Healthcare Marketing: Online is NOT for Branding

November 21, 2011

Online advertising has proven to be effective as a direct response medium but not so much for brand building. 

More eyeballs are turning to the web.  No one can argue that.  And they are spending more time looking at the web.  So does it make sense to follow those numbers and try to build a brand with internet advertising?  Probably not.  Online advertising is great at direct response.  We all look at the web to find where to buy something or where a business is located or how to contact a business.   That’s why the yellow pages are now on the web and is replacing the printed book.   But is it effective building a brand?

Alan Pearlstein, president of Cross Pixel Media wrote in Ad Age that the “internet sucks as a branding medium.”  And he makes some compelling arguments.  He argues that brand building is an emotional endeavor.  The desire for every brand is to build an emotional connection with the consumer.  Television does that very effectively.  Print can do it.  But not internet advertising.   Because online advertising is limited in size and format, it’s not effective at brand building.   He argues that no advertising medium has proven to be effective at both direct response and branding.  And online is no exception.

It’s important as healthcare marketers, to understand that each advertising medium has their own strengths.   TV creates an emotional impact, magazines provide the environment for stunning images and print provide the opportunity for long copy and storytelling.   Direct mail is great at direct response.

So what are the strengths of online advertising?  It is great at building name recognition.  It has a low cost for exposure.  It reaches a very wide audience.   It’s great for supplementing a campaign with reach and frequency within a target audience.  But branding is not one of its strengths.  Online advertising, limited in size, not very engaging and usually within a cluttered environment is not strong for brand building.  It is complimentary to more emotional and engaging mediums.

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: 5 Ways to Improve Your Hospital’s Brand

October 25, 2011

Your hospital will live or die by its brand.  What can help make your brand stronger?  Here are five tips to improve your hospital’s brand.

Here are excerpts from an article from Becker’s Hospital Review by Lindsey Dunn after interviewing Steve Rivkin, founder, Rivkin & Associates, a healthcare branding and communications consultancy, and co-author of Repositioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis (McGraw-Hill, 2010).

1. Think of your brand as a promise. A hospital’s brand is a promise of what the consumer should expect and how the hospital will perform.  Think about a brand in the same way as a person’s reputation. You earn a good reputation by doing the right thing, doing it well, and doing it consistently. And just like a reputation, a brand is a living entity — it evolves, and it is enriched or undermined by your actions.

2. Understand your strengths, weaknesses. Any hospital’s branding efforts should begin with an understanding of its market share, strengths, weaknesses and consumers’ perception and beliefs about its services. Consumer research should ask community members what they think is important when choosing a hospital, how the hospital is perceived and how it compares to competing facilities.  This research will reveal if the hospital is preferred, and if it isn’t preferred, will give some indication of why it’s not preferred.

Mr. Rivkin notes that consumer perceptions don’t always match reality, but it’s perceptions that influence volume.
It’s action first, communications second.  Eighty-five percent of changing a perception is what you actually do, and only 15 percent is what you say about it.

3. Differentiate. After identifying areas of strength and improvement, hospitals should determine what differentiates it from competitors and whether that point of differentiation is important to consumers. Potential differentiators include:

•    The patient experience— for instance, best customer service/patient satisfaction scores in the market;
•    Centers of excellence for specific service lines;
•    Heritage/history in a community;
•    Highest rated physicians;
•    Industry awards received (top hospital lists, Magnet status, etc.);
•    Newest technology/cutting-edge procedures; and
•    Widest range of services in market area.

4. “Sell” the brand to employees first. After determining how a hospital will position itself, hospital leaders should sell that identity or brand first to its employees. “Your workforce is a critical part of a branding program. Everything starts with your own people. Don’t expect to persuade the folks outside about much of anything, unless the people inside believe it first.”

5. Market the brand and connect it to the bottom line. After gaining buy-in from employees, hospitals should take their branding messages to the public through public relations efforts, advertising, direct marketing and other methods. Hospital marketers should be careful to quantify the results of all efforts.  Measuring return on investment will direct hospitals toward the most effective marketing tactics.

Your brand is one of your hospital’s most valuable assets.  Great attention should be given to its care. The stronger the brand the more successful your hospital will be.

