CHALLENGE

Covance, the world’s largest drug-development services company, must acquire and retain candidates for clinical drug trials at local test centers across the country.  Traditional media such as print and radio are effective at reaching local markets, but lack an interactive, direct-response mechanism to Covance’s online study details.

SOLUTION

Cielo Mobile utilized mobile as the connective tissue across advertising platforms to capture and retain study volunteers.  The campaign uses text messaging with radio commercials and print ads, in drug-trial markets. Consumers were asked to text “study” to a short code to obtain clinical-trial information on their mobile phones. A respondent received a text message with a link to a mobile internet site.

Click to hear the radio ad and view how the mobile campaign functions.

RESULTS

This cross-platform campaign warrants attention because it opens a new, complex category for mobile marketing. Cielo met all goals, achieving strong ROI through a single, economical campaign by reaching a mass audience in each local market with a 22% lift in conversion of radio listeners and print readers to clinical study volunteers.

Each local market has its own mobile site containing detailed information on its clinical trials.   Outbound messages were also used to alert participants of the time and place of their next appointments.  Ensuring that participants keep appointments is critical to the success of a clinical-trial. Covance found that sending text alerts is less intrusive than voice calls, more effective, and easier and more cost efficient to execute.