Big Fish in a Big Pond

Huntington Hospital, established in 1916, is a well-respected 408-bed nonprofit community Hospital located in Huntington on Long Island. Huntington Hospital has been a member of the North Shore – Long Island Jewish Health System (NS-LIJ) since 1994.  NS-LIJ is one of the nations integrated healthcare networks, and the largest in New York state.

This past autumn, Huntington expanded its advanced cardiac program. The hospital’s cardiology services include diagnostic cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology and radio ablation.  They are in the process of building a second cath lab and will soon offer elective angioplasty, a huge development for any hospital.

Huntington Hospital will be able to provide most invasive cardiac procedures short of open heart surgery. Additionally, 2011 hailed a new designation as a teaching hospital for Hofstra.

In short, the cardiac program is comprehensive.

So what could be the problem? Consumers in this area have an abundance of choice. There are about ten hospitals within thirty miles of Huntington, and New York City is just about an hour train ride away.

Our job? Show residents in this area that they are lucky to have Huntington as their local hospital offering both state of the art services and a caring staff.

After extensive market research, we discovered that residents there wanted to be educated on how to stay healthy, so we focused our campaign on preventative care urging residents  to develop a relationship with a local cardiologist. By creating a strong tie to both the Huntington Hospital and  a specific doctor,  we knew locals would stay in town for major and minor heart care alike.

To answer this call, our creative team developed work that promoted the urgency of heart care and the benefits of preventative care through direct mail, newspaper advertising and flash banners. With a strong call to action and a dramatic viewpoint from an emergency care patient, the ads offered a strong incentive to choose Huntington and choose early.

So what is the lesson? Creating ties through preventative care may result in long term relationships. And a big fish may still need to strike the right chords if the pond is big enough.

UPDATE:

Franklin Street recently won three awards from the Annual Cardiovascular Advertising Awards including  the Judges Award – the competition’s highest award –  for the Total Advertising Campaign developed for North Shore-LIJ‘s Huntington Hospital.

UPDATE:

Franklin Street’s print campaign for Huntington Hospital’s cardiac services is January’s cover story for Healthcare Marketing Today. 

Successful Healthcare Brands are Built on Consistency

Take a moment to think about the following brands: Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, Exxon, McDonald’s. What do they all have in common besides giant war chests, near-global ubiquity and a preference for questionable business practices?

Consistency.  There’s a very good reason why every Apple retail store looks exactly the same, or why every McDonald’s bag faithfully adheres to the red and yelow color scheme. True, consistency can be boring and predictable, but it also works. It preys on our collective need for familiarity, creating a simple set of symbols for complex associations.

By keeping your brand identity consistent, you are removing one of the most important barriers between you and your market. Repetitive exposure to the same symbols allows your consumers to quickly and easily recognize your core message. This is why all your communications—whether it’s an ad campaign, a website, or the waiting room—must be visually consistent with each other. Your brand changes from being an unknown entity to a familiar presence. Familiarity builds trust. When people trust you, they are more inclined to listen.

There are other consequences to ignoring brand consistency. Your customers should be able to follow a clear path between your collateral, your advertising and your physical spaces. Without those clear links, your organization risks credibility and appears disorganized. At worst, consumers might think you’re new to the market, causing them to avoid you altogether.

Take a look at a few non-healthcare examples of consistent brand identities:

You can clearly see the narrative thread that connects every aspect of Apple. Consistency has turned their brand identity into a brand experience, which is one of the reasons why they’re one of the most valuable companies in the world. Note how their advertising, website, products and retail spaces align harmoniously to present a unified image—an image that is unmistakably Apple.

Similarly, there’s a very good reason why Pepsi has been unable to top Coca-Cola ever since their ridiculous 2008 logo change—and it’s coincidentally the same reason why New Coke was such an utter disaster. For the most part, straying from your core brand identity will inevitably end in nothing but tears, lost revenue and confused consumers.

Healthcare marketing is no different. Brand consistency leads to trust and acceptance. So when Centra—a leading three-hospital system in Virginia—added a new hospital and expanded to serve 13 counties, we created a visual identity that unified the system but allowed flexibility for growing service lines.

After Centra’s new identity launch, research showed staff morale, name recognition and patient volume for key services increased. In fact, consistent brand extensions actually proved to strengthen the overall brand and helped increase recognition. Finally, consistent branding strategies helped Centra save money on brand development and overall marketing expenses. After all, tweaking a brand identity with every new service line or center of excellence may mean you have to work harder to help consumers make the connection with your hospitals. And why do that, especially in lean times?

