Case Study
The Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota
Build and energize an alliance of companies to improve health and wellness in Minnesota.
The Client
Target Corporation sought to pull together a group of large Minnesota employers to work together in a non-competitive space related to employee health and wellness.
The Challenge
The i.e. network was tasked to help market the organization, and ultimately charged with running the operation as a stand-alone for-profit company.
The Process
Build consensus among key Minnesota companies to create initiatives around improving health and wellness.
IEN reached out to 62 companies and organizations with a three-pronged approach involving personal meetings, formal presentations and ideas sessions. After identifying 11 pioneer members of the alliance, there was critical mass to move into the forming the organization and the work of advancing the collective interest of the group.
We delivered results through its combined processes for advancing public engagement campaigns that started with the members of the alliance exclusively, and ultimately branching out to a broader statewide campaign. i.e. network began leading collaborative sessions of ideas, research and conducting focus groups to hone in on specific areas of execution, each with its own engagement metrics.
The Results
IEN designed and led the following campaigns for the Alliance:
- “Too Much To Loose” A broadcast television special on the overweight/obesity epidemic in Minnesota – airing on all NBC affiliates in the state.
- “The Biggest Loser Minnesota Challenge” – a gaming platform registering more than 30-thousand Minnesotans in competitions around weight loss, time spent exercising and nutrition.
- Major research projects engaging pollsters who’ve worked with ABC News and the Wall Street Journal – documenting Minnesotans’ attitudes around health and wellness.
- Documenting the work through publication of a book: “The Shape of Minnesota”.
- Creation of the U.S. Congressional Caucus on Workplace Wellness, with Senators Amy Klobuchar and John Thune and Representatives Eric Paulson and Ron Kind. This was a bi-partisan/bi-cameral effort for the advancement of workplace health and wellness issues at the U.S. capital.
- Facilitation of dozens of focus groups and town hall meetings on the subject of health and wellness throughout the state – to understand how to best engage the public.
