Tuscaloosa

Healthcare Marketing: When Under Attack – Navigate the Social Media Water Carefully

When a brand is under attack, the reaction is honest and clear communication.

Nestle is one of the latest brands that has come under attack on social media sites.  Recently, Greenpeace released a video of a guy eating a Kit Kat and dripping blood from his mouth onto his computer.  The tagline was “Give Orangutans A Break” which is a takeoff of Kit Kat’s branding line.  The beef was that Nestle purchases palm oil from sources that destroy rainforests.

The video was effective.  It started a deluge of complaints.  And Nestlé’s response angered consumers even more. And as the harassment intensified, Nestle went quiet.  Not the best response.  In reaction to Nestlé’s bungling of the situation, Marketing  Profs offered a few pieces of good advice:

1. When people attack, don’t see it as a siege. Rather view it as a desire to trust your brand again.  People want to eat a Kit Kat without feeling guilty.

2. Be open and honest.  Nestle has stated they will try to be 100% sustainable by 2015.  Other than that, Nestle has been quiet.   Worse, people don’t feel the company is doing its best to remedy the situation.  Especially in the face of Cadbury giving up palm oil in 2009 in a few weeks following similar protests.

3. Show your human side.  When things go wrong, it’s okay to share your mistakes, regrets and your desire to address the issue(s).

Every brand faces problems and difficulties from time to time.  And in today’s environment social media networks will air the problems and perhaps follow it up with a wave of complaints.  The social-media seas can be stormy ones.  An honest, open and sincere response is generally the best way to navigate the storm.

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Healthcare Marketing: Creative Messages Motivate

With all the changes in the world of advertising, it’s important to remember, creativity is still king.  Creative messages still have impact and motivate consumers. 

The advertising business has changed so much during the past few years.  New media, social media, analytics, ROI, SEO, social marketing, internet marketing, viral marketing, media fragmentation and a host of other terms and phases are the hot topics.  They have each impacted the way we approach advertising and what we emphasize. There are so many things to occupy our attention and demand consideration.

Currently one of the hottest, “hippest” television shows is “Madmen.”  It’s about an ad agency and advertising back in the 60’s.  It is a fascinating show.  It is also quite appalling as it depicts attitudes and stereotypes and behaviors of that day.  But there is one thing that rings very loud and clear in these episodes: the creative is the most important thing.  And while we are all thankful many things have changed from the 60’s this is one thing that shouldn’t.  It’s still about the creative.  Not that other things are not important, they certainly are.  But creativity is the still the big stick.

There are at least 4 reasons why creative is still the heart of the business:

1. Creative is unique.   Lots of people and businesses can do ads but it the idea that separates the great ones from the not so great.   Ads are a commodity but ideas are unique and differentiate your brand.

2. Creative builds affinity with the brand. Great creative establishes a bond between the brand and the consumer.  Consumers are skeptical today and don’t trust marketers.  But great creative helps overcome those obstacles.

3. Creative rallies people. Great creative can be a great motivator.  Remember the anti-litter campaign for the state of Texas…”Don’t Mess With Texas!”  Launched in 1985, it is credited with reducing litter 72% in the state.

4. Creative is beautiful.  Great creative transcends advertising and can become art.  It can inspire, thrill, motivate, and create a sense of wonder.  It can affect a culture.

Advertising has certainly changed but the power of great creative hasn’t.  It endures.

Complete these sentences:

Just __   __!

Got _____?

The chocolate melts ____  ____  ____.

You deserve a _____  _____.

A ______ is forever.

I’d like to teach _____  ______  __  ____.

I can’t believe I ate ___  ______  _____.

Pop, pop, ____  ____.

These are all advertising slogans.  Great creative.  And although some of them are years old, I bet you remember them.  Great creative is like that.  It is the heart of our business.  It transcends everything else.


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Hospital Marketing: Influencers of Water Cooler Brand Conversation

Television and the internet lead the way in influencing conversations about brands, prompting over 30% of all brand conversations.

