Nargish Patwoary

INTRODUCTION: Nonprofit organizations (NPOs), financially supported through donations and grants, serve as a beneficial good to the public in the form of social impact. Research suggests that strengthening the brand of an NPO correlates to favorable donation behavior. TGen’s Center for Rare Child Disorders (The Center) is a clinical extension of TGen whose mission is to combat complex, and often rare, disorders through high-powered genomics. The goal of my work this summer was to increase the Center’s brand awareness in Arizona, with particular emphasis on the metropolitan Phoenix area.

HYPOTHESIS: Brand awareness for The Center will increase by 5% across the Arizona population by designing and executing a strategic marketing campaign based upon the transtheoretical model of behavioral change (TTMoBC) framework.

METHODS: Prior to initiating the campaign, we assessed the Center’s current level of brand awareness through a pre-survey via Qualtrics. This established a baseline from which to compare future success. Methods used to analyze findings from the pre-survey were cross-tabulation in Qualtrics and qualitative data analysis, specifically thematic analyses and texting code. From a sample size of 506 individuals, we found that 13% of our respondents were able to recognize and recall TGen and The Center. Several significant factors are considered when establishing a baseline, such as audience and lookalike (A lookalike is a way to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they're similar to your current followers), charity behaviors, employment and income, ad preferences, perceived competitors and most cared about topics — all of which assisted in informing strategic ad placement and messaging in each phase of the TTMoBC framework for the campaign. 

DISCUSSION: The campaign concludes in September at month’s end. To determine the success of our hypothesis, a post-campaign survey will be used to gauge any increase in brand awareness and determine if the methods used to determine ad placement throughout the campaign are replicable.