#GetCovered 3/31 Deadline Puts New Spin on March Madness, Targets Young Invincibles
For the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to be, well, affordable (from a public funding standpoint, anyway), it needs young people to sign on to the healthcare exchanges. Their participation is crucial to offset the cost of older Americans, who tend to have more health problems.
Often referred to as “young invincibles,” these individuals can be a hard sell on something like health insurance. Even if they can afford it (some young people are falling into a “subsidy gap”), many don’t think they need it because they believe nothing bad will happen to them. Considering the importance of changing this mindset – not only for the success of ACA but also for the potential health benefits – the federal government is being extremely creative in its final marketing push of this enrollment period.
With a deadline of March 31, the last month to #getcovered (the hashtag adopted by the campaign along with the more urgent #getcoverednow) coincides with March Madness, the championship play-offs for NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball. The extremely popular tournament focuses the attention of millions on a single event for a couple of weeks each year. And according to White House Senior Communications Adviser Tara McGuinness, as quoted by David Jackson in USA Today, the White House is “putting on a full-court press to remind our fellow fans that there are two weeks left to sign up for quality, affordable health insurance.”
What’s a full-court marketing press in this instance? Jackson writes, “Obama, some of his aides and celebrity athletes who back the healthcare plan will conduct interviews, make public service ads and use social media appeals.” Whitehouse.gov even has a “sweet 16” bracket of its own called “The 16 Sweetest Reasons to Get Covered.”
Reasons to buy health insurance pair off against one another until Twitter and Facebook votes determine the most popular reason. One early match-up? “Women can’t be charged more than men” vs. “Because accidents happen.” Each is accompanied by its own humorous GIF; in the first Michelle Obama’s slam dunk interrupts an all-male interview, and in the second a young woman dances on – then falls from – the countertop in a public bathroom.
Not all of the ACA’s March push centers around basketball. Healthcare.gov received a 40 percent jump in traffic after Obama appeared on “Between Two Ferns” with Zach Galifianakis. The faux interview, more comedy sketch than hard core news in the same style as other Galifianakis celebrity interviews, has been watched by over 13 million people according to CNN. President Obama’s pitch – and comedic delivery – gained so much attention that FunnyorDie.com (the home of the “Between Two Ferns” video) referred more traffic to healthcare.gov than any other referrer after the interview. And since the “Between Two Ferns” audience is a young audience, the success is on-point with the push for young invincibles.
Video and humor play starring roles in another off-the-court content strategy: Michelle Obama has recruited celebrity moms to guilt young people into buying health insurance. In the #YourMomCares campaign, moms discuss the stress their kids cause… and plead for them not to add the stress of going without health insurance. The idea? “Invincible” or not, don’t disappoint your mother.
In addition to being extremely timely, these efforts are extremely targeted – reaching an audience segment not only where much interest lies (as in March Madness) but also using tactics known to be engaging (humor and video). We’ll know soon if the strategy pays off in terms of enrollment for the demographic.
