s health insurance exchange. Roving representatives of the exchange clad in orange T-shirts also will hand out branded containers of hand sanitizer and packets of adhesive bandages.

The tchotchkes are part of an extensive $6 million promotional and advertising campaign, which includes television commercials and print, online and radio advertising. The campaign is by Pappas MacDonnell, a marketing and advertising agency in Southport, Conn.

Advertising for health exchanges in Utah and Rhode Island will be introduced between mid-August and early September, according to representatives from the programs.

The Covered California exchange is projected to spend $86 million on advertising placements through April 2015, and it has hired Weber Shandwick, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, to develop and produce advertising, and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide to help promote it. A representative of the exchange said advertising would be introduced before open enrollment begins on Oct. 1, declining to be more specific. The health exchange for New York, which has yet to announce what it will be called, has a $40.2 million advertising and marketing budget for the next two years and has hired the New York office of DDB Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group. The agency will develop a campaign with television, print, online and transit advertising.

The campaign will begin in mid- to late-September, according to Bill Schwarz, director of public affairs for the New York State Department of Health.

A version of this article appeared in print on August 1, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Songs and Sunscreen Spread the Health Insurance Message.