Know a brand that’s growing effectively? Or an extension that’s stretched a little too far from the brand? Please share.

Introducing iPhone, M.D.

Your smart phone can do amazing things: video chat with friends, check the latest scores for your favorite Indian cricket team, or play Scrabble with your co-worker. But your smart phone more than fun and games. The latest additions to the smartphone app market may just end up saving your life.

Your smartphone can become  a head-to-toe health care tool. From monitoring your ears with CellScope, your sleep habits with Zeo Sleep Manger or Sleep Cycle, your eating habits with My Fitness Pal or The Eatery or your fertility with DuoFertility Monitor, the mHealth (the use of mobile technology in healthcare) is growing.

According Fast Co., mobile health technology is currently a $2 billion of the $273 billion medical-device industry. And that number is skyrocketing. Experts believe the number will continue to grow as smart phones get smarter and patients take their health into their own hands.

Up next? The FDA plans to release a rigorous set of guidelines for mobile health applications later this year. A more formalized process will make entering the market easier and energize the mHealth market.

What does this mean for your healthcare organization? It’s time to pay attention to mHealth.

• Keep an eye out for great new apps and products that may help cut costs–a new app and accessory for eye exams is literally .3% the cost of its predecessor.
• Think ahead – mobile health portals may soon allow patients who track their health via apps to plug into your EMR. Imagine that data shared seamlessly with your medical staff.
• Try them out yourself. After all, you deserve to be happy and healthy, too. Check out our favorite apps for staying fit and healthy.
• Get your own app–from ER wait times to tips and calendars for pregnant moms. The possibilities are endless.
• If it isn’t already, make your site mobile friendly. While this isn’t an app, it is mHealth. If your website isn’t compatible with prevalent mobile technology, you are missing a golden opportunity. 1 in 7 searches are now mobile and that number is even higher for local searches.

Have more ideas for mHealth? Know an mHealth guru? Need more inspiration? We love sharing our thoughts and  talking with other experts in health and wellness. Give us a shout. 

One Big Screen to Many Little Screens

It’s 1953. You’re a big shot advertising exec.

Your client is a talcum powder guaranteed to stop itching.

There’s a lot of itchy people. You want to reach as many them as possible.

The solution is simple. So simple, in fact, you have to extend your normal 3-martini lunch to 4 martinis just to make it look like you did something. 

The approach? Advertise on “I Love Lucy.” At the height of its popularity, advertising on the home of Lucy, Ricky and the Club Babaloo reached 75% of all TV viewers.

That’s a lot of eyeballs who could use your client’s itching powder.

Fast forward to now.

You’re  a big shot healthcare marketing exec.

Your brand is a nationally-ranked health system and you want everyone to know it.

But there’s no big screen for your brand, no Lucy-sized ratings vehicle to reach everybody and their brother all at once.

In its heyday, the American Idol finale reached 18% of all TV viewers.

75% of all viewers to 18%. That’s a big spread.

Broadcast TV viewership is down 10% across the board.

Tonight, 70% of people watching TV will also be doing something else. (Half of those people, by the way, will be on-line.)

We can’t count on one big screen to build our brands anymore. Our new model of media must live across multiple platforms, connecting with our audience in their busy days and lives.

Our phones are to blame (or thank) for the change from one big screen to many little screens.

Mobile usage is expected to double in 5 years as mobile overtakes the PC as the most popular way to get on the web.

Americans spend on average 2.7 hours per day “socializing” on a mobile device.

What does that mean for your branding?

1. Be a farmer, not a hunter. Marketers can’t expect to reach and persuade their audiences any more with two or three off the shelf tactics. Because of the media fragmentation, marketers can’t expect immediate brand engagement. Adopt a farmer’s patience, scattering brand seeds to discover which tools will become the strongest in time for message engagement.

2. Embrace digital. In the old days, people talked over fences about brands. Now, they IM and Facebook. Even if FourSquare isn’t the right social platform for your health system brand, every brand has an opportunity for online engagement. You just have to find the tools that work for you, whether its Twitter, a Tumblr blog, or search marketing.

3. Audit your workhorses. Resist the temptation to revert to the “tried and true” tactics for every campaign. Challenge yourself to think outside the quarter page ad box and find new ways to bring your brand to life across many little screens. (FYI: This is a great team-building exercise for your in-house staff.)

Exit question: Are you still paying the same rates for media placement that has fewer subscribers, viewers and listeners? Challenge your media reps or buying service to bring new ideas to your existing media channels. The media wants to retain you as a customer and the threat of lost revenue often inspires creative opportunities for your brand. 

