Hospital ads must target minorities

Art Nadler

Wednesday, June 16, 1999 | 10:55 a.m.

The Clark County Commission approved a new $1.7 million University Medical Center advertising contract Tuesday but insisted the hospital beef up its efforts to attract more minority patients.

The Dunn Reber Glen Marz advertising agency was granted the three-year contract with two one-year renewal options. UMC awarded its first and only advertising contract to the agency in 1994.

The advertising agency came under attack from minority business leaders at the June 1 commission meeting. The business leaders said the agency wasn't doing much advertising in minority print and electronic media outlets.

On June 1 the commissioners, who also serve as the UMC board of trustees, ordered William Hale, chief executive officer of the hospital, to return in two weeks with a budget breakdown of the hospital's advertising budget, detailing how much was being spent on minority advertising.

Dale Pugh, assistant administrator of marketing at UMC, on Tuesday presented the commissioners with a report, "University Medical Center: Delivering Its Message to the Community."

The report, in part, claimed that UMC mainstream television advertising reached 75 percent of the Hispanic population in Clark County, television ads reached 61.3 percent of the Hispanic population, radio reached 76.5 percent of Hispanics and the Sunday Review Journal/Sun newspaper reached 57.2 percent of Hispanics.

The report also showed that there were no statistics available on how many blacks were reached by mainstream television. It said radio ads reached 71.6 percent of blacks and the Sunday newspaper reached 64 percent of the same audience.

Overall, the report showed that the advertising agency spent approximately $850,000 on mainstream advertising, but only $14,556 in minority media outlets.

"Every business here is entitled to their piece of the action when we are using taxpayer dollars," Commissioner Myrna Williams said.

Commissioner Mary Kincaid agreed, stating that hospital administrators and the agency needed to make a genuine effort to share advertising dollars with minority businesses.

Chairwoman Erin Kenny felt the agency was doing a fine job reaching ethnic groups and in directing advertising to minority businesses.

But Commissioner Dario Herrera, himself of Hispanic origin, felt the television and radio commercials needed to be specifically written for Hispanics and not simply translated from English to Spanish. He said none of the messages' concepts in the commercials would be understood by Hispanics.

Ramon Savoy, owner and publisher of the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice, a newspaper serving the black community, said he hasn't received any advertising from the agency and that the Sentinel has been around for 20 years.

"I hold myself to blame. I don't hold DRGM," Hale said, pledging to revamp the hospital's advertising plan. "We don't want to exclude any ethnic population. I hear the voices loud and clear."

Michael Mayes, president of the advertising agency, said he is pleased that the contract was renewed. He and Pugh said they planned to rethink how they are going to approach minorities in future advertisements.

They declined to say if they would increase their advertising budget for ethnic print and electronic commercials.