NESO Representative to the COC
As the Northeastern Society of Orthodontists’ (NESO) representative to the AAO’s Council on Communications (COC), I am pleased to share an update with you regarding the AAO’s Consumer Awareness Program (CAP).
The CAP moved to its current, data-driven digital format in 2017 in an effort to target a variety of new audiences and reach consumers in the modern age. Our goal remains to educate the public on orthodontic care and defend and promote the specialty. We achieve this by driving consumers to AAOInfo.org where they can learn about the importance of getting orthodontic care by orthodontists and also have the opportunity to locate nearby AAO members through the ‘Find an Orthodontist’ service. This campaign is geared specifically towards American and Canadian consumers who have demonstrated an interest in orthodontic care, and we advertise on platforms like Google, Bing and Yahoo, social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and countless other news and media sites. Since the AAO moved to an online focus for this campaign, annual impressions on AAO ads have sky-rocketed, resulting in over a billion hits in FY ’19 and dramatically increasing web traffic to the consumer site in both the United States and Canada.
Now that the AAO has entered a new fiscal year, we would like to take this opportunity to share our progress – both in the United States and Canada and in the Northeastern region.
In the Northeastern region specifically, AAO sponsored content appeared over 125 million times in fiscal year 2019 including over 2.4 million video views on YouTube. During this time, nearly 600 thousand individuals in the NESO region viewed our consumer-oriented website, and thousands used the “Find an Orthodontist” service to locate an AAO member in their area.
From a comprehensive vantagepoint, the reach of the CAP continued to show strong growth in fiscal year 2019. In the United States and Canada, 4.9 million individuals visited the AAO consumer website from June of 2018 to May of 2019. In total, AAO CAP ads appeared before American and Canadian consumers 1.1 BILLION times. These campaigns included important initiatives targeting young parents, consumers considering DIY products and adult orthodontic patients.
This campaign is geared specifically towards consumers who have demonstrated an interest in orthodontic care, and we advertise on platforms like Google, Bing and Yahoo, social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and countless other news and media sites. Since the AAO moved to an online focus for this campaign, annual impressions on AAO ads have sky-rocketed, resulting in over a billion hits in FY ’19 and dramatically increasing web traffic to the consumer site in both the United States and Canada.
Do you have questions about the Consumer Awareness Program, our targeting or how you can play a part? Check out our CAP page on the member website where you can see results specific to your state, access AAO marketing materials and hear from the AAO members who play an active role in promoting the orthodontic specialty. And don’t forget to like and follow our pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where you can interact with our content and expand the reach of our social media network.
Thank you for your time and membership in the American Association of Orthodontists,
Keep Smiling!
Dr. Lauren Vitkus
NESO Representative to the COC