Realizing Vision Through Research: How Lawrence General Hospital Used Research to Help Elevate Its Brand

July 7, 2016

// By Jill McDonald Halsey, APR; Dan Dunlop; and Jeff Steblea //

Lawrence General Hospital“City of the Damned.” That’s the magazine headline that greeted Jill McDonald Halsey when she arrived as the new Chief Marketing & Communication Officer for Lawrence General Hospital in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The city of Lawrence had been dealing with a variety of challenges, including the pervading perception of a city in decline, with rising crime rates and underperforming schools in receivership by the state. Located in the city, Lawrence General serves one of the the poorest communities in the state, with a median annual household income under $30,000. By contrast, the city is bordered by more affluent North Shore suburbs with a greater number of commercially insured patients, many of whom wouldn’t think of obtaining their health care in Lawrence.

Meanwhile, the hospital itself was experiencing a lot of positive change. With a new CEO at the helm, Lawrence General had recently strengthened its clinical affiliations with both Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and The Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center, and had announced expansion plans—a multi-year master facility plan that included renovation, expansion, and modernization of the hospital’s campus, including a new surgical building, and completely renovated adult medical/surgical units.

Lawrence General knew it had a reputation issue, but needed to know more, including:

  • What specific experiences and beliefs were keeping potential patients from using their local hospital?
  • Were residents unaware of the recent changes and improvements made at the hospital?
  • How much of what residents thought of the hospital was outdated?
  • Was having the word “Lawrence” in its name having a negative impact on the hospital brand?
  • What information and messages would change residents’ perceptions of the hospital?
Working with the hospital’s agency of record, Jennings, the hospital began gathering data from area residents, community and business leaders, and internal stakeholders, such as physicians and employees. They convened several focus groups: six with female health care decision-makers in the area, seven with internal physicians and employees, and one with community opinion leaders, including elected officials, business leaders, and health care leaders in the area.

The most effective way to assess what people think is to ask them directly. Through focus groups and a large-scale telephone survey, that is exactly what Lawrence General did.

Identifying the Gaps

The findings from the focus groups indicated a significant gap between the hospital’s desired brand and its perceived brand among area health care consumers. Specifically, consumers still held an outdated perception of Lawrence General—focus group participants saw the hospital as underfunded, with outdated facilities, and a fast-paced, chaotic environment with inconsistent service. In addition, the strongest identifier for the brand was the city of Lawrence, which was a negative association, with participants mentioning safety concerns about the location of the hospital.

Finding Opportunity

But the findings also indicated opportunity: Lawrence General was seen as having a long history of caring for the community, as well as a stellar Trauma Center and maternity care. Finally, participants indicated a willingness to change their opinion of the hospital when presented with compelling information regarding its clinical affiliations, advanced medical capabilities, and clinical accomplishments that set the hospital apart, like its accreditations in trauma, chest pain and cardiac catheterization, bariatrics, and women’s imaging.

Putting Numbers to Work

The focus groups provided the team with helpful specifics regarding customer perceptions. But one thing was missing: numbers. To what extent were these opinions and perceptions representative of the community Lawrence General serves? To that end, Lawrence General and Jennings turned to Market Street Research, a marketing research firm with expertise in quantitative research for hospitals and health systems. Market Street Research designed a survey of community residents to better understand the hospital’s position in Lawrence and the surrounding communities and to assess specific consumer perceptions. Specifically, the survey research determined:

  • Brand awareness of Lawrence General and competitors
  • Brand image of Lawrence General and key competitors, including consumer ratings on key criteria such as physician quality and level of technology
  • Brand preference for area hospitals, both overall and with regard to specific service lines
  • Perceptions of Lawrence General, including the hospital’s major strengths and weaknesses, as well as whether the hospital’s image has changed in recent years
  • Residents’ impressions of the city of Lawrence itself
  • The impact of specific information on residents’ likelihood of using Lawrence General
  • Interest in its Andover Medical Center and ExpressCare, and its Pediatric Specialty Center
  • Residents’ use of primary care providers and the role these providers play when people choose a hospital
  • Sources of information residents use to find out about hospitals and doctors

The findings from the survey largely underscored what focus group participants said about Lawrence General, strengthening the team’s understanding of the hospital’s brand among consumers. In addition, the survey was able to add rich detail regarding how people choose a hospital, their awareness and image of Lawrence General’s main competitors, and potential positioning statements that would better communicate to residents Lawrence General’s medical excellence, facility improvements, technological advancements, quality improvements, and affiliations with Boston-based academic medical centers.

