Junto ("june-toe") is sponsored by Franklin Street, a branding and full service advertising agency specializing in health and wellness. We call the blog Junto in homage to Benjamin Franklin, who created the first "Junto" brainstorming group, which established the first American public hospital.
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 exactlythesame, 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 totopCoca-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.
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.
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.
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.
As a guy writing this blog, I realize the headline above could be considered piggish.
But it’s not.
If you haven’t heard of Hot Mama, it’s a chain of clothing stores that has Disney-like brand loyalty.
Their secret? A highly focused customer experience tailored to moms who want to feel sexy and beautiful.
Hot Mama stores are designed so that kids playing with the in-store video games are always in view, no matter where mom is in the store. Their retail consultants are trained in matching customers’ body types with denim and other clothing for fit and feel and embrace what women are feeling at different stages of momhood.
Even their Facebook presence is stylish, fun and a great example of customer engagement.
What can we bring into healthcare marketing from Hot Mama?
1. Story building. Traditionally, branding was the art of story telling. With the rise of social media, our audiences want to participate. In turn, they build the stories with the brand. Story building is the new art of customer engagement, a chance for healthcare brands to enhance their brands by inviting participation. Check out how Hot Mama makes store openings and sales exciting on Facebook and consider how to bring more zest to your health system’s status updates.
2. Design an experience. True, many hospitals were designed around the doctor and not the patient, and you may not have the pull to invest millions in environmental design. But if you’re in marketing communications, you probably have the wherewithal to shape a great experience with your website, social media channels and other digital campaigns. On the web, you’re often limited only by your imagination. What can you do to design a great experience for your healthcare audiences?
3. Thin slice your audience. The death of a great campaign is trying to appeal to a wide audience. Be narrow with your focus, or “thin slice” your audience and micro target them with messages and promotions. Hot Mama chose not to sell to a lot of women in order to give full focus to a certain type of woman at a certain time in her life. The more you can focus your messages and campaigns, the more likely you are to say something that is “sticky” with your audience.
What other ways can we parlay Hot Mama’s success into healthcare? What other brands outside of healthcare should we be students of and learn from?
Healthcare is slower than other business categories to adopt innovations like social media as communications tools.
Fine by me.
I’d rather healthcare be the tortoise. Let the rabbits – soda companies, car manufacturers, sneakers and sports franchises spend the money, test, try, and fail first.
Our “product” is more complicated anyway.
We have HIPPA and STARK. Accountable Care Organizations. (Is yours one yet? Do you know what an ACO even is?)
We advertise services to people who may not need what we offer for years, and they often have to go to someone else first just to use our services. (Provided the insurance company says they can use our services.)
Most people don’t even know what healthcare costs. (Other than a lot.)
Well-educated people fumble over our quality ratings data. (What’s a mortality rate? Is 6% a good or a bad number? How long did it take to administer aspirin after arriving in the ER for chest pain? How long should it take?)
We have more 3rd party accreditations than any other category. (Top 50! Top 100! Top 10! 5 stars! Magnet!) Yet few members of our audience know or care to know what these Tops/Bests/Gold-Star Rated accreditations mean.
Proving ROI is difficult for communicators in any category, but it’s especially painful in healthcare. We can look at market share — sort of. (It’s a year behind, we only track inpatient — if that.) We can show revenue — sort of. (Gross revenue doesn’t count, net revenue is better, but what’s the distribution margin?) And, what about those patients who “would’ve come to us anyway?”
Our chief spokespeople — physicians — aren’t always employed by the hospital. So we have to handle them gently. And even when they are employed, they show up when they feel like it to photo and TV shoots. (They also like to write the ad copy since they know best what the consumer ought to know.)
So, if you’re feeling like your marketing is moving at the speed of turtle, I understand.
Just make sure you’re crawling in the right direction.
What drives us? was the question that two of SHSMD’s 2011 keynote speakers, Lance Secretan and Dan Pink, tackled in Phoenix this past week. Both men shared their insights on how to get peak performance from ourselves and others in our organizations.
Beyond topic, though, Secretan and Pink had virtually nothing else in common.
Secretan, a former Fortune 500 CEO and leadership consultant, applied a very “Zen”-like tone to his speech on Wednesday evening, complete with animated rings of fire that illuminated the phrases, “Inspire Self. Inspire Others. Inspire the World.” His dignified demeanor and clean-shaven head reminded the audience of Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek fame.
While Pink would go on the next day to emphasize “motivation” as the term for what drives us, Secretan, on the other hand, told the audience that motivation is rooted in fear. Inspiration, on the other hand, comes from a sense of love for one another – lighting a fire inside us instead of lighting a fire under us. Lance used Humana as a case study, which has undergone a tremendous transformation in recent years. The organization faced severe changes to its business model in the early days of President Obama’s healthcare overhaul. By thinking of itself as a “Movement” instead of a “Corporation,” Humana’s executive team tapped into a higher purpose – to be provider of well-being, instead of simply an insurance product for health care. The organization has gone on to demonstrate outstanding stock performance and is revolutionizing the way wellness is delivered.
