The Client
OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is the federal agency charged with protecting the health, safety, and well-being of America’s workers. OSHA has 10 regional and more than 160 area offices. Our support for OSHA is based in the national headquarters in Washington, DC.
The Challenge
In the 30 years since OSHA was established, on-the-job fatalities have declined by 62% and occupational injuries and illnesses have decreased 42%. The agency has targeted the most obvious causes of accidents in the most dangerous industries with great success. In the process, it has become the enforcement agency businesses love to hate, akin to the IRS. In order to continue reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities, OSHA needed to convince skeptical employers that it is in their interest to proactively invest significant time and money into safety and health programs that will eliminate the accidents that are more difficult and more costly to prevent. OSHA hired DTI to develop and implement a fully integrated marketing campaign and introduce the agency’s first brand that is distinguishable from the Department of Labor.
The Solution
To assist OSHA in continuing to help reduce injuries, illnesses, and fatalities among employees, we developed a strategy of asking OSHA’s many stakeholders what the agency could do to help them achieve their safety, health and operational goals. We then developed a new identity and message for the agency to demonstrate that the newly transformed OSHA wants to build better relationships with businesses. All communications efforts were based on the belief that truly effective communications is offered in terms that resonate withbusinesses. Namely, that through safety and health programs, businesses save money and employees have happier, healthier lives.
In order to set a benchmark for attitudes about OSHA, we conducted focus groups with employers, employees, and safety and health professionals. The groups generated ideas about the best way to communicate with OSHA’s many audiences and test potential safety and health messages. Based on these concepts, we coordinated the development, launch, and implementation of OSHA’s first comprehensive brand identity and message—Safety and Health Add Value: To Your Business. To Your Workplace. To Your Life. We then developed a complete suite of materials conveying the Add Value message, including speeches, presentations, banners, posters, exhibits, brochures, videos, interactive CDs, public service announcements, magazine articles, a white paper, and boilerplate language.
The Result
The results of our efforts were significant, and received great praise from OSHA and the Department of Labor:
- OSHA staff, safety, and health professionals and businesses have widely adopted the Add Value message to explain the benefits of implementing safety and health programs.
- More than 300 companies have signed up to partner with OSHA in proactively addressing safety and health issues in their workplaces.
- The message has become so central to the mission of the agency that it is the vision statement for the agency’s new five-year plan.
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