Checking Off Seniors’ Wishes One Bucket-List Item at a Time
Summary
Wesley Enhanced Living, a local continuing care retirement community operating in six locations, developed the “WEL Wishes” program to not only empower its residents to stay active, engaged and connected while living at one of its communities, but also to help its residents fulfill their bucket-list aspirations.
Wesley Enhanced Living engaged with AKCG to develop a media relations campaign to showcase the WEL Wishes program and drive inquiries from prospective residents and their families.
Challenge
Wesley Enhanced Living (WEL), a non-profit senior living organization with six communities, has served seniors in the greater Philadelphia area for nearly 130 years. Although time passes, one thing seems to remain the same — Pennsylvania seniors and their families often face a difficult decision in choosing the best senior living community. WEL incorporates an “Enhanced Living” concept into each of their communities, empowering residents to remain engaged, active, recognized and connected to those around them.
The “Enhanced Living” concept serves as WEL’s point of differentiation among its competition. Leveraging its “Enhanced Living” brand, the organization launched an initiative called “WEL Wishes,” which helps its senior residents to fulfill their lifelong dreams and wishes. WEL needed a way to increase exposure of the WEL Wishes program, with the goal being to drive interest (in the form of website traffic and inquiries) from prospective residents and their families.
The AKCG Approach
The AKCG team developed a media relations campaign to showcase the WEL Wishes program and drive inquiries from prospective residents and their families.
AKCG then pitched tailored story ideas to targeted reporters, resulting in the following media coverage:
- A group of daring and brave seniors expressed a desire to go ziplining. AKCG secured coverage of this trip on WNEP 16 and FOX 56, stations local to the Poconos area. The news clips were then picked up and featured on newscasts across 20 states in the country, totaling roughly 66 clips highlighting the residents and their adventure, proving that age is just a number.
- For the first time, a resident was given the chance to visit an animal refuge zoo she had donated money to for the past 15 years. AKCG secured a feature of this story in Bucks County Herald, Bucks County Courier Times and The Intelligencer.
- When a resident shared his dream of once again operating construction machinery, AKCG teamed up with the WEL staff to plan a trip to Diggerland XL, a local construction-themed amusement park. There, 93-year-old WEL resident Bill B. celebrated his birthday by crushing a car! He and five friends had the opportunity to use the machinery at the park. AKCG secured coverage of this exciting trip, highlighting WEL’s dedication to supporting (and granting) the wishes of seniors, on CBS 3, NBC 10 and in the Bucks County Herald.
- AKCG secured a feature story highlighting the WEL Wishes program and its design to assist Philadelphia-area seniors in fulfilling their lifelong wishes in their elder years. This story was showcased in the “Silver Scene” section of The Chester Spirit, a hyperlocal daily newspaper covering a portion of WEL’s target market.
Success
AKCG and Wesley Enhance Living were able to exceed all the objectives successfully. The WEL Wishes campaign generated 93 stories, over 7,000,000 impressions and $900,000 in publicity value. Wesley Enhanced Living also experienced a 72% increase in website traffic. In addition, the organization received five new-resident inquiries that indicated WEL Wishes media coverage led them to consider WEL as a senior living option.