UCLA DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY MEDICINE RESEARCH PROGRAM PARTNERS WITH COMMANDO TO BOOST LARGE-SCALE STUDY ENGAGEMENT BY PROMOTING ACROSS AD PLATFORMS.

“Anytime we have a large-scale study with a decent recruitment budget, we go to Commando first.”

CHRISTOPHER E. BLADES

Community Education Program Manager at UCLA Vine Street Clinic

SITUATION

The UCLA Department of Family Medicine Research Program has initiated a variety of large-scale studies on topics such as HIV prevention, chronic disease care, and the health of adolescents, women, and minorities. In order to promote the studies, UCLA worked with an agency to advertise on social media and various alternative platforms, such as dating websites. However, the different requirements of each site made the process laborious and time-consuming.

“Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and dating sites all had different requirements,” said Christopher E. Blades, Community Education Program Manager at the UCLA Vine Street Clinic. “It just took a lot of work, which limited what we could do.”

SOLUTION

UCLA partnered with Commando to handle their advertising for study outreach. Right from the start, Commando was able to easily manage all of the various platforms for UCLA.

“Commando broadcasted our studies on multiple platforms, which was really beneficial because we didn’t have to deal with all of those different companies individually,” said Christopher.

Additionally, UCLA has found that working with Commando makes recruiting for large-scale studies much easier.

“Now, any time we have a large-scale study with a decent recruitment budget, we go to Commando first to see how we can advertise the study,” said Christopher.

“…WE GO TO COMMANDO FIRST”

COVID-19 STUDY SPOTLIGHT

UCLA Department of Family Medicine is working with Moderna on a two-year COVID-19 vaccine study. They are looking to recruit about 150 people and have partnered with Commando to advertise.

“Commando came into play because we wanted to create a social media campaign around this trial,” said Christopher. “We wanted to utilize social media platforms and some different dating apps to see if we could generate more exposure and target a large group of people who are at a higher risk for contracting COVID.”

After Christopher and his team put together some language, they worked with Commando to select images. Then Commando created ads for the study and pushed them across the various platforms.

“As soon as [the ads] went live, we started getting a lot of calls,” said Christopher. “People had multiple options of contacting us, so we were getting emails, phone calls, and text messages. As soon as it went live, the numbers of our inquiries just increased.”

Christopher estimates they received more than 400 inquiries from the ads in the first three weeks.

“Having these specific ads targeting this study has really helped a lot,” said Christopher. “I think utilizing Commando as a recruitment source has also helped us because it allowed the study to be broadcast on multiple social media platforms.”

RESULTS + BENEFITS

COMMANDO MAKES RECRUITING FOR STUDIES EASIER AND PROVIDES THE FOLLOWING ADDITIONAL BENEFITS:

QUALITY LEADS

“We’re on target to achieve sixty percent growth per clinic this calendar year,” said Jana. “Even the slowest clinics we have are growing from two to four patients per month.”

QUICK TURNAROUND TIME

“The results we’ve seen are nothing like I’ve ever seen in my twenty-year marketing career,” said Jana. “We have seen a clinic that was getting maybe two patients a month from search engine optimization to getting twentyfour new patients a month thanks to microtargeting and digital marketing.”

EXCELLENT COMMUNICATION

“Our doctors want to advertise in glossy magazines and newspapers, but that’s not where the LGBTQ+ community is,” said Jana. “COMMANDO is the company to go to for finding, targeting, and really figuring out exactly who your audience is and how to get them.”