Franklin Street Helps Combat Eating Disorders in Richmond with Northfield Ministries

Franklin Street has provided Northfield Ministries, a Virginia not-for-profit, with office space and furniture totaling near $30,000 annually. 

Northfield Ministries is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization providing hope and care for girls between the ages of 13 and 21 who are struggling with life challenges such as eating disorders, depression, and self-harm.

“Our mission is to meet young women and their families where they are, go with them on their journey to restoration and healing, and to give them the tools to break free,” says Gwen Seiler, Northfield Ministries Founder and Executive Director.

In addition to office space in Richmond donated by Franklin Street, Northfield Ministries plans to open a residential facility in Cumberland, VA for young women who need a transitional home to focus full-time on healing and deliverance from self-destructive thinking and behaviors.

Partners Will Flynn, Stephen Moegling, and Tim Roberts are happy to be able to help the Richmond community and greater Virginia area.

Story Building vs. Story Telling

Great branding campaigns are, ultimately, campaigns of great story telling.

Stories are the best way to impart information. People forget facts. They remember stories.

Before the written word, oral storytellers shared history, which was passed to other generations.

Peter Guber writes about the art of storytelling as a persuasion tool in Tell to Win.

Nike, Disney, Coke, Chick-fil-A. Just Do It. Magic. Refreshment. Cows telling us to eat more chicken.

Storytelling.

Now we’re in the age of Story Building.

Your audience contributes to your branding.

She tells her friends about the great experience she had at your hospital.

How your nursing staff calmed her husband’s fears.

How the physicians saved her husband’s life.

She does this on the phone and on-line.

She’s so grateful for the miracle of her husband’s recovery that she takes to Facebook, a modern day Paul Revere, letting everyone know your brand is expertise, compassion, life-saving, life-giving.

Her friends write back: Thank Goodness for that hospital, those nurses, those physicians.

One Facebook post turns into 100 comments.

Friends of friends contribute to your hospital’s story, building onto it, line by line, as if surrounded by a digital campfire.

Now: How do you support this story building? What do you put in place at the launch of your next campaign to encourage story building?

The challenge: Storytelling is in your control. Story building isn’t.

That’s also the opportunity.

What brands do you think do a great job with story building?

Illness, Hidden in Plain Sight

One of our favorite things to do is to shed light on healthcare topics and share powerful information with our readers. This time we’d like share with you an article from Catherine Boyle, Chief Operating Officer at Northfield Ministries, to touch on a subject few know about in detail but 24 million suffer from: eating disorders.

“If one illness killed more young women than all other illnesses combined, there would be just cause for alarm. Outraged groups would form, fighting to save lives. Prominent leaders would organize creative fundraisers for research. Scientists would tirelessly study until test-tube miracles resulted.

There is such an illness, hidden in plain sight, striking down predominantly women on the cusp of adulthood. This illness is eating disorders.

Some recent statistics reveal the devastating impact of eating disorders on our society:  24 million people in the United States have an eating disorder. For 86% of these people, the eating disorder started before age 20. Up to 30% of college-aged women are eating disordered.  Though eating disorders are typically thought of as young woman’s struggle, reality is that eating disorders know no age, gender or ethnic boundaries.

Once emotional, physical and spiritual condition, eating disorders typically take years to develop and years to recover from; If you recover.  Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate for all other mental illnesses combined, and are the number one cause of death for women aged 15 – 24.

The cost of lives lost to the eating disorder beast is incalculable, but the cost of treatment is readily available, and unfortunately it isn’t cheap:  one-week hospital stays average over $11,000 for an eating disorder patient, but each hospital stay also has significant costs for insurance companies, as well as the local, state and federal government (for Medicaid and indigent patients).  More importantly, hospital stays do not resolve the eating disorder, but are merely a band-aid to keep women alive, only to return to the same behaviors and environment that resulted in hospitalization. A vicious cycle of frequent hospitalizations often results, which means unstable and poor health for the patient, and consequentially, difficulties with employment and growing financial burdens.

Specialized treatment options are available but given the significant death rate and medical complications associated with eating disorder, most options are prohibitively expensive, often in the range of $2000/day and up.  Virtually all of the costs of specialized treatment are borne by individuals.

So, where is the outrage, the research, the funding?  Almost non-existent.  Eating disorders are significantly underfunded compared to other illnesses with similar rates of occurrence. Though eating disorders have been in our national vocabulary since the death of Karen Carpenter 30 years ago, the complexity and painful nature of the issues that make up eating disorders have resulted in a lack of significant financial and other tangible support.