For many years, television has been the medium that influences the largest number of brand conversations, outpacing every other medium in prompting face-to-face conversations about brands.  But the internet is gaining ground fast. According to a study conducted by Yahoo and Keller Fay Group the web now influences nearly 15% of consumer discussions about brands – nearly matching the 16% conversations inspired by television.

Jeff Neff reported the findings in an article in Ad Age stating that TV’s impact has remained consistent year after year but the impact of the internet is growing. Even though television remains strong, the internet is growing due to four primary factors:

1. The meteoric rise of social mediums like Facebook.   Social networks facilitate online sharing of information and communication.  Facebook use in the US alone has more than doubled from 69 million to 133 million within the past year.

2. The pervasiveness of mobile devices.  Smart phones provide round the clock access to the web regardless of location.

3. More people are searching the web for information about brands and products due to the tight economy.

4. The dependence of younger people on the internet.   Most of the increase in internet-influenced brand conversations were driven by people 13-29 years of age. “They’re now coming into a phase of their lives where brands matter”, stated Radha Subramnyam, VP-corporate and media research at Yahoo.

The vast majority of consumer conversations (76%) still happen face-to-face compared to 7% that happen online but the internet is growing as a channel that influences those conversations. And interestingly the growth of the internet as an influencer has not displaced other mediums; the pie for media influenced conversations is just growing. Television remained stable, as did newspaper, which influenced 10% of brand conversations while point-of-sale displays rose from 8% to 9%.

This clearly demonstrates the power of the media to impact brand conversations. Although most of the conversations are happening person-to-person, the media is heavily influencing the conversations.   And more and more attention should be given to our web-presence because it is growing in its power to influence the conversation.


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Healthcare Marketing: How DVR Use Impacts Your Hospital’s TV Commercials

Consumers are watching DVR playbacks more often and are watching a higher percentage of the ads. 

Nielsen has reported that consumers watch between 40% and 50% of commercials during DVR playback.  This is up from between 30% and 40% from previous reports.   More people are watching their favorite TV shows by using DVR and more are watching the commercials.  It was once feared that as viewers use DVRs they would fast forward through all the commercials and essentially kill television advertising.  But that has not proven to be true.

DVR penetration in America hovers around 40%, which is a 90% increase in the last couple of years.  It is also interesting that Nielsen reports that 42% of playbacks occur within the first hour of the show’s original airing and 61% occur within the same day.  And this is why Nielsen argues that an accurate reporting of the number of viewers watching commercials should include those who watch them on DVRs within the first day of the original airing.  As might be expected, the large majority of DVR playbacks come from younger, higher income viewers.

So it seems apparent that even with the increasing prevalence of DVRs in consumers’ homes, television advertising can still be very effective. There are large numbers of people watching television programming when it airs and even those who DVR their favorite programs, almost half of them are still watching the commercials. Certainly, the TV audience has eroded somewhat.  But what mass media hasn’t seen a decline?   Television still delivers a very large audience.  Although it is more fragmented than ever, the viewers are still there.  Even with its challenges, television advertising can still be very effective.   It remains a very viable and effective medium.   With strong creative and a compelling message, television advertising still delivers.

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Hospital Marketing: Recruiting is Part of the Brand

Your hospital’s recruitment efforts should be an extension of the hospital’s brand.  It reflects the brand and should be consistent with the brand message and personality.

HR handles recruitment efforts.  The marketing department handles external and internal branding.  And far too often the two are totally disconnected.  In many, if not most hospitals, the recruitment efforts and marketing efforts are managed in separate silos with little or no interaction.   Marketing works hard to establish a strong brand and invests lots of money building brand equity.  HR invests lots of money developing collateral materials and advertising trying to attract needed talent.  And in most cases, looking at the two efforts, it appears as if they are coming from two totally different organizations.

