BHF targets youth online

Sara Kimberley, Precision Marketing

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) is targeting teenagers with a new online campaign in a bid to create awareness of health issues common in youngsters.

The charity has appointed Positive Digital to target a web-based audience whilst providing easy navigation around user generated content, platform mechanics and hosted forums. An online currency, ‘yHeart tokens’, will be issued based on site interactions such as forum posts, competition entries and submitted stories. Registered users can then accumulate tokens and exchange them through the yHeart store for a range of prizes, including t-shirts, USB keys and MP3 players.

This incentive aims to encourage the user to make a return visit but also increases the amount of time spent browsing the website, maximising the benefits of the campaign and raising awareness of the issues the British Heart Foundation is highlighting.

Positive Digital associate director Garrett Dearey comments: “Vital to success was speaking to the audience in a manner that was not perceived in any way as patronising. By benchmarking progress against the views of a 30-strong teen focus group throughout the design and build process, this was made possible. It was made clear that rewards were key to return users, as such we placed ‘air-miles’ style incentivised activity at the heart of the proposition.”