 

 

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: The Emergence of Cross Cultural Marketing

October 22, 2011

A current trend for brands is to communicate a singular message across several demographic and cultural audiences instead of communicating different messages to different social cultures and demographics.    

For years, marketers have watched as America has become more and more culturally diverse.  In response to this diversity, brands have looked at different demos and cultures and developed somewhat different marketing strategies for each.  But as a result of the 2010 census, a new trend is being discussed and is emerging.  It is being called cross-cultural marketing, aimed at a general market that is more of a mosaic than a melting pot.

Stuart Elliot, writing for the New York Times states that “cross cultural marketing is aimed at appealing across demographic groups to appeal to consumer similarities rather than differences.  By contrast, traditional multicultural marketing is directed at specific demographic groups like Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans, women, etc.”

For quite some time now marketers have grouped audiences into segments, which emphasized their differences.    But now researchers and marketers are looking more to being cross-cultural and emphasizing those things the groups have in common.   Advertisers no longer want different messages segmented and targeted to different audiences but fewer messages or maybe even one primary message that seek to appeal to the common traits among differing groups.   It’s more of a mashup of cultures.

This has probably been the primary approach most healthcare marketers have always taken.  Because there is a universal need for the products and services we provide, it’s easier for us to take a cross-cultural approach to marketing.  But we have sometimes segmented markets and tailored our message specifically to these separate markets.  It makes sense to seek those commonalities and similarities across various cultures and communicate a singular message.   It certainly will make our brand stronger.   

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: Is it Best to be a Hospital or Medical Center?

July 29, 2011

How many hospitals are left?  Scores of hospitals over the past decade or two have changed their name from hospital to medical center.  The thought was that the term “hospital” was old-fashioned and outdated.   Therefore many rushed out and changed their name to the much-preferred and trendy “medical center”. 

But what do consumers prefer?

A national survey of 1027 adults indicated that hospital is the preferred term.   This is very interesting.  Obviously hospitals changed their names without checking what consumers thought.  It’ll be interesting to see if the trend turns back toward medical facilities being referred to as hospitals.   Who knows?

This is really not a major issue.  But it does point out how hospital marketers, administrators and marketing consultants sometimes make recommendations without understanding the attitudes and perspectives of the consumer.  Decisions that do not  consider the consumer can  sometimes prove quite costly.

 

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: Don’t Let the Volume of the Patient’s Voice Drown Out Yours

July 15, 2011

Although consumers have a louder voice than ever before, make no mistake about it, you still own and control your brand.  Marketers are still responsible for the brand’s narrative.   

“The consumer is now in control.”  You hear it often.  You’ve probably read it in some of my blogs.  But is it ultimately true?  Yes consumers have a louder voice.  Yes consumers have new and expanded ways to exert their influence on a brand.  But ultimately brands still control themselves.  And we must not forget that.

Look at some of the ways consumers can now influence a brand:

  • DVRs allow consumers to skip past television commercials
  • Use of social media to critique or criticize a brand
  • Provide content and produce ads for brands
  • The myriad of opportunities to give input and suggestions to brands
  • The many avenues available to hold brands’ feet to the fire and make them accountable.

So it is true, consumers can now influence brands in ways never before available.  And that’s probably a good thing.  But that doesn’t give them ultimate control.  It just requires brand managers and companies to be more responsible and more diligent.

True consumers can use DVRs to skip commercials but they have always had that right.  No advertiser has ever been able to force a consumer to see or watch or hear it ads.  It’s still incumbent on advertisers to attract and hold the attention of consumers to see and hear its messages.

Groupon saw and felt the backlash for it’s ill-advised Super Bowl spots.  The company was forced to pull the ad and apologize.  But is that an example of consumer control or thoughtlessness by the brand?

Consumers can now create content for brands.  Many brands are soliciting consumer assistance with the content of their advertising.  But would anyone just laud the brand building power of consumer directed spots for Doritos and Pepsi in recent years?  If consumers now have control of the brand, it’s because brands have given it over to them.

