Healthcare Advertising

Healthcare Marketing: Are We Training Unhappy Customers/Patients to Whine on the Web?

Unhappy customers are often finding that using social media sites to complain gets faster and better results than ordinary customer service venues.

A disgruntled JetBlue customer was slapped with a $50 fee for checking a box containing a fold-up bicycle, clothes and some cheese. The box met the height and weight requirements for free baggage but JetBlue’s policy for checking a bicycle called for a $50 fee.  The angry customer called the airline’s customer service center but was repeatedly told the fee was company policy and there were no exceptions.  But then the customer went online to social media sites and complained. It was soon on Twitter and within three days JetBlue called the cyclist to tell him his $50 charged had been reversed.

In the past, a customer complaint was handled usually with a phone call or maybe by email and the matter in question was handled either satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily.  It was done quietly and just between the customer and the company.  But now, consumers have at their disposal, social media.  Now a dissatisfied customer can let the world know about his complaints.  And companies now monitor those online comments and in their desire to stop the flow of bad blood and demonstrate their responsiveness will quickly satisfy an angry customer.  Companies are much more likely to give a favorable response to a customer who has broadcast his complaint over the internet than one who follows the traditional lines of customer service.

Michael Bush addressed this issue in an article in Ad Age.  He cited the above incident as an example of how companies are training customers to take their complaints to the web.  He concludes that those who publicly flog a company on the internet by using social media get faster and better resolution to their issues.

He quotes Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services. “The consumer sees two completely different faces, and ultimately that kills credibility, erodes equity and more.” As a defensive measure brands are much more likely to favorably satisfy a customer complaint that comes through the web than through traditional means and that is creating a huge credibility problem with the brand.

Perhaps companies are training consumers to whine about them on the web.  Why shouldn’t they?  They get a quick and favorable response.  But that is a dangerous precedent. Complaints that come through traditional customer service channels should receive the same treatment as those that appear in social media.  Otherwise we are inviting unhappy consumers to take their dissatisfaction to the web. It’s much better to address and resolve consumer (and patient!) issues in private through traditional customer service channels than to be unresponsive and read about it, on the internet.  Along with the rest of the world.

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Healthcare Marketing: Online Ads Have Better Recall and Likeability

Recent research indicates online advertising has better recall and likeability than traditional television ads.

In a study of over 14,000 surveys, the results indicate that online commercials have better general recall, brand recall, message recall and likeability than traditional television advertising. The survey results were reported in the MediaDaily News in an article written by Wayne Friedman.

Online video ads had a 65% general recall compared to 46% general recall for television.  Brand recall online was 50% to TV’s 28%; message online recall comes in at 39% to TV’s 21%; and online likeability was 26% to TV’s 14%. The study was conducted by Dave Kaplan senior vice president pf product leadership at Nielsen IAG and Beth Uyenco, director of global research at Microsoft.

There were three primary reasons online video advertising was more effective:

  • Internet video viewers are more engaged and attentive.  This is partly due to it newness as a media.
  • The inability to skip ads.  About one-third of U.S. viewers of traditional television has the ability to skip ads.  That ability does not currently exist with online videos.
  • Reduced advertising clutter.  Online videos have about 4 minutes of advertising per hour compared to 15 minutes for traditional TV.   However the frequency of online ads is increasing.  Advertising’s sweet spot is six to seven minutes per hour.

The study indicates online video advertising is superior to traditional TV advertising but based on the reasons for the online’s superiority, it may be short-lived. The newness of the medium will wear off and advertising clutter online will certainly increase as the demand for goes up.

But for now, there appears to be distinct advantages for online video advertising. This is important information for healthcare marketers.  Opportunities to purchase online video ads should be seriously considered.  Although currently there may be few opportunities in local markets, we should remain on the watch for possibilities.

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Healthcare Marketing: Think Consumers Click off of TV Commercials?

Research indicates the vast majority of consumers do not change channels during TV commercials.

