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Building Awareness: Think About Your Eyes Increases Advertising Investment
ALEXANDRIA, Va.—With a heftier budget, better media planning and a noteworthy track record of success, Think About Your Eyes has set new targets and moved swiftly to ensure that its 2017 efforts to raise awareness about the importance of eye exams will build upon the success of past years’ campaigns.

Think About Your Eyes, which develops and manages the vision industry’s national public awareness campaign, launched its 2017 national advertising campaign in mid-February. This year’s campaign is getting a boost in advertising budget and updated placements that include several major network spots.

“2017 will be a momentous year for Think About Your Eyes,” said Jon Torrey, executive director of the organization. “Thanks to support from new partners, and increased support from existing partners, we’re able to continue to increase exams, improve the eye health of the American public and grow the industry.”

He added, “We want to educate the American public on the need for better eye and vision health. What’s our flashpoint in that process? A comprehensive annual eye exam, that’s the real driver.”

Torrey participated in a roundtable discussion in late February about the Think About Your Eyes awareness campaign that was hosted by Vision Monday and its Jobson Healthcare Information “sister” publication Review of Optometric Business.

Roundtable participants in addition to Torrey included: Laurel O’Connor, Think About Your Eyes’ marketing and communications manager; Ken Daniels, OD, with offices in Hopewell and Lambertville, N.J.; Gail Correale, OD, with offices in Westbury, N.Y.; and Brian O’Donnell, OD, with offices in Shavertown, Pa. Also participating were Jobson’s Marge Axelrad, editor-in-chief of Vision Monday, and Roger Mummert, director of content for Review of Optometric Business.

Ads in the new campaign will run for three consecutive quarters in 2017, which is an increase compared with the two quarters the ads ran in previous years. Think About Your Eyes attributed the increase in air time, in part, to an increase in support from industry partners, including The Vision Council and the American Optometric Association (AOA).

In addition Johnson & Johnson Vision Care has signed on to the effort as a leadership partner. As a result, media spending has increased by 60 percent in 2017, according to a Think About Your Eyes announcement.

The broadcast ad portion of the campaign will appear in primetime across 27 cable networks, including such popular networks as USA, Comedy Central and FX. Also, for the first time ever in the awareness campaign, Think About Your Eyes ads will appear on broadcast networks, specifically ABC and NBC, during primetime programming and sporting events, including NBA and Major League Baseball games.

The schedule for the ads, which will be seen or heard through the end of September, include 15 million spots on podcasts and online audio (Pandora and Spotify), 14 million online video spots and 6 million digital banner ads across 2,000 top websites, including The New York Times and ESPN, according to Think About Your Eyes.

The expectation is that the boost in advertising will lead to a corresponding increase in eye exams.

In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, Think About Your Eyes advertising (which was either seen or heard by consumers) prompted an incremental 828,463 eye exams, according to an analysis of the data from the campaign. This led to an additional 23 eye exams per practice across the U.S., according to Think About Your Eyes’ analysis.

Overall, an additional 3.01 million people (who are described by Think About Your Eyes as “converts”) have responded that they have had an eye exam since seeing a Think About Your Eyes awareness ad. The ad campaign also has led to a shorter exam cycle (from 29 months to 16 months), led to a 29 percent increase in eyeglasses purchases and a 21 percent increase in purchase of contacts, and an incremental $20 outlay for their eyeglass purchases.

Torrey also noted that, based on the respondent data that Think About Your Eyes has reviewed, the organization has taken steps to focus the campaign on key demographic groups in 2017.

Roundtable participants included (l to r) Think About Your Eyes’ Jon Torrey and Laurel O’Connor; Brian O’Donnell, OD; Ken Daniels, OD; and Gail Correale, OD.
For 2017, he said, one of the goals is to focus more on the 30- to 39-year-old segment of the population with children and with household income over $50,000. “That is what we are calling our bullseye target, so we are buying specific media so we can get to those people with that ‘Take care of yourself message,’” he explained during the roundtable.

“We still have a basic television buy that covers 25- to 49-year-olds, but we have a bullseye target and we are going to do a lot of digital [this year],” Torrey said.

“Education provided by Think About Your Eyes helps in that we are able to tell our patients how to prevent something, and that is phenomenal,” Daniels said at the roundtable. “We try to let them know not to wait till they’re a certain age to get tested. It’s better to get eye exams earlier so they can prevent a disease.”

Correale, a Westbury optometrist, agreed that population groups need different marketing approaches. “I try to approach each generation differently,” she explained. “A more mature audience responds to TV and Millennials are more responsive to social media.

“Think About Your Eyes helps in that it protects the integrity of the profession. The return on investment in working with Think About Your Eyes is bigger than any [advertising] you can place,” she added.

O’Donnell said one aspect of the Think About Your Eyes campaign that he finds beneficial is the approach the ads take toward mothers. “Moms make a lot of the health care decisions for children,” he said.

He also noted that the Think About Your Eyes website plays an important role in driving office visits and providing education to consumers about eye health. “It’s very navigable and educational, particularly as it relates to children’s vision,” he said.

In addition, Think About Your Eyes noted that the awareness campaign has achieved an important milestone: 3 million visitors to the campaign website (ThinkAboutYourEyes.com) since its launch. The site features a comprehensive practice locator tool that enables visitors to easily search for and find local eyecare providers from a database that now houses more than 19,000 participating providers.

Optical industry companies that have current partnerships in place with TAYE are: Alcon, The Vision Council, American Optometric Association (AOA), All About Vision, Gunnar Optiks, Jobson Optical Group, National Vision Inc. (NVI), SpecialEyes, SPY, Hilco, Walman Optical, Transitions Optical, Shamir, Chemistrie Eyewear, Essilor, Luxottica Group, Eschenbach, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, First Vision Media Group, International Vision Expo and WestGroupe.

Think About Your Eyes is a national public awareness initiative in partnership with the American Optometric Association (AOA), focused on educating consumers about the importance of vision health and annual comprehensive eye exams.