What If GroundFloor Media Caught the Flu?

It’s not quite our nature to hold our tongue when there’s news to share, but we’ve been doing just that since spring – and we can’t keep it quiet any longer.

Earlier this year, GroundFloor Media was proud to be named the Agency of Record for a new campaign from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response.

The new statewide campaign, “What If? Colorado” (www.WhatIfColorado.com), launched July 19 with simultaneous launch events in Denver, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction. But before we could officially announce the campaign, GroundFloor Media was fast at work laying the groundwork by developing messaging, establishing partnerships and conducting a series of “summit” meetings with statewide local public health agencies – who will work to implement the campaign locally throughout the summer.

It all culminated with our first summit meeting with Western Slope local public health agencies on June 21 in Grand Junction. GroundFloor Media staffers Amy Moynihan and Jim Dissett traveled across the divide in a big rental truck filled with bottles of Eldorado Natural Spring Water (one of the campaign’s partners). The summit was the first semi-public unveiling of the six-month What If? campaign – which will leverage local events throughout the state to help spread the word about emergency preparedness and pandemic influenza. The focus of the campaign is threefold:

 To inform people about emergency preparedness and urge them to develop home emergency preparedness kits
 To inform Coloradans about pandemic influenza and how to protect yourself and your family during a public health emergency
 To encourage citizens to get influenza vaccinations this fall and winter

In order to engage citizens of the state, What If? Colorado is staging a Colorado-based reality competition open to residents across Colorado. Throughout the summer, local public health agencies across Colorado will hold live “auditions” for citizens 18 and older to solicit participants in the What If? Colorado reality competition. The auditions are simple, a person simply needs to state their name, age, where they live and answer the question: “In an emergency, what are the five things you could not live without?”). Coloradans can submit auditions three ways: at one of our live events, by U.S. mail and by direct upload to our YouTube What If? Colorado page. On Sept. 1, a panel of judges will critique each submission and select up to five auditions from each of nine state regions. These semi-finalist videos will be posted to our Web site and Coloradans will vote for one contestant from each region to live together in a house for three and a half days – where they will face a series of “emergency challenges” (each with an educational message). All house “residents” will receive a 30 gigabyte Apple iPod and one participant in the end will be crowned the winner and will receive $2,500 – the prizes are courtesy of our valued partner HealthONE.

As auditions are being collected, campaign partner King Soopers/City Market will conduct promotional activities in August and September, highlighting items throughout their 140 Colorado-based stores that residents can purchase to complete their home emergency preparedness kits. Specially priced items will be on sale each week during the promotion, with the idea of encouraging residents to purchase a few emergency kit items each week – allowing them a cost-efficient method of completing an emergency preparedness kit over time.

In addition, the entire campaign is being supported by public service announcements on our three TV media partner stations (KCNC in Denver, KKCO in Grand Junction and KOAA in Colorado Springs). And Eldorado Natural Spring Water has developed specially branded What If? Colorado water bottles that local public health agencies will be distributing at their events during the summer.

Residents of Colorado can keep up with the campaign by visiting www.WhatIfColorado.com, where campaign updates will be posted, audition videos will be viewable and finally, activities leading up to and during the competition will be available as streaming video.

We never felt so good to catch the flu!