The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) recently launched a major advertising campaign to drive home the message that pharmacy is crucial to health care quality, affordability, and accessibility and should be valued and used more completely.

Steven C. Anderson, IOM, CAE, president and chief executive officer at NACDS, unveiled the ads at the recent annual NACDS Regional Chain Conference. The ads feature the tagline "Pharmacies: The face of neighborhood healthcare." They support the theme with messages about pharmacies and pharmacists, including convenience, accessibility, prevention of drug interactions, and counseling patients to take their medications as prescribed.

The ads, which begin running this month, are a coordinated advertising and public relations plan that will target Capitol Hill, the Executive Branch, the media, and opinion leaders "inside the Beltway" of Washington, DC. The ads will appear in local publications, in transit settings with high commuter visibility, on drive-time radio, and online.

"We are turning up the volume on this central message: Pharmacies are essential to health care," said Anderson during the conference. "I believe we are even better equipped, and better focused, to tell the true story of this industry, and to turn this testament into results for your businesses, for the patients and consumers you serve, and for the good of the nation."