Recruitment advertising for healthcare organizations generally looks and feels the same. There’s not a lot different from one hospital to another.  In times when there are an abundance of qualified people looking for healthcare jobs, that was fine.  It was easy to attract numerous applicants for the jobs available.  But that’s not currently the case.  For many healthcare job categories there are shortages.  And there is extreme competition between healthcare organizations for a limited number of qualified personnel.

Thus, recruitment efforts should stand out, be noticeable and communicate a bigger message than just job openings signing bonuses.  The recruitment efforts should reflect the hospital’s brand.  These efforts should be consistent with the marketing efforts to create and strengthen its brand.  Recruitment advertising should mirror the brand message, tone and manner.  A synergy should be created between marketing and HR.

The consistency of the two will certainly enhance the hospital’s brand.  It will reinforce the brand and drill the brand effort deeper.  It will also allow the hospital’s recruitment efforts to stand out, reflect a personality and differentiate itself from the competition.   And it will also set the tone for new employees because communication with them will be establishing the brand essence and personality even prior to employment.

The days of marketing doing their own thing building the brand and HR doing their thing entirely unaffected and separate should come to an end.  The two should work together, consistently building an even stronger brand and thereby enhancing the efforts of both functions.  It’s important to communicate the brand essence to all audiences and constituencies including those being recruited for future employment.

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Healthcare Marketing: Is Social Media Really Social?

Social media is no substitute for real interaction and relationship.

So there are now almost 600 million people who have joined Facebook.  That’s just about everybody isn’t it?  It’s the way we connect, network, create and maintain relationships.  And brands are trying to get into the social media mix and create meaningful relationships with consumers.  Healthcare marketers are slowly entering the fray and experimenting with ways to interact with their constituencies and their community.  Everyone is telling us this is the way marketing is done these days.  I have drunk the Kool-Aid and have strongly suggested the same thing.  And I’m not backing down from that belief.

But sometimes in our rush to adopt and to gain a competitive advantage, our thinking becomes a little skewed.   Social media is an aid.  It’s a vehicle.  It’s a tool.  But it is not a real relationship. Especially when we are dealing with service brands.

Pete Blackshaw in an Ad Age article referred to social media as “a relationship vitamin and sweetener and not a destination.  It should deepen brands, not defuse or soften them”.  He goes on to argue “volume doesn’t always translate into intimacy, speed doesn’t guarantee meaningful connections, retweets don’t necessarily confer respect and friending doesn’t always signal friendliness”.

The point is, social media is no substitute for real, meaningful relationships.  The kind that happens between people, personally.  Sure, social media can affirm and support those real relationships but it cannot take the place of what happens human to human in real life and real connections.  Brands are defined and brands become social with human things like customer service, caring, helping, smiling, being there and maybe just a soft physical touch. These kinds of things can ultimately only be delivered in personal ways. Human ways.  And not from places on the internet.  Sure social sites can support and confirm such activity, but not take its place.

We can be “social” all day long on the internet but unless we are truly social as we interact personally, human-to-human, it’s not real or sustainable.  Listening, authenticity, transparency and responsiveness have to begin in person. Although we use these words often when discussing social media, we are fooling ourselves if we think these uniquely human things can really happen on social networking sites.  Brands are made (and broken) at points of real human contact and only sweetened by social media.

We talk a lot about relationship building and conversational marketing.  That’s well and good.  But they begin with real personal contact.  Blackshaw references the fact that we are so “social” these days we all walk with our heads down and eyes fixed on our smart phones as we try to create and maintain relationships.  Wouldn’t it be more social to lift our eyes and see people instead of screens?  To use a smile or a word to communicate?  A handshake or a touch to connect?

Let’s don’t get confused and think we can make a service brand real by capitalizing on every social media site available.  The effort instead should go into people caring for and about people.  Personally.

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Hospital Marketing: Brands Not Necessarily Topics of Conversations on Twitter

Tweets are about personal things and even though brands are trying to join the conversation they are mostly ignored. 

