October 19, 2014 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A campaign urging parents to make sure kids brush their teeth regularly is enlisting a new tool in the fight: cellphones.
To help families get into the habit of brushing for two minutes twice a day, the campaign started the new 2min2x Text Challenge. Parents get brushing reminders twice a day via text for five days, followed by texts that offer encouragement, quizzes, and interesting facts every two weeks.
To make the messages more engaging, the campaign created a friendly character, Joy, as the knowledgeable voice of the challenge, says Anastasia Goodstein, senior vice president for digital at the Ad Council, the nonprofit that created the campaign.
“She’s not a dentist, per se, but we see her as someone who’s in the profession and is a fellow parent,” says Ms. Goodstein. “We hope the texts will really come across as not just disembodied factoids.”
The campaign’s mobile-friendly website features a library of two-minute videos for kids.
The purpose is twofold: Young children can watch while parents brush their teeth, and the videos help parents gauge how long to brush.
In the Toothsavers Brushing Game, a free smartphone app, players help Little Red Riding Hood, a pirate, and others save their teeth with good brushing. The game also includes a calendar parents can use to track their kids’ real-life brushing.
Text-messaging programs are unlikely to reach the level of awareness the Ad Council raises with its television and print advertisements, which are seen by millions. But the approach offers one-on-one interaction with people the group is trying to reach, says Ms. Goodstein, and helps determine impact.
“It’s an opportunity to get that more-direct feedback,” she says, “to get a sense of what aspects of the content we’re sending are effective.”
To get there: Go to 2min2x.org.