Dan Pink, New York Times bestselling business author, began his talk Thursday morning by saying he had a “nerdier” perspectives on what drives us. A contrast of styles, Pink had a great comedic wit and emphasized the science behind his theories. He came across to the audience as grounded and approachable.
Pink mentioned the well-known fact that money isn’t the greatest motivator for employees. Companies, according to Pink, ought to pay people enough to take the “money issue” off the table so the focus can be on the three factors that motivate people to do their best: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.
Autonomy allows people to feel they are in control of their work and performance – Dan reminded us that no great manager was ever described as someone who “breathed down our necks every waking hour of the day.”
Mastery allows people to see the possibility for improving in their work, and that signs of progress and getting better is crucial for any position.
Purpose allows people to know the “why” in their work – why it matters; why they matter.
Pink talked about companies that do “FedEx Days,” allowing people to work on a project of their choosing, a tool for hard-wiring innovation throughout the company. (They’re called “FedEx Days” for a reason: the project has to absolutely get delivered in a certain time frame.) Google is famous for its employees focusing 10% of their time on new projects and inventions. (A great example of this 10% output is Gmail.)
Secretan began his talk by saying that his insights on what drive us contradict Pink in that Secretan emphasized Inspiration while Pink focused on Motivation. According to Secretan, it’s the difference between love and fear.
From my viewpoint, I don’t believe Secretan and Pink contradicted one another. Both men had a 3-point philosophy on how to achieve optimum performance, which I termed “The Big Three.”
Here’s Lance’s “Big Three”, which he calls “Why, Be Do”:
Why are We Here?
How Will I Be?
What Will I Do?
By answering the “Why, Be, Do,” you become inspired, you inspire others, and your creations inspire the world.
Pink’s “Big Three” factors of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose overlay nicely Secretan’s “Why, Be, Do” concept.
“What will I do?” answers the need for Autonomy
“How will I be?” answers the need for Mastery
“Why are we here?” answers the need for Purpose
I was grateful to have the experience to hear both points of views and styles, which created a richer experience for me, like hearing two different bands interpreting “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The tones and rhythm are different, but the notes are the same. Leadership is never easy, especially in healthcare today. By focusing on the Big Three, we can ditch the 5-Minute Manager handbook and get to the heart of the matter of what drives us.
Were you at SHSMD? What did you think of the presentations? What drives you? Is there a brand (healthcare or other) you would hold up as an example of inspired leadership? Are you a Trekkie?
Recently we developed a physician recruitment campaign for Floyd Medical Center in Rome, Georgia. As with any campaign, we begin with the brand: what is the essential and timeless promise we can share with our audience? Brands are born from the inside out and are reinforced by the actions of people, which is especially true for service organizations like hospitals.
Our approach included a direct mail piece using a size/shape guaranteed to stand out and engage our prospective physician audience, along with a custom website to drive interested prospects.
Response has been tremendous. Now Floyd is carrying out the campaign for other positions, including nursing and tech staff.
But slick direct mail and websites aren’t guarantees to achieving success, especially in recruitment, when organizations don’t define success by getting “warm bodies” in the door — but rather, employees who are engaged, exemplify the organization’s core values and will be around for the long haul.
Making those connections with the right kind of prospect comes down to knowing the brand essence and communicating it effectively.
Sample images from the direct mail piece are below, along with the home page of the custom website, which you can visit by clicking here.
The Stark law is a monster that strikes fear in the hearts of many hospital marketers. Guidance from your Compliance Department can be murky because there’s no case law precedent, and the various statutes that comprise Stark were enacted over time, building on prior regulations. The result is a murky mashup of gray areas that don’t apply to what most hospital marketers do on a daily basis.
Many hospitals avoid putting physicians in their campaigns because of Stark concerns. But physicians can be powerful spokespeople for your hospital. Featuring your physicians (employed and affiliated) is a great opportunity to grow your hospital’s brand.
In our research in markets across the country, physicians are often rated higher in credibility and trustworthiness than hospitals among consumers for delivering quality, technology and expertise messages. According to consumers, if a physician chooses to practice at and represents a hospital, then the hospital must be good. (Otherwise, the physician wouldn’t choose to practice medicine and send patients there.)
To help you build the case and comfort level for using your physicians in campaigns, here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind:
1.The cap on non monetary compensation for each physician is $355, so keep an eye on all those catered lunches you bring in to meetings, which many marketers say is the best way to get the physicians’ attention.
2. You can feature non-employed physicians in your advertising, provided you don’t put the doctor’s office practice phone number or office web address in the advertisement — otherwise, you’ll be advertising for the physician and not your hospital.
