Smiling Romania

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Smiling Romania

Bucharest, RomaniaBucharest, Romania
Website:
http://www.gsk.com
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

Prevalence and impact of oral care disease in Romania is huge.
Smiling Romania is a campaign developed by GSK and its public partners to increase awareness and to improve oral care health.
Communication three easy steps that people can take to prevent oral care disease.

About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

Almost 80% of Romanian has dental problems and cavities are the most common problem ever had. 4 out of 10 confront with dental plaque and 3 out of 10 have bad breath and sensitive teeth. 49% hasn’t visited the dentist in the last year. In the same time, oral disease is the 4th most expensive group of diseases to treat in the EU, which can mean a lot for a health budget which represents only 3.8% of the GDP. Smiling Romania Campaign is about educating people and helping public health institution in identifying solutions for a better healthcare system. Expenditure on treatment of oral conditions often exceeds that for other diseases, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, and dementia.

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

Our solution involves educating as many people as possible, starting from the young generation, and involving a large number of relevant influencers to drive behaviors to prevent oral disease rather than cure. If every stakeholder, part of the system, is involved and has ownership, the problem solving mechanism works better and faster.
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

The roundtable from the Romanian Parliament on 12 of September was followed by roundtables in the main cities from Romania with Dental Faculties. As a result of the round tables organized in important economic and academic centers, the local authorities, together with the dental faculties and GSK agreed on the need to improve the prevention of oral disease in each county. During the discussions, a call to action approach was launched, with GSK’s support, to educate children in schools. GSK, together with its partners, United Way Romania ( which itself is a sister NGO of United Way USA) and Save the Children Romania also created a fund dedicated to prevention and education activities targeting unprivileged children. “Smiling Corners” were set up, offering oral care products to children in 22 United Way Social Centers, 14 schools in the Danube Delta and 25 Save the Children Romania Social Centers Also, due to the fact that people are afraid of the costs of a dental checkup, the campaign offered a free of charge check-up at the dentist at national level.
Sustainability

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

Our peers are other companies which have in their portfolio oral care products ( such as Colgate and P&G). Nevertheless, no other company on the Romanian market managed to gather this amount of stakeholders under one campaign’s umbrella. Colgate has implemented some activities in this field but limited to their commercial objectives. We welcome more competitive engagement in the social arena to really positively influence consumer behavior in Romania.
Team

Founding Story

Smiling Romania campaign is an extension of the Platform for Better Oral Health in Europe, an initiative which was launched by GSK and its partners, including European Association for Dental Public Health (EADPH), the Association for Dental Education in Europe (ADEE) and the Council of European Chief Dental Officers (CECDO), and Wrigley. Oral disease is the 4th most expensive group of diseases to treat in the EU. The objective of this EU Platform is to help improve oral healthcare and reduce the cost of oral diseases. Oral Health means more than good teeth. It’s a determinant factor for quality of life, essential for well-being and an integral part of general health, especially relevant in Romania.
About You
About You
First Name

Andreea

Tell us about yourself/your team.

Category Activation Manager Oral Care

What makes you an intrapreneur? What are the skills, capabilities, and personality traits that make you an intrapreneur?

My passion and proven ability to make things happen.

About Your Organization
Company Country

, B, Bucharest

Primary country where this project is creating social impact

, B, Bucharest

Additional countries or regions

National level

Industry

Health Care

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Innovation
Select the stage that best applies to your solution

Growth (your pilot is up and running, and starting to expand)

The Solution: Why is this solution innovative for your company and industry?

The innovation of the Smiling Romania campaign lays in the fact that it brings together Romanian authorities, dentists, consumers, celebrities, and NGOs with the same goal: to create a healthy generation through education and prevention. Until this campaign, no health public institution took publicly any actions for a healthy oral care behavior. It is also the first campaign that combines commercial agenda with a social one.

Impact
What has been the impact of your solution to date?

•Thus, after 6 round tables in 6 cities involving over 80 public health representatives and 238 participants, the campaign started a long term educational project targeting 13.500 children in 45 kindergartens and 90 schools in Romania by the end of 2013.
•Setting over 50 smiling corners in social centers from 3 NGOs including United Way Romania.
•Over 6000 children and adults from social centers received oral care products and oral health advices from the dentist. Also in campaign gathered 10.000 Euro which will be spent to treat the most serious oral care problems of children from social centers.
•We distributed over 30.000 birth kits in maternities for mothers who contains advice for a good oral health and oral care products.
•Over 1200 dentists from 42 counties agreed to be our partners in campaign and provide advice and free consultations.

What is your projected impact over the next 1 to 3 years?

Our aim is to reach every child from Romania and their parents to made them to brush their teeth twice a day, to make them aware about the importance of a healty diet and to increase with 10% the number of people from Romania who have regular visits at the dentist.

What barriers might hinder the success of your project? How do you plan to overcome them?

Resistance to change by society. The most important barrier in Romania is that people do not believe in prevention. We can overcome this barrier by involving dentists, celebrities, dental students, school teachers and parents to build awareness of the benefits of prevention rather than cure.

Sustainability
What is the benefit or value you're creating for your business?

We create value by changing people's life. Smiling Romania is a campaign which can change the future and help to increase consumption of oral care products in Romania.Oral care category has decreased by 15% in volume in the last two years. Smiling Romania will bring new consumers into the oral care category.

How are you leveraging internal resources (funds, time, knowledge, etc.) to support this initiative?

Through dedicated marketing budget,significant sampling activities( products and educational materials )GSK expertise in government affairs,celebrities and internal dedicated people resources with external agency support.

Expand on your answer, explaining the long-term funding and support plan.

A campaign with a significant shared value approach will show results on a long run through increasing the reputation of the company and the level of trust. Due to the business impact a long term budget was designed from the beginning. Also, due to the number of partners, we also take into consideration external funds through public auctions and fund raising.

Tell us about your partnerships across your company and externally that are key to your project's success.

The campaign is supported at national level by Ministries of Health and Education(Secretary of State level), national and local Authorities ( city mayors), Dens of Dental Faculties,local Pharmacies and Dental Students Associations and Better Oral Health Platform.

What internal support have you gotten for your project? What kind of push-back have you received?

Smiling Romania campaign received support in terms of government affairs from general management team and from internal communication team.Also received financial support to sustain samples, educational materials and educational media .In the same time we had a lot of internal encouragement for our ability to demonstrate that we can drive commercial agenda and in the same time to do a difference in the community.
Push back received was return of investment on the program.