February 4, 2019
Chronic sleep loss and sleep illness are big problems in America with nearly 30 million adults afflicted with sleep apnea. To help further educate the community about this growing epidemic, the LCWA healthcare PR team helped long-time client the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) create and launch two new national public service announcements (PSAs).To start, we enlisted AASM advocate and former NFL offensive lineman Aaron Taylor to urge television viewers to defend their sleep by talking to a doctor about obstructive sleep apnea – a potentially life-threatening disease involving episodes of complete or partial airway obstruction during sleep. An avid snorer since high school, Taylor shared his personal experiences with moderate obstructive sleep apnea and helped AASM reach new audiences with his sports and broadcast affiliations.
LCWA worked hand-in-hand with Taylor and AASM to develop a script that addressed the warning signs of sleep apnea and demonstrated that many of the damaging effects of the disease can be stopped, and even reversed, through diagnosis and treatment by the sleep team at an accredited sleep center. The script came to life naturally, as Taylor brought television host Adam Zucker and fellow football analysts Randy Cross and Brian Jones together in studio. The result was a 30- and 15-second PSA fit for both television and radio.
To date, the PSAs have aired more than 1,175 times reaching an audience of 10.9 million.