3. You should be more concerned about political fallout when featuring physicians in campaigns than being in Stark compliance.
Many hospital marketers feel overwhelmed at the thought of paring down which physicians to feature in their campaigns. One approach to sidestepping political land mines is asking one physician from each practice affiliated with your hospital to be featured in your campaigns. (For example, if you’re doing an ortho campaign, feature one orthopedic surgeon from every practice affiliated with your hospital.) By giving equal representation to all your physicians, you are likely to keep all your physicians happy. (Or, at least content!)
4. Review your hospital’s medical director contracts. Most of these contracts stipulate that the physician must assist the hospital with specific communications outreach, such as speaking to rotary groups or as part of overall communications campaigns. Because there are contractual agreements in place for these physicians, they can be the “go tos” for your campaigns and can also help build consensus.
Following is an example of new TV spots we filmed recently for Memorial that feature their physicians (employed and affiliated) to promote Memorial’s new Novalis cancer-fighting technology. The physicians were champions of this campaign thanks to our wonderful client’s extensive process of achieving buy-in, and also because we gave them the opportunity to share the good news about this new technology in their own words.
Tell us: what are your Stark and physician marketing challenges? What are your work-arounds? Do you find your physicians are advocates or antagonists of your marketing campaigns?
Gabrielle DeTora is a healthcare marketing strategist and founder of Gabrielle DeTora, LLC, a private healthcare strategic planning and marketing consulting company based in Philadelphia. In preparation for a presentation Stephen Moegling made at SHSMD this year on how hospitals find and evaluate ad agency partners, Gabrielle shared her thoughts with Stephen, which we present here as a Q & A.
How do you define a great client and ad agency relationship?
Ideally, the agency relationship will be longstanding. The agency will be investing in the hospital with time, energy, and talent and will fully understand the hospital’s culture, services, competitors, and market. This will lead to more strategic deliverables by the agency in an expedited turnaround time.
I have worked for two healthcare systems as the head of marketing and many more advertising agencies as the lead healthcare strategist. From my perspective of sitting on both sides of the fence, a great client and ad agency relationship is based on clear communication and respect. Understanding the roles and responsibilities of both the hospital marketing and the agency teams is vital. Is the agency’s role strategic in nature, or is it tactical execution? When is the agency team brought into the process? How much agency staff time is required for various types of projects, and why? Most hospital/agency relationships derail when the teams are not aligned in understanding their roles, responsibilities, and the timing of the development process.
What is the role of the agency search consultant, and what types of clients benefit from having this consultant role?
Many healthcare-system marketers have asked me to conduct their agency RFP processes. The role of the search consultant is to carry out a non-biased process, conduct initial agency screenings, write the RFP request, manage all correspondence, and advise the client throughout the process. Finalists are reviewed directly by the hospital leadership team. My clients have benefitted from my understanding of their hospital’s needs and the agency needs, as well as my experience with, and knowledge of, best practices in the RFP process. They also appreciate my undertaking the bulk of the time-consuming research and development, as well as my providing a buffer between the hospital and the agencies.
If clients were to cast a net for new agencies, what tools would you recommend they use for finding prospective agency partners?
It depends entirely on the hospital requirements for an agency and the identified criteria on which to judge the agency’s capabilities. The places where I would look to identify RFP candidates for strategic branding, creative tactical execution, websites, social media, or public relations are all different.
How do you feel about asking agencies for spec creative as part of a pitch process?
I would never recommend asking agencies for spec creative as part of an RFP process. In most cases, spec creative is not necessary to judge the evaluation criteria. An agency’s past work will usually speak for its talents. If the hospital leadership team requires spec creative, all agencies participating in the RFP should be given the exact same creative brief, allotted an appropriate time for creative development, and compensated for their work.
What topics should go into a client’s checklist when evaluating ad agencies?
Using a systematic, objective approach to identify, prioritize, and evaluate decision criteria is very important. Start by outlining the short- and long-term client requirements for an agency. Using Six-Sigma tools, such as a KJ Analysis and affinity diagrams, can ensure that the agency evaluation criteria match the requirements outlined by the hospital, that they are rated by level of importance, and that hospital leadership buy-in is achieved before agency evaluations begin.
What are a few common mistakes both clients and agencies make in the early stages of the relationship?
Most agencies prefer to build a relationship with a potential client early on. A good chemistry between the agency and hospital teams is very important, but hospitals tend to engage in relationship-building too early in the process, at the urging of the agencies. This may cloud the hospital team’s judgment and create a biased process. The hospital team may then choose an agency based on good chemistry and develop unfounded assumptions about the agency’s competency. If such assumptions prove to be incorrect, the relationship will fail in the long term.