Ultimately, all of the research showed that Lawrence General had outgrown the public’s understanding of the brand. Now armed with the details of their challenge, the hospital, with Jennings’ assistance, set out to bridge this gap.

Defining Key Messages

HospitalLawrence General and Jennings began planning a brand elevation campaign to address the most problematic and influential public misperceptions. They identified three major components to communicate:

  • Lawrence General has grown beyond its roots as a community hospital, and has become a high-quality regional health system, with greatly enhanced capabilities
  • Lawrence General is the choice for sophisticated medical care in the Merrimack Valley, bringing Boston-based resources to the area, as well as providing local medical excellence across a range of services
  • Lawrence General is leading innovative solutions and partnerships to transform health care in the Merrimack Valley

The next step was to create a comprehensive advertising campaign to elevate the Lawrence General brand in the minds of its constituents. The major theme? That Lawrence General is a high-quality, high-value medical provider that is uniquely dedicated to actively transforming health care in the region, partnering with others, opening local doors to leading-edge medicine, and bringing medical experts into modern facilities close to home.

Campaign Theme: The hospital challenged the Jennings creative team to build a campaign that would break through the clutter of health care advertising, signal change, and engage the target audience with solid reasons to believe the brand has changed.

The “Today” Campaign Is Born

The hospital chose three creative concepts developed by Jennings, and then went back to the consumer focus groups to get feedback on which concept was most effective. A clear winner emerged, with four out of five consumer participants reacting positively to what would become Lawrence General’s “Today” Campaign. Among employee focus groups, 100 percent reacted positively to the Today Campaign; they unanimously listed “Today” as their favorite approach and said they would be proud for this campaign to represent the new direction of the hospital. In addition, the “Today” campaign was the only concept to register no negative reactions from either the consumer or employee groups.

Today campaignFeedback in hand, the team moved forward to fully develop the “Today” campaign. In the final days before the campaign was launched, McDonald Halsey asked for one more round of testing to be sure they had hit the target. Jennings performed consumer intercepts at two local shopping areas. The response from consumers was clear: The “Today” campaign messaging was on target and elicited the very reactions the team wanted. As one respondent said, “If the doctors’ names weren’t on the ad, I wouldn’t have believed this was Lawrence General Hospital. It looks like Mass. General.”

The “Today” campaign launched in late June 2015. Relying on authentic images of Lawrence General doctors, employees, and patients, as well as compelling video storytelling, the campaign told a story of where the hospital is today and where it’s going. It specifically addressed misconceptions identified in the research, and underscored the advancements and improvements the hospital has made and continues to make to better serve its community.

A Winning Concept

Since the launch, the “Today” campaign has demonstrated success. The most concrete measures of success come from the digital metrics for the campaign: Facebook Newsfeed ads, Facebook Video ads, Google Adwords/display ads, and visits to the campaign landing page. Recently, the campaign has won several awards, including 13 Health Care Ad Awards (including this year’s Best of Show award) and nine national Aster Awards for excellence in health care marketing, including the Judge’s Choice Award, after receiving a perfect score from the judging panel.

And the hospital is not done with research. Lawrence General plans to conduct a follow-up consumer perception study with Market Street Research to measure the initial success of the campaign in elevating the hospital’s brand. That study will launch in fall 2016.

Lawrence General Hospital’s experience indicates what can be accomplished when an organization doesn’t rely just on a casual, anecdotal understanding of its brand challenges. Taking the time to probe the details of those challenges was essential for its success. Using the deep insights gained through the research, the hospital and its partners were able to develop an effective campaign that is helping the hospital to bridge the brand gap, spark interest, and attract and retain new customers.

Jeff Steblea, Vice President of Market Street Research

Jeff Steblea

Dan Dunlop, principal of Jennings

Dan Dunlop

Jill McDonald Halsey, Chief Marketing and Communication Officer for Lawrence General Hospital

Jill McDonald Halsey

Passionate about effective communication, Jill McDonald Halsey, APR, is Chief Marketing and Communication Officer for Lawrence General Hospital. A health care marketer, author, blogger, and public speaker, Dan Dunlop is a principal of Jennings, a health care marketing and audience engagement firm. A marketing research expert, consultant, and public speaker, Jeff Steblea, M.A., is Vice President of Market Street Research, a marketing research firm with a specialty in health care.