The PEGG

October, 2000

New Ads Communicate
Licensure Requirements

APEGGA's Communications Planning Committee and Enforcement Review Committee have teamed up to raise awareness of the value and legal requirements of professional licensure of engineers, geologists and geophysicists in Alberta.

A print ad campaign, designed by Brown Communications, seeks to brand the words professional engineer, geologist and geophysicist, and their respective abbreviations. It also seeks to identify APEGGA as the professional Association responsible for regulating the practice of these professions in Alberta.

Audiences targeted for this campaign primarily include individuals who are not licensed, but are qualified to be licensed by APEGGA, and individuals who are holding themselves out as practicing but are not qualified to do so. Employers and users of professional services, business and opinion leaders and the public are also being targeted.

Three ads are being created. They focus on the information technology (IT) community and the geoscience community, and a third general ad is geared toward students, existing practitioners and employers. The ads will appear over the next three months in select Alberta-based business publications, such as Alberta Venture and Oilweek, the CSEG Recorder and CSPG Reservoir, alumni and campus publications aimed at new graduates and post-secondary students, and computer/technology publications.

The campaign will also include two new unique opportunities - elevator networks and online advertising. The elevator component is relatively low-cost, and targets the business community in Calgary's downtown core through a network of elevator billboards in office complexes. A similar elevator network is not currently available in Edmonton.

The online advertising component allows the Association to increases its profile and brand the designations on websites heavily utilized by individuals entering IT careers and people who are Web savvy. It consists of aligning banner ads with search engines on sites such as Alberta.com and AltaVistaCanada.com. Individuals using these sites to perform key word searches with words such as "computer engineering" or "careers" would automatically see an APEGGA banner touting the value of professional registration above their search results.

Through this co-operative advertising effort, APEGGA hopes to clearly establish the value of professional membership.