And some would point to consumer reaction to Gap’s effort to modernize its logo only to repeal its efforts at the appearance of consumer complaint in social media.  But was their backpedaling justified?  Only a very some percentage of GAP customers weighed in on the issue.  I contend the vast majority of their customers didn’t care.  And compare that to the Sci-Fi channel that would endure widespread disapproval when they changed their name to Syfi.  But the network did not waver and as result, now the network is setting new levels of viewership and success.

True, consumers have more voice.  A louder voice.  But that is no excuse for a marketer to give up control of its brand.  It requires more work, more accountability, more thoughtfulness and more discernment.  But the brand is still responsible for itself.   It’s a cop-out to concede ultimate control to the consumer.  Sure brands should react and respond to the needs and desires of consumers.  And letting consumers have input is essential in today’s marketplace (as if it hasn’t been before).  Ultimate control however still rests with the brand.

Mike Wolfsohn, Chief Creative Officer at High Wide and Handsome , contributed an article on this topic recently in Ad Age   and stated, “It’s critical to distinguish a consumer’s increased ability to amplify a brand’s successes and failures from his or her actual control over the story a brand tells.  In the purest sense, consumers have always wielded immense influence with their wallet.  That their votes are now cast on public websites long before the ballots are counted on confidential P&Ls only makes it easier for marketers to react more quickly.”  

For healthcare marketers, as well as all marketers, we still control our brand.   Yes it requires more work to shepherd a brand in a more complex media environment, but it is still within our control.  Unless we choose to give that control away.  But we must not.  Now more that ever, we should seek consumer input, listen to their leanings and use that information to have even more control over our brands than we have ever had before.


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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Hospital Marketing: Word of a Bad Patient Experience Travels Fast…

July 13, 2011

Bad news travels fast… How fast? Who is most likely to talk negatively about your brand?

There is a renewed emphasis in healthcare today on patient experience.  And there should be!  Because if a person has a bad experience at a hospital, they will most likely spread the word.  Over 75% of consumers tell about bad experiences to their family and friends.  Certainly more than the 42% who would recommend a product or service they really like.  This according to LoyaltyOne’s COLLOQUY report.

The study also found that even 31% of loyal advocates of a brand would pass along information concerning bad experiences they’ve had with that brand.   “One lesson is clear, hell hath no fury like a Champion scorned,” stated COLLOQUY managing partner Kelly Hiavinka.  News about bad experiences travels and travels fast.  In fact, less than one-fourth of all bad experiences are kept quiet.  Affluents are more likely to spread the bad news than any other group.  Seniors are the least likely.  Young adults and women are strong spreaders as well.

There’s just little chance a bad experience won’t make the rounds.  So each bad experience is multiplied.  And a series of bad experiences can certainly damage a hospital’s image and reputation.  And note that it takes many more positive experiences to make up for the bad ones.

Marketing of your hospital is essential.  And very useful.  But it can’t make up for bad experiences.  And the consumer has so many avenues to share the bad news.  It’s not just word of mouth anymore; it’s all the conversations in social media that can quickly spread the unhappy news about a brand.  Hundreds or even thousands of others can read one bad word on a social networking site.   Much more than just a casual conversation with friends or acquaintances.

So the best thing a hospital can do for its brand is minimize the bad experiences. Even in healthcare, customer service is essential to a brand’s health.  A hospital can have the latest technology, the best doctors and the finest facilities, but if it delivers bad service the brand will suffer.  It will create a chain of conversation that will be difficult to counter and overcome.  Today’s emphasis on customer service and customer satisfaction is certainly well placed.

 

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: To Reach Moms We Have to Get Smart…Phones That Is

May 11, 2011

Becoming a mom triggers more dependence on smart phones. 

 A young woman has a baby.  And gets a smartphone.   That desk computer or laptop is pretty hard to manage with a baby on your hip.  And especially if you have two or three children.  But staying connected and having access is even more important.  Sharing those pictures and daily baby updates with family and friends is certainly essential.  So what do you do?  You get an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or other smartphone…  Or maybe an iPad.

A recent study by Babycenter cited research that states over half of new moms purchase a smartphone as a direct result of becoming a mom. The camera is a necessity as well as apps for getting things done and staying organized, social sites to stay connected to friends and family, and games to keep the kids entertained.   In fact, a study by Morgan Stanley estimates that in 2011 there will be more smartphones and tablets shipped than notebooks and desktops.

