By Wendy Bautista

Armed with her catchphrase, Bridget Owens, DC, takes to the radio airwaves with her weekly wellness message.

“Water, water, water!” says Winifred, one of the alter egos, in an increasingly higher pitched, exaggerated New York accent — which then becomes, “Watah, watah, watah!”

Dr. B, as her patients call her, was airing 30-second radio spots for about two or three years, and she knew they were working when patients would come in and say they heard her commercial on the radio.

“But,” she says, “When I would ask ‘Oh you did? What did I say?’ and they couldn’t remember, I thought, ‘Well, dadgum, how effective is that?’”

While they were hearing her voice and knowing it was her advertisement, they were losing the message. That was when she knew she had to do something different.

The idea

She was telling her friend Cindy what was happening with the radio spots while they were in the car driving down the road and, just like that, a brand new idea formed.

“I was just babbling,” says Owen, “and saying how I wish I could come up with a wellness thing that people would remember to think about, you know for a ‘thing’ and Cindy suggested I do something with this one voice I always do.

“Whenever I would record a commercial and get tongue tied, I would end up saying things in this voice like ‘Oh my gawd. One second, take two, take two! Let’s back it up again. Talk amongst yourselves.’”

This “voice” would be the exaggerated New York accent of the eccentric Winifred who is now somewhat famous in the 9,000-person town of Tomah and other surrounding towns in Wisconsin including Lacrosse and Black River Falls.

“Literally, just driving in the car I said, ‘Wednesday morning wellness with Winifred. We talk health, we talk wellness, we just talk.’ And that was that,” says Owens.

Continuing her stride on the Winifred character, Owens pulled out a pen and started writing ideas down. She wrote a few little ditties and contacted the person she normally recorded her commercials with at the radio station COW 97 Country to tell her about the idea.

Owens had her stop by the office with a recorder and “Winifred” started talking. “What did you have for breakfast this morning? Oh my gawd, was it a Danish and a coffee? I can hear your pancreas screaming from here! Let’s talk about the things to have for breakfast.”

And then Winifred continued with a different idea. “How much water do you drink in a day? Oh my gawd, you people don’t drink near enough water. Remember to drink your water! Watah, watah, watah!” And a catchphrase was born.

The show

The radio contact thought it was so entertaining she decided to take the idea to the station manager. He loved it and offered Winifred a segment on Wednesdays at 7:50 a.m. just as most people are heading to work.

Oftentimes, she goes in once a month and records four shows at a time, but there have been a few times she has done them live. Still, every show has a wellness-based topic covering subjects including volunteering in your community, laughter, childhood obesity, chiropractic, sciatica, to even having good posture when sitting in a lawn chair — anything that has to do with your whole health and wellness. “I think wellness is such a big equation that you just never run out of material,” says Owens.

The fun thing for her at first was she didn’t let anyone know it was her, but as time went on she would sometimes slip into Winifred while talking to patients or being silly. She says once her patients start to make the connection, they would just turn around and point their finger at her and ask, “Are you … ?” And she’d just giggle and slyly answer, “Yes.”

The patients

The radio spots, which are sponsored by her practice, Active Health Chiropractic Center, have been great for business and have helped with patient recruitment, as well as been helpful with patient retention because she is now known for being a wellness chiropractor.

“I know oftentimes it is the pain that brings the patient in,” she continues, “But once I discuss with them that this is what we are going to do for your pain, this is what we are going to work toward, and this is what we are going to do for your wellness care, they are more responsive. Then on their first visit, I start educating them,” she says.

She can’t go as far as to say she has tracked the results of how many patients say they are there because she is Winifred, but she knows many of her 135 to 155 patients her clinic sees a week have come in and mentioned her radio spots.

“Do you know people will stop me and do the ‘watah, watah, watah’ bit!?” says Owens. “I’ve also had people come in to the practice and tell me they sit in their car and wait so they can hear Winifred before going in to work.

“And now I also have people stopping me to say ‘I love what you said this morning about childhood obesity,’ or ‘I didn’t know that about ADHD.’ People are remembering what Winifred talked about and it’s been very effective,” says Owens.

The promotions

Because she does all the work on her weekly Winifred spots, she receives free radio advertising every day at 2:30 p.m. when they run the Test Tunes on COW 97 Country. “That’s where they’ll play a new song by an artist and people call in to say what they think and vote yea or nay,” she says. “It is sponsored by my practice and then they play my ‘serious’ 30-second Dr. Bridget commercial where I usually educate about something chiropractic.”

Besides the radio advertising, Owens doesn’t do much more than the occasional high school sports booster newspaper ad — and it seems to be working. She truly feels you can build a practice by letting people see your face because once they get comfortable with you, people who otherwise would not have thought about going to the chiropractor will come and see you because they’ve met you and feel comfortable with you.

“I just think I am visible. I’m out there doing things and I give more of my time than money as far as in a ton of advertising,” she says. “That is what helped build up my practice. That is what I tell a lot of young doctors, too — you really can start on a shoestring; you just have to be willing to give your time.”

And she knows about being visible. When she first moved to Tomah, it was a good three months before