Rightly so, my clients have requested that the first time an agency has personal interactions with the client should be during finalist in-person presentations. By that point, all agency finalists will have been screened for core competencies, experience, and client ROI, benchmarked against the allotted evaluation criteria. At the presentation phase, it should be very much about the relationship potential.
These are the key steps that should comprise your agency search process:
1. Hospital Needs Assessment
2. Agency Evaluation Criteria
3. Request for Proposal (RFP) Development
4. Agency Candidate Research/Preliminary Screening
5. RFP Invitations
6. Q & A with Agencies
7. Finalist Selection
8. Agency Presentations and Evaluations
9. Agency Decision
10. Awarding the Contract
Check out Gabrielle’s company website, http://www.GabrielleDeTora.com or e-mail her at Gabrielle at GabrielleDeTora dot com for more information.
Candace Quinn is CEO and Senior Strategy Consultant of Brand=Experience, a healthcare marketing consulting firm based in Northern Virginia. Candace has over 25 years experience in the senior and chief marketing role for health systems and hospitals around the country. In preparation for a presentation Stephen Moegling made at SHSMD this year on how hospitals find and evaluate ad agency partners, Candace shared her thoughts with Stephen, which we present here as a Q & A.
How do you define a great client and ad agency relationship?
Over the thirty years that I’ve been either CMO or consultant, a great client/agency relationship is one of integrity, respect and inclusion. I’ve always valued research and strategy as the foundation for any creative. The agencies that I’ve worked with most successfully over these many years share this focus!
What is the role of the agency search consultant and what types of clients benefit from having this consultant role?
Having served as a search consultant, most often the client wants an objective look at the agencies who most closely meet their criteria. For some, they want a lot of healthcare experience. For others, they want a mix of healthcare with non-healthcare. As a search consultant, it is my job to really get to the core of what a client is looking for in an agency, and then articulate that clearly for the agencies who are willing to respond to the RFP process. Similarly, from the agency perspective, they know that I value the time and effort that go into an RFP response, and I grant them access to me to answer questions, and provide access to the client to clarify RFP items.
If clients were to cast a net for new agencies, what tools would you recommend they use for finding prospective agency partners?
I try to always include those agencies who have advertised with SHSMD, or who have been involved over the years with SHSMD. They seem to be more in tune with our challenges, and day to day issues. I also recommend that they take the time to clearly articulate their expectations for an agency relationship. Not all clients are created equal. Some clients need the agency for strategy as well as execution while others have the strategy set, and simply need agency for creative and execution. I recommend that they be upfront about their roles and expectations for the agency.
How do you feel about asking agencies for spec creative as part of a pitch process?
I think that subjecting the decision making team to creative spec as a part of the pitch process sets both the agency and the client up for trouble. Most organizations use a “committee” of some sort in the selection process. The danger for the client is that the committee gets excited about a creative execution that is off the mark strategically. For the agency, to expect them to give you their best when they have only superficial information to work from is setting them up for failure as well. I would much rather have the agency spell out for me a case study where their past creative has addressed a specific strategic situation and they answer for me how they approached the challenge and how this particular creative performed. I can then judge if their thought process is similar to what I expect, and anticipate how they will do with me.
What topics should go into a client’s checklist when evaluating ad agencies?
My clients have used criteria that includes the following: How well did they follow the RFP and include exactly what we were looking for? How well written was the RFP? This is the agency’s only way to show us their Quality control. Was the response error free? Did the agency show us some creative that is uniquely theirs or did they keep it simple…while I encourage my clients NOT to seek spec creative, that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to see how interesting the agency can make a simple response. Finally, did the agency get their “personality” across. In the end, when presentations are in order, it typically boils down to chemistry…that relationship starts with the first email back to me and continues with the phone call to answer questions through the myriad of email exchanges that take place, to the shipping of the materials and response. For me, most agencies like to burn the midnight oil, getting in just under the wire…I always give extra credit to the agency that can show me how important I am by getting their response in early…it says, you won’t be waiting on me, ever.
What are a few common mistakes both clients and agencies make in the early stages of the relationship?
They forget about the respect piece. Time is all we have as a very limited commodity. If we are waiting for something from each other, honor the time elements. Move things on the client end so that the agency isn’t the one under the gun to hit hard deadlines…agencies need to keep work moving and not wait until its the midnight hour when close review and a complex client approval process will now make deadlines impossible.
We don’t share enough information with each other early enough to get on the same page, and we find ourselves irritating each other. From the very beginning…practice unbelievable communication. Share what it will take to make the other successful. Clients need to be upfront about budgets, limitations, and expectations around existing relationships with web developers, media buyers, PR firms, etc. Agencies need to be up front about billing practices, account management, and creative approaches.
Each agency is different, and each client is unique. No two hospitals are just alike, and no two agencies are alike.
Be sure to follow Candace on Twitter and check out her own blog on healthcare marketing.
