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Kim Leonard is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 412-380-5606 or via e-mail.
The Pittsburgh office of marketing firm Mullen said Thursday it won a three-year contract to help the American Diabetes Association introduce a major campaign to stress the seriousness of the disease, which affects almost 8 percent of the population.
Mullen said it will generate and run a branding campaign for the Alexandria, Va.-based association that will involve everything from the education materials that local ADA offices hand out, to the events it sponsors, to an increased use of broadcast and other media, including online social networks.
Through focus groups and other research last year, "We found that the vast majority of people don't understand the seriousness of diabetes," ADA CEO Larry Hausner said yesterday.
Mullen's Strip District office and its headquarters in Wenham, Mass., will collaborate -- with the local staff tackling media messages, digital work and media planning and buying, said Brian Bronaugh, the office's president. Public relations will be handled out of the Wenham headquarters.
Three employees already have been added to build the Strip District's staff to about 50, and, "We will be prudently looking" for others, he said.
Hausner said Mullen's contract is for less than $1 million a year, compared with the $42 million it puts each year toward research into the disease and related costs. "It's spending at the right level," he said.
The association said 17.9 million people nationwide have diabetes, and about 5.7 million are believed to be undiagnosed. At least 57 million are pre-diabetics, at risk of getting the disease. Many people shrug off diabetes as a controllable condition, without understanding that it can lead to heart attacks and other life-threatening health problems, Hausner said.