A commonly held belief is that consumers have the remote ready and click to other stations when commercials come on.  But a recent study conducted by the Council of Research Excellence , an independent research group created and funded by the Nielsen Company indicated that 86% of viewers stick with a given channel during commercials. The study was conducted using live TV-consumption habits of 376 adults across 750,000 minutes.

As reported by Michael Malone in Broadcasting & Cable , the study showed very little change in viewer habits during programming and during commercials.  About 12% of the viewers changed channels during the regular programming and only 14% changed during commercials. The study followed only live TV viewing and not DVD viewing.

The study also indicated that television advertising reached 85% of adults each day.  And the average consumer was exposed to 73 minutes of real-time TV commercials or promos each day.

So for those who say television advertising is dead or almost dead – perhaps not.  This is the first real study of viewers’ habits during commercials and certainly discounts the assumptions by some that viewers don’t watch commercials.

Television is still an extremely effective medium and this just proves that a large majority of Americans are watching television daily and are not clicking out of the commercials. So despite the recent impact of new media and social media, television still delivers!


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Healthcare Marketing: A Strong Brand is Strong Indeed

When a brand is really strong and established, it can endure even during difficult times.

 

Sometimes it’s argued that brand building is not so important.  It’s more about promoting service lines, driving business, and proving ROI for marketing expenditures.  Some say brand building cannot be justified; only those activities that create specific direct response and a measurable return on investment have merit.

However, brands that are strong, have a very positive position in the consumer’s mind, and have grown over time, show great resiliency and staying power.  Without a strong brand reputation, you’re only as good as your most recent promotion or offer.  With significant brand equity however, a brand can stand strong – even in the midst of controversy and bad PR.

 

Al Ries in an article in Ad Age cited six examples of strong brands that have endured missteps and even bad PR.

1. Tylenol – When seven people died from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in 1982, the brand’s obituary was pronounced by practically everyone.  Yet today, Tylenol is the No. 1 over the counter brand.

2. Tiger Woods – Before the Masters, Woods’ online reputation was 51% positive and 49% negative. After the first day of competition Woods’ positive rating went to 69% and the negative rating fell to 31%.

3. Toyota – Despite all the bad publicity Toyota has received, in March when Toyota was pronounced as being in deep trouble, they sold more vehicles than any other brand in America.

4. Mercedes-Benz – In 2007, Consumer Reports rated Mercedes last in predicted reliability among 36 automobile brands.  That year Mercedes’ sales went up.

5. Bill Clinton – Despite being impeached in 1998, Bill Clinton survived and still has a strong brand.

6. Martha Stewart – In 2004 Martha Stewart was convicted of lying to investigators about a stock sale and spent 5 months in prison.  Today, she is in her fifth year of  “The Martha Stewart Show”,  her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, is doing well and she has major deals with major retailers.

What do all of these examples prove?  A strong brand is hard to dethrone.   Even when things go wrong, when it is ambushed with difficulty and negative PR, a strong brand can endure, survive and even thrive.

The message to healthcare marketers is there is great value in building a strong brand reputation.  All the work that goes into creating brand equity is not wasted even when it’s difficult to measure it in ROI.  Brand building is a long process.  It’s hard, sometimes tedious work.  But the enduring rewards are great indeed!

 

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Healthcare Marketing: Patients’ Media Habits Increasingly Challenging

Media consumption is rapidly changing.  Some marketers are responding with shorter ads while some are going to longer format ads.

Marketers face acute challenges with changing consumer media habits.  Particularly with younger demographics that have shrinking attentions spans.  The Kaiser Family Foundation has found through research that media consumption is actually increasing.  It has gone from an average of six hours and 21 minutes in 2004 to seven hours and 38 minutes today.  But today there is more multitasking and media becomes more fragmented.  Rupal Parekh in an Ad Age article reports that the Kaiser Foundation in fact estimates that because more people are using more than one medium at a time, consumers are actually managing to pack 10 hours and 45 minutes of media content into the 7 and one half hour.

