After more than 105 years of serving the homebound and needy across Connecticut communities, the Ridgefield-based nonprofit RVNAhealth has made its first-ever step into television advertising.
During October, RVNAhealth premiered a series of commercials for their different services that include hospice, home health and personal caregiving. The commercials are airing on streaming services and television channels including the Food Network, HGTV, Hallmark Channel, Travel Channel, AMC, and CNBC. The media buy is for 16,000 monthly ads on streaming services and almost 350 spots on live TV each month.
One of the ads is focused on promoting understanding about the purpose of hospice care, and it features a conversation between two people discussing how hospice care can provide a higher quality of life for longer, not only the last few days of life. Another highlights the many at-home services available through RVNAhealth.
According to RVNAhealth’s Marketing Director Kim Cafiero the decision to run the commercials was prompted by the 2020 merger of Bethel Visiting Nurse Association and New Milford Visiting Nurse & Hospice with The Ridgefield Visiting Nurse Association. The resulting nonprofit, operating under RVNAhealth to reflect its larger coverage area, became responsible for providing in-home care to residents across more than 35 towns and cities in Western Connecticut.
“That’s a big territory for us to be present in on a shoestring nonprofit marketing budget,” Cafiero said. “But with this merger we had to do it. We did a rebranding and a name change, we’re now RVNAhealth, because we represent so much more of an area than just Ridgefield.”
The RVNAhealth ads will run during the UConn Women’s basketball games on both ESPN and ESPN2, FS1, and SNY. When the Lady Huskies take to the courts, the broadcasts routinely draw more than a million viewers ”” making it an especially valuable timeslot, sometimes outshining prime-time heavyweights like the WWE and Tucker Carlson’s talk show.
Cafiero noted that running the ads during the basketball games was planned with elder patients in mind.
“My family are big basketball and big UConn fans, and whenever I go to the games there is this whole group of senior citizens who go to every single game,” she said with a laugh. “There are tons of them, and they have the best time. You go to a home game and there’s this whole section of seniors and they all know each other, and they’ve had their same seats for 10 years.”
According to Cafiero, seniors make up a sizeable portion of those served by RVNAhealth, as well as people who are being discharged from the hospital. As a result, the emphasis of the ads, produced by Mnemonic Agency, is on simple, bold messaging that familiarizes people with the name.
“A lot of people don’t realize that you have the ability to ask for whoever you want when you leave the hospital,” Cafiero said of the procedure when choosing home health aides or visiting nurse agencies. “It’s typically a stressful situation so it’s really important that we’re front of mind and that they remember us so they can ask for the best care.”
