When they started calling for Ted, we knew we had reached our audience.

In one month, enrollment in the GED® testing program in Chesterfield, Virginia, increased 400 percent. If that doesn’t get your attention, this might: the credit goes largely to a young virtual dude named Ted.

First, some background.

Chesterfield is an affluent community with approximately 187,000 working-age adults (age 18-64) and has the third-largest school system in Virginia. When Deborah Hinton became administrator for adult continuing education in 2005, 14.7 percent of adults didn’t have a high school diploma or GED credential.

"The fact that approximately 27,000 adults in our community didn’t have a high school diploma blew me away," Hinton says.

"I came into adult education after being a high school principal, and I recalled very few students dropping out. I was astounded by the statistics."

Hinton set her sites on changing those numbers.

First, the new administrator found grant money from the state of Virginia, which was highly engaged in GED work under then governor Mark Warner. Next, Hinton formed a team to address the issue. Those moves allowed her to contact public relations and advertising agencies in the area for their advice and estimates on creating an advertising campaign.

Dave Saunders, president of Madison+Main, an award-winning advertising/public relations firm, agreed to help the Chesterfield School District at a substantially reduced rate.

Saunders studied the demographics and decided that 18-25 year-olds should be the target audience for the campaign. Specifically, the target population was young urban blacks and rural whites.

Saunders knew that young people this age didn’t typically respond to newspaper ads but did spend a lot of time on their phones text messaging. He also knew that the message to them had to be engaging.

Virtual dude Ted was born (make that created).

Ted, a lovable and hip guy with fashion sense and age-appropriate language became the face of the campaign, which offered free GED testing for one month. "Ted" appeared in a 60-second radio spot which ran on stations favored by young people, a country station in rural areas and a hip hop/rock station in the urban areas. He also appeared on the web. Perhaps most innovative was a way for people to interact with Ted through text messages from strategic partner OTAir. In each medium, Ted gave listeners a number to text and a telephone number to call for more information.

There was no question when the ads started running. The phones started ringing, and everyone wanted to talk with Ted. Young Ted also received hundreds of text messages.

"When they started calling for Ted, we knew we had reached our audience," recalls Hinton. "Within the month, registration for the GED exam had increased 400 percent. The spot ran in February and we filled every testing slot until May. We even created some extras."

Chesterfield County had been averaging 40 people taking the exam each month. In February, they tested 200. Hinton had initially hoped for a 10 percent increase.

"Our goal was testing," Hinton says, "and our numbers have steadily increased since that time. That year, we tested more than 500 students. This year, we will test more than 1,200.

"The lesson here is matching the medium to the audience," Hinton says. "We could have spent a lot of money and not reached the audience. Ted was an interactive character, and it took that to reach young people. You have to go where your audience goes."

And speaking of young people, when Hinton walks up to the information counter at the learning center today, she sees a younger population today than before.

Hinton warns, however, that the same ad probably wouldn’t work in other areas of the country and that if her target audience were over 45, she would have chosen a different method.

Still, other states have acted on the idea and even hired Dave Saunders to put together the campaign. Hinton says geography really doesn’t matter. She never met face-to-face with Saunders about the campaign either, although they do live in the same community.

As Ted might say, "Sweet!"

For more information, contact Deborah Hinton by e-mail at Deborah_hinton@ccpsnet.net or phone at 804.768.6140. Contact Dave Saunders by e-mail at Richmond@madisonmain.com, by phone at 804.521.4141 or text new media to 68247.