Twitter has seen rapid growth.  More and more consumers are tweeting.  And brands are trying to make their presence known and create conversations about themselves on Twitter.  But it’s been largely unsuccessful.  A study conducted by digital agency 360i and reported by Michael Learmouth in Ad Age, indicates there is very little brand discussion happening on Twitter.

Ninety percent of tweets come from real people and only 12% of those conversations mention a brand, according to study.

The other 10% of conversations are by businesses but they are largely one-way conversations.  In fact, only 1% of consumer conversations about brands are part of a conversation with that brand. Brands are normally mentioned on Twitter as parts of normal daily conversations and not because of anything the brand is doing on Twitter.

Ninety-four percent of real people’s tweets are personal in nature and 85% are original, and not re-tweets.  The good news is that only 7% of tweets mentioning brands were negative about the brand.

Even though Twitter has become more and more popular, and marketers are trying to join the conversations there, the medium is still largely personal.  Perhaps, it’s still too early for Twitter to be very effective for marketers.  Or perhaps marketers have yet to discover effective ways to engage Tweeters in ongoing conversations.  There are other social networking sites, like Facebook, that have proven to be somewhat effective as a marketing tool.  But it doesn’t seem as if Twitter is there yet.

Twitter can be useful as a means of sending press releases and communicating to a specific group of followers with common narrow interests.  But as a mass medium it has yet proven to be marketing-friendly.  That is not good news because there is a growing number of tweeters but they are largely unengaged or not                       even concerned with businesses and brands.

So maybe most of our efforts to use social media should be concentrated in other social media options? Certainly we can try Twitter but maybe we shouldn’t concentrate a lot of effort there until effective methods can be identified. 

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Healthcare Marketing: There’s Gold in Them There Hills – Its Your Brand

A brand may be old, well established and mature but it may still have tremendous brand equity that can be the impetus for a brand transformation and revival. 

What’s old is now new.  Things from the past are now current.  Things nostalgic are hip again.   Maturity is a positive thing.  It carries all kinds of positive attributes, like trust, experience, familiarity and know-how.  And all of these are good brand traits.

Bob Garfield recently wrote an article for Ad Age and discussed the value of older brands. Products and brands go through a life cycle: introduction, growth, maturity and decline.  Although this is true, there remains great equity in mature or even declining brands that can be used to resurrect a brand and make it relevant again.

It is a time when those things that are old or mature are new again.  They have new life. It’s certainly easier to take older brands and give them new life than to try to start a whole new brand.  Garfield cites these examples of brands that have matured and declined: Studebaker, Alberto VO5, Frigidaire, Schlitz, Bufferin and Jiffy-Pop.  Recognize any of them?  You probably are somewhat familiar with all of them.  How is that true?  They are old and have basically gone away.  But yet all still have brand equity.

Brand equity is extremely valuable.  It lingers for years and years.  Garfield alludes to Slip and Slide and Spic N Span.  When was the last time you saw any branding advertising from either?  But you remember them, don’t you?

The point is, even though we may have a brand that is mature, that’s been around a long time… a hospital or healthcare organization that is a long way from being hip anymore, that’s okay.  Because there may be valuable and meaningful brand equity that can be used to resurrect the brand and make it relevant again.

Hard to believe?  Have you noticed the astonishing sales growth for Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer over the past 5 years?  What about the resurgence of Converse All-Stars and P.F.Flyers?  And who doesn’t know how hip and cool my father’s cheap aftershave, Old Spice, is now.  And what about Harley Davidson?  The ultimate iconic American brand that has not only been rejuvenated but propelled to new heights.

Retro, nostalgia, old things are cool again.  And if you have a mature brand that’s been around for a long time, there is a strong likelihood it still has great brand equity.  Brand equity that can be used to make the brand relevant again, or more relevant.  Brands, hospitals and heathcare organizations with great brand equity can be rejuvenated. And it may be a lot easier than investing and building an entirely new brand.

Yes, even though it may be old, your brand can be cool again.

