Healthcare marketers who are hesitating over beefing up their interactive and social media plans just got a wake-up call thanks to Millward Brown’slatest research. We all know that trust is what makes us return to a brand time and time again. It makes us tell our friends. And when it comes to our health, it’s how we prescribe healthcare services for one another. But who whould have thought that recent research would show that WebMD is the eighth most “trusted” and “recommended” brand in the U.S.?
The internet is, more than ever, the place we turn to when we need immediate feedback about our health or the health of our loved ones. Face it, it’s a lot faster than getting that appointment with your GP. It’s always there. Combine that efficiency with the power of communication that the internet provides (think social media) suddenly, WebMD at number eight just isn’t such a shocker. What do you think - ever used WebMD? Write back and let us know your favorite healthcare destinations online.
We’re currently developing a hospital branding campaign for one of our newest clients, Otsego Memorial Hospital (OMH). It’s a community hospital located in Gaylord, MI, a beautiful city famous for it’s skiing and amazing landscapes. Which brings me to the question, how do you brand a community hospital?
As healthcare marketing and branding experts, we’ve seen one of the most common and greatest obstacles many community hospitals are faced with is how to re-position themselves in the community. Most already know the hospital name, they know the location, but they are stuck in the mentality that the only thing the hospital can handle is a broken arm. When in reality, community hospitals are more than just that now. They are stepping up to their game; hiring leading specialists and providing more comprehensive services.
Below is a community hospital brand campaign example from Danbury Hospital in Connecticut:
Their campaign goal was similar to many community hospital goals: convince consumers to look past their old-time preconceptions and see the hospital as a high-care provider. The imagery is a nice blend of humanity and high-tech and so far, the brand campaign results deem it pretty successful.
As a team, we’re having a lot of fun working on the concepts for OMH and I look forward to sharing them with you in a few weeks. I will also share some insight on how and why we recommended the strategy used to develop the campaign and continue to update on its success.
In the meantime, have you seen or created any powerful community hospital brand campaigns? I would love to see them.
Healthcare marketers are often challenged with to how to participate and ultimately lead health conversations through social media channels. In this highly regulated market, even marketers armed with great social strategies can find that they face seemingly insurmountable barriers thrown up by administration and information technology departments.
So how can you become part of the conversation when the thoughts you express could create a liability or privacy concern for your organization? Here’s one idea: borrow third party expertise. Turn the conversation away from your organization, your doctors, your services, and tap into some of the rich public health resources available online.
Why not get familiar with the major public health research publications such as Environmental Health Perspectives (fd: Brogan & Partners publishes and markets EHP on behalf of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences). Stay ahead of the competition when it comes to understanding the major health concerns of today and tomorrow by commenting on the research or news provided by these publications and the esteemed researchers that contribute to them. You can then draw connections back to your service lines as a way of providing additional information.
You’ll appear smarter and better informed while fostering a feeling of goodwill among consumers because your organization is taking the time to help them understand how to live healthier lives. Got other ideas on how to insert your organization into the social sphere while limiting exposure? We’d love to hear them!
While doing social media training here at the agency, I finally figured out why so many people do not respond or follow on Twitter…
They don’t know how!
Although Twitter seems pretty self explanatory, especially to those of us that were in college when Facebook and MySpace first hit the social media scene, that doesn’t mean everyone can follow along and quickly grasp the concept. For those who need the extra help, it means there will be some research involved… yes, you have to google how to twitter. Sounds like a simple enough request, right? Wrong. Most people look to social media because it should be fun, easy and exciting… not one of those words implies having to LEARN first.
I can now say from experience, that little effort to learn something new goes a long way to gaining a positive new tool to promote your business and yourself. Do you disagree? I’d love to see your thoughts.
P.S. If you can’t get somebody’s attention through social media like this poor man, maybe you should try a new tactic!
I didn’t suggest this first. One of my bosses at DDB said it to me many years ago. I don’t know if it was original to him. (John Noble. A funny, smart, irreverent man who said lots of good stuff. May he rest in peace.) It may have come from Bill Bernbach (May he rest in peace.) who was infinitely quotable and said many things worthy of stitching on a pillow or tattooing on your arm.
Sometimes creative not only breaks through the clutter but breaks new ground in what is possible. It’s pretty mind-blowing to imagine a poster campaign that talks. This is truly interactive at it’s best. The UN Voices Project combines cutting edge mobile phone and image recognition technologies. The campaign is used to put out the message of those who would otherwise go unheard. People around Sydney were encouraged to take a mobile phone photo of the persons mouth and sent it as a picture text to the number on the poster. The sender then receives a return phone call with a pre-recorded message from the person they have photographed. The call to action is embedded in the phone message where people are then encouraged to leave their own comments through the UN website. I applaud the creatives that came up with this idea and the technologists that made it happen. It is inspires the rest of us to push ourselves to create new ways of communicating our messages. Have you seen any other groundbreaking examples of creative that re-invent the way we engage? Please share if you do!
