NPGA participates in this effort each year, creating its own campaign as well as tapping into the messaging that NCPG offers. Daily postings were made to NPGA social media pages throughout the month.
This year’s NPGA’s efforts were its most comprehensive awareness campaign to date. With the creative assistance of Preston Kelly, a Minneapolis advertising agency, several different campaign messages were created and distributed to radio, billboards, and digital and social media. Preston Kelly helped us develop three distinct personas that formed the focus of our campaign: the problem gambler, the concerned other and the influencer. While these were not “new” personas to us, the manner in which specific demographic and other marketing data was utilized enabled us to pinpoint our target audiences with tailored messaging.
We also paired up with KFAN radio’s Dan the Common Man. As a person in recovery, he understood the importance of our messaging. Dan’s on-air conversation typically includes discussion about game odds and brackets, particularly during March Madness when so many wager on the college basketball tournament. This allowed us to communicate a timely reminder to people about how to approach their gambling responsibly and how to recognize when it might be becoming an addiction.
We also created a special URL so that we could track visitors to our website. We are in the process of reviewing that data so we can assess and fine-tune future efforts.
During March, we also made a special effort to reach out to mental health and addiction treatment providers to remind them to screen for problem gambling. We reminded them to talk to their clients about all the activities they are engaged in. Gambling addiction often occurs when there’s a history of addiction to drugs and alcohol, or when there is depression and anxiety.
NPGA offered scholarships to 14 providers for training through NCPG’s Washington state affiliate, The Evergreen Council. This training informed counselors about fast-changing sports betting, the increase in online gambling and the convergence of gambling disorder and gaming disorder.
NPGA’s executive director, Susan Sheridan Tucker, participated in two podcasts during PGAM. Susan appeared on Voices of Problem Gambling Recovery, an Oregon- based podcast, along with Krystal Smith to detail NCPG’s effort for PGAM. She also was invited to chat with Brian Hatch of All In. These podcasts can be found on the Resources page of our website.
NPGA launched its new website (NorthstarPG.org) just in time for PGAM. Many thanks to Evans-Stark Design, Bill Stein, Tiffany Roufs and Linda Bisdorf (who we temporarily brought out of retirement for some extraordinary proofreading) for bringing everything together. It was truly a team effort and we’re quite pleased with the results. We hope you take the time to explore the site, and we would love to hear your feedback. Our goal is to enable the visitor to easily access the information they need from a vast knowledge base.