DENTAL ASSOCIATION BEGINS AWARENESS EFFORT
By Adnews Staff
The Ontario Dental Association broke a new awareness campaign last week to coincide with Oral Cancer Awareness week, which ran in Ontario from June 23 to 29. The initiative includes a survey, outdoor advertising, media relations and patient materials. The survey was conducted on behalf of the association by Leger Marketing to gauge the level of knowledge about oral cancer among Canadians. The advertising creative, from Brandworks of Toronto, was developed based on the results of the survey, according to Heather Whyte, director of communications for the association. The campaign's tagline is, "Stick out your tongue at your dentist." The creative shows a tongue sticking out of a mouth. On the tongue is a red flashing light. The copy reads, "Oral cancer isn't this easy to spot. Ask your dentist." The creative will run on Toronto billboards until the end of August. The media relations component, which was also developed based on the results of the survey, is being handled by APEX Public Relations of Toronto. It will also run until the end of the summer. The patient materials, including brochures and fact sheets, were created by the Ontario Dental Association. They will be distributed on an on-going basis.