This seemed appropriate for the holiday season, because as we all know, online scams become much more prevalent this time of year.
We’ve all received bogus emails that lead to fake websites, where thieves try to phish for your credit card number, social security number, or log-in information to other websites. Well this year you could be scammed just by searching for a reputable company in your favorite search engine.
A recent experiment by a security researcher proved that he could fool the search engines into believing that his bogus bank website was legit and was even able to outrank the real banks website. His fake website was creditunionofsc.org, and the real bank’s url is cusocal.org. Within a year and a half, his website ranked #1 in Bing, #2 in Yahoo, and while Google wasn’t as easily deceived they still ranked it on page 6. His fake website is no longer live and now redirects to the official bank’s website.
While this was done to prove a point, it raises some interesting issues:
First of all, make sure that you are visiting the correct website. Especially when it requires you to log in, make an online purchase, enter your social security number or other personal information. If you are not sure, you can visit http://www.whois.com to verify the owner of the domain name.
It’s possible that any website that uses proper SEO techniques can top the search engine rankings.
If I were a customer of this bank, I would feel safer if they had considered a more strategic response. They vowed to purchase more domain names similar to their own to protect themselves. Shouldn’t they instead be monitoring search engines and implementing safeguards to prevent this from happening again? Or perhaps working to improve the search engine ranking of their own website?
They could learn lessons from eBay and PayPal, who have been plagued by this problem for years. Reporting mechanisms have been added to their own sites to identify deceptive websites. Email campaigns have been launched to raise awareness of the issue, in addition to information put online to educate customers.
Not only is it hilarious, but it serves as a healthy reminder to anyone or any company trying to build a brand or a meaningful customer relationship. Reminder - you don’t want to be the guy looking at your own reflection. Bottom line, your marketing efforts won’t work if you don’t know what your consumer wants, needs, feels, desires. How do you figure that out? Do your research. The more you know, the better your outcomes are going to be. Don’t have the budget in this tough economy? Do your own mini focus groups. Just don’t go in blind.
Have you seen any advertising recently that you feel just hit the nail on the head? That just proved the company was really listening and understood what their target was saying? Share it with us.
Okay, I cannot do a blog series on creative social marketing without giving some props to our client, the Michigan Department of Community Health. For over 20 years, we’ve been partners in creating some of the most memorable ad campaigns in the state. One of our agency favorites, is “I smoke when I’m coloring.” Research showed the best way to get adults to quit smoking was to do it through their kids. This campaign swept award shows, lit up the quit line call center and was so successful other states were calling in for it. We even heard that the commercial inspired Whoopi Goldberg to quit smoking. Leo Burnett once said, “There is no such thing as a great advertising agency. There are, however, a few great clients.” MDCH is a great one (thanks for being great partners, guys), and we’re not blowing smoke.
Homophobics are still in the closet. Even though most of us have gay friends, relatives, co-workers or at the very least have watched “Will & Grace”, homophobia is still hiding out there. And sometimes, it comes out, passive-aggressively, like when teenagers say phrases like “That’s so gay.” This is a noteworthy campaign by the AdCouncil to encourage people to thinkb4youspeak. While the TV featured Wanda Sykes and Hillary Duff, strange bedfellows for this in my opinion, my favorite is the one with the non-celeb below. The website also has many different features like e-card sharing, a pledge, a word origin game, how to get involved and ways to share your stories and videos. But I am hoping they add more depth as the e-card and games are pretty simplistic and could be more interesting.
Are you guilty of ever saying “That’s so gay?” If so, out yourself here. Do you think that makes you homophobic or just plain careless and prone to cheesy pop vernacular?
This PSA is so powerful, I am going to let it speak for itself.Maybe we all would care more about the land mine problems in other countries, if it were in our backyard.
Despite the 40 billion dollars poured into the diet industry, 2 out of 3 Americans are clinically obese. I, myself, have poured a big chunk of change into this industry. And while I adore my nutritionist, Gail Posner, and the progress we’ve made over the years, it is a daily battle of wills. Like “Will I put myself first and walk today?” or “Will I love myself enough to say no to that cookie calling my name?” Which is why I love some of the work the AdCouncil has done for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Obesity Prevention Campaign. While creative like “Love Handles” and “Double Chin” are very funny and attention-getting, they don’t really inspire me as much as the posters like the one below. I can relate to these people with spare tires and the copy that follows their curves to demonstrate how by taking small steps you can become smaller. These give me hope. These encourage me to keep trying. I just joined my old gym again this weekend. Here’s hoping I will use it and lose it. If you have any small steps to get healthier that have worked for you, please share them…
