CLAYTON, Mo. — A national public relations firm that landed a $2 million contract to craft St. Louis County’s COVID messaging is refusing to appear before the County Council to answer questions about its work.
Council Chairwoman Rita Days asked Fenton Communications executives to appear before the council to answer questions about the work it did to boost vaccination rates in the county, work Days and some other council members believe boosted the county executive’s image as well.
In a letter Monday, Fenton’s Managing Director Jennifer Hahn encouraged Days to contact her directly “should you find yourself with remaining questions or needs for clarification.”
“While I respectfully decline your invitation to appear in person before the County Council, I hope to help deepen your understanding of our work and its impact on the community,” she wrote.
Days said she was “surprised” by Fenton’s refusal to meet with the council.
“They’ll talk to me, but we are a body of seven people,” she said. “And I may not be able to answer or pose questions the other six members may have.
"I would like to meet them face-to-face to see what they are and what they’re doing. I kept thinking, ‘What gives these people the authority to say no to the people who are funding their company?’ It seems a little baffling to me.”
Fenton Communications leaders have not responded to a request for comment.
The I-Team reported Thursday that County Executive Sam Page’s administration is spending about $413,000 a year on salaries for media relations staff, which includes three people in Page’s office and two in the Department of Public Health.
Most surrounding health departments have handled COVID messaging with their existing staff instead of spending money on outside marketing firms — with the exception of the state of Missouri, which spent $5 million on the St. Louis-based firm Elasticity.
Days said she and other council members didn’t understand why the county had to spend so much money on an outside firm given the county’s existing media relations resources and also questioned why part of the firm’s pitch to win the county’s contract included imaging strategies on a slide titled “Elevating County Leadership.”
Page’s Health Department spokesman, Christopher Ave, said his staff of two wasn’t equipped to handle a vaccine hesitancy campaign in-house for the county of 1 million people.
He said the health department has administered 170,000 doses of the vaccine to date — that’s about 17% of the county’s population.
He also defended the work of the firm by providing stats about the Revive STL advertising program, which has been running for seven weeks, about halfway through its projected timeline.
- Ads have been seen about 10,800,000 times and reached more than 630,000 St. Louis County residents.
- About 84% of people who viewed the video watched the whole thing.
- About 15,000 people have clicked on the ReviveSTL.com site from the county’s ads.
- More than 25,000 users have visited Revivestl.com.
- More than 90% of visitors to the vaccine page find a vaccine via an acuity event or a national retailer
- About 85% of visitors to the site from West St. Louis County click through the site to take action to get a vaccine – the highest volume.
- Florissant has the highest number of visitors to the site with 1,685 visitors.
- A toolkit website has received more than 1,600 page views.
- 30 people downloaded the printable assets to use at events
- Users spent an average of 1 minute 45 seconds on the site
- The toolkit was also emailed to a database of 60 community-based organizations.
- About 40% of those who got the emailed toolkit opened it
Those are not impressive numbers to Days, who says online marketing and social media strategies are not the best way to reach the majority of her predominantly Black district.
She said door-to-door campaigns are the way to go, vaccine incentives such as gift cards and bringing mobile clinics to neighborhoods to administer shots make more sense for her constituency.
“You don’t have the resources to do that, yet you can spend $2 million at the drop of a hat,” she said. “There’s some inconsistencies in that story.”
Ave said the health department has hosted 116 neighborhood vaccination clinics in 69 locations, resulting in more than 3,000 vaccines being administered, and north St. Louis County zip codes are showing the highest jumps in vaccination rates.
Days said she's still unimpressed.
She said only 25% of her north St. Louis County district has been vaccinated.
According to Missouri's vaccine dashboard, more than 1 million doses have been administered from all sources in St. Louis County as of Tuesday. The county has the third-highest vaccination rate in the state with 55.1% with at least 1 dose and 48.9% fully vaccinated.
The national averages as of Tuesday are 61.8% with at least one dose and 52.4% fully vaccinated.