The Grand Celebration in Davenport, Iowa was attended not only by chiropractors, students and family, but many members of the media were present. It was a week of intensive media exposure that included live television feeds, live radio talk-show programs and front page news coverage.
It was not unusual for Bill Holmberg, DC, president of the Chiropractic Centennial Foundation (CCF), to begin his morning on radio, be filmed for onsight interviews by several television stations, and approve press releases for the newspapers. Each day of the centennial celebration, attendees marveled at the coverage garnered for chiropractic on television, radio and in the newspaper.
A number of media events were frequently happening simultaneously. The centennial public relations firm, Bawden and Associates, was kept hopping. Public relations director Liz Laureau and PR manager Lori Leipold worked at a frantic pace throughout the day and into the night to insure as much media exposure as possible for the chiropractic profession.
The CCF's original media goal was 1 billion "impressions." An impression is counted when one person hears our chiropractic message once. As of September 30, 1995, a total of 673,529,207 impression had been generated by the media campaign of the CCF.
Although the centennial celebrations are behind us, the CCF has not finished their business. The chiropractic documentary has been edited and is ready for national television broadcast. During the two centennial events, DCs and patients donated almost one-half million dollars to pay for the airing of the documentary. While the television time has not yet been purchased, the donations have provided the CCF with a budget about twice of what was expected. Those who would still like to donate to the airing of the documentary can do so by calling (319) 327-0126.
The national airing date of our documentary is expected to be sometime in early 1996. The profession will be notified of that airing date well in advance so that we can spread the word. Chiropractic associations will be able to show the chiropractic documentary to regional viewers after it has been aired nationally.
While the CCF's media campaign may not quite reach one billion impressions, with only 250 million people in the United States, you can see that this campaign has already made a big impression.