Shrinking attention spans have dictated the shrinkage of media ad segments from 60-second spots to 30, 15, 5 and even 1-second spots.   But some marketers are going the other way.  They are investing in longer format ads.  These longer ads provide the opportunity to entertain, which engages the viewer.

Lady Gaga’s music video “Telephone” is nearly 10 minutes long.  In just a few weeks it had garnered over 28 million views on YouTube, over 500,000 views on MTV.com and either shared on Facebook or tweeted directly from the pop star’s website over 150,000 times.

Marketers are trying all kinds of different ways to effectively reach consumers.  The variety can be seen from the extremes cited above.  Consumers have varying media habits with shorter attention spans and are flooded with media stimulation.  All of which make the job of marketers more and more difficult. It’s increasingly difficult to break through the clutter and hold the attention of consumers who may be consuming more than one medium.

The challenge requires creativity and the willingness to try different methods.  It demands accepting risk and even failure sometimes.  No one has a certain answer on how to most effectively communicate to a complex marketplace.  Probably there are multiple ways that are effective.  We just need to keep experimenting and never stop learning.

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Healthcare Marketing: Facebook Surpasses Google

Facebook has surpassed Google as the most visited site in the US.

Facebook had flirted with it on several previous occasions.  Facebook was the most visited site on Christmas Day, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day.  And Facebook took the top spot during the weekend of March 6th and 7th.  But according to Hitwise, the week ending on March 13 was the first full week Facebook was the most visited website.

And to indicate Facebook’s rapid growth, the marketshare of visits to Facebook.com increased 185% over the same week in 2009. While Google’s increase was only 9%. Facebook.com and Google.com accounted for 14% of all US internet visits during the week.

Until recently no one could conceive of any site taking over the top spot from Google.  It is quite remarkable that Facebook has done just that. It is yet additional proof of the popularity and power of social networking.

And it emphasizes that any healthcare marketing strategy must include serious consideration of social media. Despite the fears, pitfalls, worries and concerns healthcare marketers have for social media, it cannot be ignored. There is just too much traffic and too much engagement on Facebook to dismiss.

Of course participation on Facebook by a brand is not necessarily easy.  Just to be there is not sufficient. The nature and use of the social media site requires marketers to use different strategies. It requires engagement, conversation and participation.  It also requires brand confidence and perhaps some courage too.

But when done right, the rewards can be significant. Marketers are trained to go to the marketplace…where the consumers are.  And they are certainly gathering on Facebook.

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Healthcare Marketing: 75% of Americans Engage in Social Media – Is Your Hospital?

Research indicates that social media is beginning to rival traditional media in reach.

In a survey of 1700 internet users in the US, Nielsen Online found that 73% engage in social media at least once a week.  That makes the total social media audience consist of 127 million people.   Brian Morrissey reported the findings in a recent article in  AdWeek.

In addition to the total number of Americans engaged in social media, the survey rendered the following results:

  • 47% visit Facebook daily
  • 32.7 million play social games daily
  • Twitter has 105 million registered users but only 11.4 million or 6% use it daily
  • 11% read blogs daily

The number of users of social media is extremely significant.  The numbers rival and even outpace some forms of traditional media.  The 47% of internet users who visit Facebook daily compares to:

 

  • 55% who watch television daily
  • 37% who listen to radio daily
  • 22% who read newspaper daily
  • 11% who read magazines daily

The use of social media is continuing to increase.  As seen in this study by Nielsen, the percentages that are actively engaged in social media are comparable or greater than most traditional media consumers.

This creates new challenges for healthcare marketers.  How do we effectively reach this growing audience?   The answers are not easy.  And implementation is sometimes even more difficult.  But it is important to develop strategies to engage this burgeoning audience.

Traditional media is not dead.  It can still be very effective.  But social media has become pervasive and we must be creative and increasingly proactive in taking advantage of its growing popularity.

TotalCom is a full-service marketing agency helping brands like yours tell their story to the right audiences. Email Lori Moore or call TotalCom Marketing Communications at 205.345.7363 to learn more about how we can help you tell your story.