So for healthcare marketers, reaching moms should include a mobile strategy.    “If you are not reaching them through their mobile device, you have less and less chance to reach them at all,” according to Matt Carmichael in a recent article in Advertising Age.  And the study by BabyCenter also indicated there was a sizeable correlation between having a smartphone and moving toward a more digital mix of media consumption.  Forty-six percent of moms with smartphones have taken some form of action after seeing an ad on their mobile device.  And as reported in the Ad Age article, on average, moms with smartphones spend over 6 hours a day with mobile media, which includes email, mobile, web, apps, SMS and voice messaging.

Few hospitals have a well-defined mobile strategy or have even experimented with mobile marketing.  But in the future, it may become necessary for reaching moms. Moms are a key target for hospitals. They are the gatekeeper for their family’s healthcare and control an enormous amount of healthcare dollars.  Mobile is where they are.  It is the communication device they depend on.  It goes with them, stays with them, is the most convenient and fits into their hurried lifestyle. To build a brand and a relationship with them will mean having a mobile strategy. To reach them, we have to get smart too.

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Hospital Advertising: Creative and Effective Ads are Not the Same

February 18, 2011

The ultimate goal of our advertising efforts is to provide information that will ultimately lead to more sells.  

The results are in.  It’s the talk of the advertising community.  The most liked spot in this year’s Super Bowl was a spot featuring a little Darth Vader.   You know the spot.  The five-year-old boy who’s dressed like Darth Vader wanders around the house trying to conjure up The Force to help him.  He has no success until he goes outside and calls on The Force to affect his dad’s car.  And to his surprise The Force is finally with him and the car comes to life.  Of course the viewer sees The Force is actually his dad using the car’s remote ignition button.

It’s a great commercial.  It was ranked as the most liked by Nielsen research.  It has created a tremendous viral following having been viewed on YouTube over 10 million times.   And it has been one of the hottest topics on Twitter and Facebook.  What a success!  But was it?

Do you remember the brand of the car?  The model?  Did it impart any information?  Did it sell anything?  Bob Garfield pointed out in an article in Ad Age that the vast majority of the conversation in social media was about the ad but not about the car.  So was it a great commercial for the brand?

David Ogilvy said, “I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.  If it doesn’t sell, it’s not creative.” And there has to be some truth to that principle.  What did we learn about the car in the adorable spot?  That it has a remote ignition system?  Now that’s old news in the car industry.  That is hardly an advantage.  What else did the spot tell us?

We have to be careful we don’t make the same mistake in hospital advertising.  We need to communicate information.  Useful information.  Information that heightens the brand.   Selling is not a bad thing.  After all it is what all our advertising and marketing must ultimately accomplish. It’s not enough to be adorable.  We must sell.

The spot most liked in the latest Super Bowl could have been for any product.  Insert any brand you like.  Yes it’s well liked.  It has become a viral success.  But is that really what Volkswagen wanted to accomplish for its Passat?  If the American consumer remembers who the spot was for maybe they will rush out and buy one.  But then again probably not.

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: Most Popular Ads Not Necessarily Most Effective

February 17, 2011

A list of most liked commercials that aired in the Super Bowl was very different that the commercials with most recall.    

This year, like every year, there was much anticipation for the spots that would air during the Super Bowl.   A lot of talk and fanfare.  And certainly a lot of money spent by the advertisers who paid over $3 million per spot.   Not only do we look forward to viewing the latest collection of creativity for some of the world’s largest brands, we are also interested in seeing how the spots fared with the viewers.

Nielsen always conducts research immediately after the game to test the commercials.  This year two of the things they tested were likeability and recall.  And that’s where it got interesting.  Because the two lists were very different.  In fact, the top three most liked spots did not even make the top ten list for most recalled.  And even more confusing, only one spot made both lists.