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Hospital Marketing: How to Write Effective Headlines

Headlines are crucial in determining how effective an ad will be.  Strong headlines can make an ad very powerful while weak ones can render the ad ineffective.

First impressions are important.  The impression someone gives you within the first 5-10 seconds will go a long way in determining if you are interested in that person or not.  Those first few seconds will cause you to want to get to know that person better or not be interested at all.  This may not be fair but it’s true.   You may never get to know a very wonderful intriguing person because you were turned off in the first few seconds of your first encounter.

The same is true about headlines.   Headlines are that first 5-10 seconds that will go a long way in determining if someone is interested in your message or not. There may be great copy points that could be very vital and/or interesting to the reader but if the headline doesn’t draw them in, they will never know.

The headline should state a consumer benefit very clearly and precisely or pique the reader’s interest enough to entice them to read more. The headline should always be written with the target audience clearly in mind.  What would interest them?  What do they care about?  What is a problem they have that you can solve?  The headline should have a clearly defined objective and speak to a specific target audience.

A recent article I read listed four approaches to uncovering the headline that will get immediate attention:

  • How To. It promises information, advice or proven solutions.Other ways to use this approach include “Steps To” and Ways To”.
  • Reasons Why.  Provides reasons for doing something or believing something.
  • Question. Used if the target audience has a particular question that your product or service can provide an answer for.
  • Direct Benefit. Provides a strong benefit to the target audience.

All great headlines will not necessarily fit into these four categories.  But this is a very good way to start thinking about headlines and what will resonate with the target audience.  The headline is the key to ad effectiveness.  If you don’t make a strong positive impression within the first few seconds, the consumer will move on to the next encounter.  The headline must give the reader a reason to be interested and want to know more.  A reason to stay and want to know more.

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Hospital Marketing: Can Advertising Transform Your Hospital’s Brand?

Advertising has effectively transformed many brands.  It can be done.  But it’s much more difficult for advertising to transform a service brand.

I read a blog recently by Chris Bevolo about advertising and it’s ability to change a brand.  There are many excellent examples of advertising changing and transforming old brands.  The most vivid current example is Old Spice cologne.  Old Spice was my father’s brand. (For some it was your grandfather’s brand.) And it stayed my father’s brand.  It did not resonate with a new generation of smelly males.  There were other more hip, cooler brands that took the market.  Old Spice became irrelevant.

But today Old Spice is making resurgence.  Did it change its formula or alter the smell to fit a new generation?  No. It’s the same fragrance my father wore.  But the brand has been transformed.  How?  Advertising!  The Old Spice Guy has made an old stale brand hip and relevant again.  The TV spots and videos featuring Isaiah Mustafa as “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” have become a marketing phenomenon.  The spots just received the Film Grand Prix Award at the International Advertising Festival at Cannes.  And the videos have become the No.1 all-time most-viewed sponsored channel on YouTube with over 94 million views.  And its market share has grown over 8% in a flat product category since the advertising campaign broke.

So yes, advertising can obviously transform a brand.  But Bevolo went on to make the very valid point that it’s much easier for advertising to change a product brand than a service brand. The product sits on the shelf and a consumer decides to buy it or not based on advertising, promotion, price and a few other various factors.  But the product does not interact with the consumer other than through advertising and promotion.  A service brand is different.  A service brand interfaces with a consumer in a very active manner.  There are many more factors at work than simply advertising and marketing.

Consumers’ attitudes toward service brands are determined by their engagement and interaction with the brand. You cannot simply advertise and expect the brand to be different.  With service brands, the brand is defined by each customer contact, with each customer experience.  If the hospital is not clean, if the staff has a bad attitude, if the food and service are poor, no amount of advertising will change the brand perception.

A service line brand is transformed from the inside out. It is defined every day. Advertising can be very powerful.  But for service brands it can only be effective if it is consistent with the consumers’ brand experience. The brand promise must be delivered clearly and consistently.  If it is, then advertising can take a transformed brand and effectively reposition it in the mind of the consumer.


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