Hospital Marketing: Banner Ad Best Practices

Research helps identify how to make banner ads more effective.

Dynamic Logic measured ad effectiveness for 4800 web banner campaigns and found that size is not an important factor in whether a banner ad was effective.  In Abbey Klaassen’s article in Ad Age, she offers a few tips from Dynamite Logic’s research for making online banner ads more effective.

1. Simple flash is overused.  Better choices are rich media with video.  For every branding goal Dynamic Logic studied, simple Flash performed the weakest.

2. Try to avoid ads that border content. Those are the banner ads that are most easily ignored.

3. Publishers should consider mixing up ad placement from page to page.  By placing the same ad formats in the same place on every page, consumers become trained to avoid the ads.

4. Not all attention is positive. Avoid flashing, blinking or annoying ads

5. Ads that cover content and don’t have a “skip” or “close” button are by far, the most annoying formats.

These tips are helpful in trying to maximize a hospital’s effectiveness using web banner ads.  The internet is where people are.  Hospital marketers should be there too. But they must pay special attention to the research to learn best practices.

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Healthcare Marketing: Digital Outdoor Provides Creative Options

With the emergence of digital outdoor, advertisers can switch creative in real time.  And that provides enormous opportunities for creativity that really cuts through the clutter.   

Just a few years ago, outdoor advertising was considered a dying medium.  That has certainly changed with the use of digital messaging on billboards and out of home displays.  And marketers are taking advantage of the new technology to reach out and grab consumers.

One example of creative use of outdoor is Vitaminwater, a Coke brand  in the United Kingdom.  Coke placed boards in train stations and at Piccadilly Circus with employees inconspicuously posted nearby to watch those that passed by.  Messages were sent to the digital board and placed under the Vitaminwater logo, which were specifically targeted to consumers who approached the boards.   The messages referenced clothing or accessories specific to the reader, along with the message to “go grab a Vitaminwater for energy.”

The purpose of the billboards was to engage consumers with the brand.  And indeed it did!  How could a passerby ignore a message directed specifically to him or her? And what a unique way to effectively draw consumers to the brand and communicate the brand message.

True, this may not be appropriate or feasible for a hospital but it does show how digital billboards can be creatively utilized.  Real time messaging provides enormous engagement opportunities for hospital brands. Hospital advertising doesn’t have to be boring or predicted.  The opportunities for creativity abound.  Even outdoors.

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Healthcare Marketing: TV and Internet Effective Ways to Reach the Affluent

Research indicates the “very affluent” watch television almost as much as those less affluent.  And they spend even more time on the web.  

 

It’s sometimes commonly thought that the “very affluent” don’t consume media like those less affluent.  With all the entertainment options available to those with high incomes it would seem they would spend less time watching television.  Not so!  A study by Ipsos Mendelsohn, a division of Ipsos MediaCT discovered that homes with incomes of greater than $250,000 watch an average of 17.3 hours of television per week.  This is just barely less than those with incomes in the $100,000 to $150,000 range who average 18 hours per week.  Even those who are very affluent and have many more options for use of their leisure time, still consume almost the same amount of television per week as those less affluent.

However, David Goetzi reporting for MediaDailyNews referenced the study stating that higher income households average 27.4 hours per week on the internet as compared to 22 hours per week for those households with lower incomes.

There are two important observations from the study that are very relevant to hospital marketers.

  • Television is still a very viable option for healthcare advertising. Seventeen hours per week is a significant amount of time.  Even the affluent can still be effectively reached with television advertising.
  • A hospital’s marketing plan should include a strong emphasis on the internet. Consumers are on the web.  They are very active using the internet.  And the more affluent, the more time they spend on the internet.

Every hospital wants to reach the affluent.  Every hospital wants to communicate with those who are more likely to have private insurance or have the ability to pay for healthcare services.  And they can be found in the same places as those less affluent.  They too are still addicted to television.  And they supplement TV time with even more internet time than those with lower incomes.

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