The Next Idea for Hospital Tagline Audiences

In a previous entry on taglines, I talked about the magic that a great tagline has to create an emotional connection with your audience. Weak taglines sound like positioning statements, which have a place, but not in an audience-facing branding effort. Words and phrases like “convenient,” “close to home,” “advanced,” and “caring,” unfortunately, are so overused that they have little emotional connection with audiences.

The taglines we remember and love make an emotional connection. It’s okay not to be literal with taglines. Taglines were once called slogans. The origin of the word slogan came from the Gaelic “Slaughgaiirm,” used by Scottish clans to mean “war cry.”

AdWeek noted that taglines have begun to lose their starring role in ad campaigns. It used to be that taglines were the cornerstone of advertising: which is why the taglines we remember most are from the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s, when TV reigned supreme. (Think “Just Do It” or “You’re in Good Hands with Allstate.”)

Taglines are best communicated with motion picture and sound. But in a recent survey by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research of more than 100 national advertisers, 62% of respondents think TV ads have become less effective in the past two years.

The main culprit cited by respondents was clutter, and 69% said they would like fewer commercials per pod, or block of commercials. Television’s weakening impact is due to digital media and the ever-increasing number of channels to reach the consumer. After all, half of the people watching television tonight will also be doing something else––most likely, they will be online.

Another shift in the use of taglines is in the length of their tenure as a brand’s “war cry.” Taglines used to live a long time: think of Avis’s “We Try Harder,” which has been used on and off since 1962. The life of a tagline today, though, is much shorter. A core reason for this is the length of the average CMO for the health industry, which is 18.2 months. (When the new CMO comes on board, she wants to own the brand–enter the new agency and the new tagline.)

So are taglines still relevant for hospitals? Absolutely. But the key is to understand the true audience for healthcare taglines.

Most hospitals can’t afford to invest millions of dollars in reinforcing a tagline into the hearts and minds of their consumers. Avis’s “We Try Harder” is a brilliant tagline: it’s emotional, benefit-driven and memorable, and Avis has spent millions of dollars to make sure you remember those three words.

For service organizations like hospitals, taglines are best served as reminders to internal audiences–clinicians, physicians, housekeeping, the board–what the brand means, and their contributions to living the brand.

Most hospitals can’t spend millions to build awareness and recall for their tagline among consumers, but every hospital can share their tagline and what it means to staff, supporters and physicians. We do this through town halls, video presentations on Intranet and social media platforms, cafeteria flyers, employee recognition programs, email and printed newsletters, and hundreds of other practical, efficient, consistent communications tools.

When your internal audiences know your organization’s “war cry” and march to the beat of the same drum, truly amazing things can happen: like high patient and physician satisfaction scores, cost reduction, and increased patient volume.

For inspiration on crafting your hospital’s tagline, visit our new database of more than 200 hospital taglines.