Surprising indeed!  What does this say?  I think it says we can sometimes create advertising that’s clever, cute, funny, creative and well liked but never make a connection to the brand. And when that happens what have we accomplished?   This can also be true about the many creative award shows.  You’ve seen it.  Judges grant top honors to ads that are highly creative but upon further review communicate little or nothing about the product or the brand. They are creative competitions and beauty pageants and it’s so nice to be honored for great work.  But many times these very ads that are highly decorated never progress the brand.

In healthcare advertising we can make the same mistake. We can create cute, warm, emotional ads that never sell anything.  Sometimes we can win awards for such creativity but we haven’t sold anything.  We haven’t increased market share at all.  This is not to be critical of creativity.  I have written many times about the need for creativity in our healthcare advertising.   Without it, we seldom get seen or heard.  But creativity alone is not the answer either.

Effective advertising occurs when our creativity is used to actually sell a product or service or advance the brand.  When it’s used to effectively position the brand, to build a strong relationship to the brand.   When it increases market share.

And that is the challenge for all of us in healthcare marketing.  To create advertising that breaks through the clutter and has high notation.  But what it communicates is not just creativity but the benefits of a service line or brand.  It should be advertising that communicates rationally and emotionally and actually moves the needle.

Yeah it’s nice to be recognized for creativity.  But the real satisfaction comes when that recognition is more than an award, it’s recognition for advertising that actually works!


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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: Don’t Shortchange Your Hospital’s Positioning Statement

February 13, 2011

Brand positioning statements need to be simple and powerful.  But they also must connect emotionally.  The best ones always do.

What are some of the great positioning statements of all times?   I bet the ones you think of are not one-word slogans.  Most of them are longer, aren’t they?  And you remember them because they tell a story and they are long enough to connect with you emotionally. It seems brand positioning lines are getting shorter and shorter.  Like we have to boil it down to the fewest words possible.  But in doing that we often miss the emotional attachment.

Here are some classic brand positioning statements:

Fed Ex: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”

Smuckers: “With a name like Suckers , it’s got to be good”

Avis:  “Avis is number 2 in rental cars. So why go with us? We try harder”

Ace Hardware: “Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man”

New York Times: “All the news that’s fit to print”

M&M: “Melts in your mouth, not your hands”

Las Vegas: “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”

Geico: “15 Minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance”

Secret deodorant: “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman”

The list could go on and on.  The thing that makes them great is they each tell a story and they connect emotionally.  Sure, all of them could have been shortened and probably communicated the message but they wouldn’t have been emotionally appealing and therefore would have been less memorable.

Imagine these:

Fed Ex: “The overnight company”

Smuckers: “It’s good”

Avis: “We try harder”

Ace Hardware: “The helpful people”

New York Times:  ”All the news”

M&M: “Not messy”

Well get the point?  The power of a brand positioning line is not it’s brevity, but it’s emotional attachment. It doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be long but it does have to connect.  “Just Do It” is not long but connects and there is therefore memorable.  The same can be said for “Diamond are forever” for DeBeers.

Compare the positioning statements of two coffees.  Maxwell House said “Good to the last drop” and had a strong market share. But Folgers with “ The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup” has grown to dominant Maxwell House.  There are lots of reasons for this but the emotional positioning of Folgers certainly paved the way.

Charmin leads the toilet paper category by using. Mr. Whipple to ask us to “Please, don’t squeeze the Charmin.” The simple word like “please” makes that emotional attachment.  And even President Obama was smart by not just using “Change” as his positioning line but rather the much stronger, “Change we can believe in”

There are thousands of brand positioning lines but the ones we remember speak to both the rational and emotional sides of our brain.  The right and left side.  As healthcare marketers, we too must work really hard to appeal to our audiences both rationally and emotionally. That’s usually not done with a short one or two word positioning line.  It more often than not requires more words.  Words that tell a story and connect emotionally.  Words that speak to the heart as well as the mind.

Al Ries, Chairman of Ries & Ries, a marketing firm in Atlanta, wrote an article in Ad Age that cited many of these examples and made this point very strongly.  He concluded the article by writing, “When Abraham Lincoln was asked how long a man’s legs should be in proportion to his body, he replied, ‘they ought to be long enough to reach the ground.’  How long should a slogan be?  It should be long enough to reach an emotional connection in the consumer’s mind.”

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

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