The American College of Cardiology (ACC) is one of the largest associations for the cardiovascular care team. The mission of the College and its more than 52,000 members is to transform cardiovascular care for the benefit of patients around the world. One vital pillar for achieving this mission is ACC’s Annual Scientific Session, where thousands of medical professionals, advocates, scientists, and media gather to network, share the latest research and discuss new approaches to the field’s most pressing issues.

The ACC media relations team sought a communications partner that could help maximize media coverage of the important research being released annually at their scientific sessions. They selected CURA Strategies as their strategic partner to create unique approaches to promotion that would reach the broadest group of reporters possible.

CURA’s approach was to maximize media coverage of ACC’s Annual Scientific Session by executing new, innovative earned and social media tactics. In addition, CURA worked to increase live and remote media coverage by providing reporters with unique opportunities to access press materials and spokespeople. The team also helped increasing ACC leadership presence in coverage through strategic, targeted outreach.

With the strategy in place, CURA and the ACC team executed the following in 2018 and continue to build on this strategy at every annual gathering:

• More than 30 press releases; one embargoed pre-meeting web briefing to give reporters a sneak peek at studies that ACC and CURA selected for promotion due to their broad appeal; an infographic on the top studies; five onsite press conferences; and eight short social media videos of study authors sharing highlights of their research.
• CURA conducted embargoed pitching outreach prior to the meeting, targeting specific groups of reporters and outlets based on the topic of the promoted research – which varied widely from the benefits of breastfeeding to football players’ heart health
• CURA also revamped ACC’s online press kit – the hub for all resources available to reporters who registered for the conference and has remained the same for the past four years – making the site more dynamic, engaging and useful for reporters.

The team secured broad media coverage of ACC’s 2018 Annual Scientific Session, including:

• More than 800 original articles in 345 different outlets, including the TODAY Show, CNN, AP, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, TIME, CNBC.
• Expansion of ACC’s presence in health IT and technology publications, as well as mommy blogs – an entirely new audience for the College.
• Social media metrics that far exceeded ACC’s metrics from the previous year. ACC.18-related social posts garnered over 300,000 impressions and 7,500 engagements and received more than 2,000 mentions. The meeting specific hashtag, #ACC18, was used more than 45,000 times and garnered over 300 million impressions – more than double that of ACC.17.

ACC.18 Study Featured on the TODAY Show