Against formidable odds, one brave mom is on the forefront in the battle to rescue this generation from eating disorder.  Motivated by the multitude of young women who came to her through her church and the community, all seeking help with their eating disorders, Gwen Seiler. She dreamed of a place where women could break free from their eating disorders without bankrupting their families. In 2006, Northfield Ministries was born.

Northfield Ministries is a Richmond-based Christian non-profit working with women struggling with eating disorders, depression and self-harm. Northfield currently provides mentoring services and helps women and their families find care providers appropriate to their specific needs. The benefits from Northfield’s work are obvious: women are connected to the right resources for healing; they are mentored with Christian principles; they learn their worth and purpose. Wonderful byproducts include reduced spiritual, emotional and financial burdens on families, and ultimately lower costs to insurance companies and to society.

In early 2012, Northfield is opening a 12-bed residential treatment facility 30 minutes west of Midlothian, VA for women who need to work through the issues underlying their eating disorders in a focused way.  Located on 49 acres of Virginia farmland, Northfield’s Cumberland Home offers a beautiful, safe, serene location where women can separate from environmental triggers and begin to rebuild the identity and purpose God desires for their lives.

Northfield Ministries believes that healing from eating disorder is possible.  We’ve seen it over and over.  But we can’t help everyone who comes to us without support.  If ever there was a cause that needed help, eating disorder is that cause.

Maybe this is why you are reading this article. Be the voice for those who have lost theirs. Support Northfield Ministries. The life you help may be the life of someone you love.”

For more information about eating disorders or Northfield Ministries, contact Catherine Boyle, Chief Operating Officer of Northfield Ministries, catherine@catherineboyle.com or visit www.northfieldministries.org. 

Statistical source:  Commonwealth of Virginia Joint Commission on Health Care, Healthy Living/Health Services Subcommittee ‘Study of Eating Disorders in the Commonwealth’, September 19, 2011.

Future Designs in Healthcare

The way hospitals deliver healthcare to consumers continues to be a hot topic.. From changes in insurance to new technology, healthcare organizations are re-evaluating the best channel for keeping patients healthy and costs down.

With a laundry list of desired (and required) changes needed for continued success, hospital administrators have big steps to take. (New Year’s resolution, anyone?)

With the fast (and continuing) growth of technology inside and outside of the point-of-care service, patients are more empowered than ever. The question is: how do hospitals take full advantage of the technology to make the care of chronic diseases require less resources?

The first step? Shifting from in-office to satellite visits. Using smaller, more easily maintained facilities reduces costs associated with expensive hospital facilities. The decreased cost of more (but smaller) facilities will help manage the expanding population of Americans with chronic diseases.

Next up? Arming hospitals with the ability to provide care responsibly even during extreme events, like hurricane Katrina. Most hospitals are aging buildings with insufficient infrastructure. Updating water systems, back up generators and underlying structural issues will make be paramount for healthcare organizations. New technology will not only make these behemoth buildings more cost efficient and resilient during crises, but also reduce the environmental impact.

Want to read more? Check out “The Future of Health Care Design, Look Beyond the Hospital” by Fast Co.

How do you envision the future of healthcare?  What steps has your organization taken to update channels of care? We want to know! 

2011 Best of Junto Healthcare Marketing

It’s that time of year again. Wrapping paper, ribbons, bows and forced family fun.

And time for our annual “Best of” post. Here are a few staff and fan favorites from this year on Go Junto. Thanks for making 2011 so fantastic. Cheers to an even better 2012!

See how we did picking the top trends of 2011 – 5 Trends Influencing Healthcare Marketing in 2011

Our favorite inspiration this year – The Next Idea for Healthcare Marketing Inspiration

The healthcare take on a popular tech trend – Using QR Codes in Healthcare Marketing

Who’s side are you on? – Facebook v. Foursquare: Healthcare Social Media Showdown? 

Get out of the rut – Rethinking Your Agency RFP Process

O, you shouldn’t have! – Is Kindness Trendy?

Learning from Julie Andrews – Mary Poppins: Healthcare Marketing Guru

In addition to our regularly scheduled content, we seek out the best and brightest in healthcare from docs to gurus. Check out a few of our favorite guest posts from 2011.

Rise’s take on social television – At the Intersection of TV and Digital Media

Richmond’s own digital savvy MD – How One Doc Does Social Media Right 

From one #HCSM sensei to another – Q&A with Reed Smith, Healthcare Social Media Guru

Happy Holidays!

From one awkward family photo to another, Happy Holidays.