Recruiting for clinical trials often takes months and sometimes years depending on the type of patients needed. With critical corporate and medical deadlines to fill trials, the interactive space becomes all the more important to expand recruitment practices. An excellent example of this in action can be seen with the Army of Women breast cancer project we launched for the Dr. Susan Love Foundation in October 2008.
The program was designed to pair women volunteers directly with research opportunities testing preventative therapeutics to battle breast cancer. The goal is to create an army of one million women volunteers, healthy patients, not just sick ones, to figure out the root cause of breast cancer. Participants agree to make themselves available for breast cancer trials around the country.
HDMZ worked with the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation to develop a strong brand image for the project that communicated the primary message of immediacy and action. Using the branding as a platform, we went on to create a strategy and technology workflow to pair volunteers and researcher initiatives through a web-based platform. An intensive online promotional campaign leveraged PR efforts and channeled nation-wide media into volunteer signups.
The campaign currently has over 330,000 volunteers registered and is now able to fill trials that traditionally require months in a matter of days. While breast cancer may be one of the most publicized conditions, the viability of online recruiting tools for any disease state is still strong…as long as a well-executed promotional campaign accompanies it.
