Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // Early this year, a group medical practice called the Toledo Clinic in Toledo, Ohio, got what must have seemed like a bright marketing idea. With the help of a mom-and-pop advertising agency called Modern TECHnique in Avon, Ohio, the clinic ran a full-page ad in the Read More
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // This is a story about a hurricane, a hospital system, and two advertising campaigns. It’s gleaned primarily from an interview with Kerry Graham, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Bohan Advertising in Nashville, Tennessee. Bohan was the advertising agency for the hospital system, Ochsner Health System, from 2007 Read More
A picture is worth a thousand words—and that’s especially true when you’re talking about adorable babies. Premier Health, a multi-hospital southern Ohio health care system with 1,892 licensed beds and more than 868,000 annual outpatient visits, was looking for a fresh way to to reassure future moms that its health care system offers lots of birthing Read More
So let’s say you’re out to build a hospital system’s brand. And let’s also say you’re in one of the biggest markets (Dallas-Fort Worth) in one of the biggest states (Texas), competing against some of the biggest regional names in health care. While you’ve got a $2.7 million budget to work with, exclusive of direct Read More
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // So let’s say you want to reassure future moms and about-to-be moms in your region that your health care system offers lots of birthing options and has lots of medical expertise—whether the moms turn out to have normal deliveries or deliveries with complications. Backing up that Read More
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // So let’s say you’re out to build a hospital system’s brand. And let’s also say you’re in one of the biggest markets in one of the biggest states, competing against some of the biggest regional names in health care. Although, exclusive of direct marketing, you’ve got Read More
The internationally known Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is among the world’s few destination medical facilities. Popular perceptions were, and probably still are, that it’s where you go for the gravest cases, the ones that can’t be handled wherever else in the world you live. But now, in addition to its destination facility in Rochester, Read More
Advertising Worth Noting By Peter Hochstein The internationally known Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is among the world’s few destination medical facilities. Popular perceptions were, and probably still are, that it’s where you go for the gravest cases, the ones that can’t be handled wherever else in the world you live. Recently, changing conditions in Read More
Back in 2008, Saginaw, Michigan-based Covenant HealthCare saw an opportunity to “own the robotic surgery market in the region,” says Larry Daly, Director of Planning and Business Development at Covenant HealthCare. The specific focus was da Vinci Surgical System robots, high-tech devices increasingly used in minimally invasive surgery. “Our strategy was to purchase the latest Read More
Advertising Worth Noting By Peter Hochstein This tale begins in 2008, when the people running things at Covenant HealthCare, today a 643-bed multiple facility institution with campuses in and around Saginaw, Michigan, began hearing rumors about robots. Well, not just any robots. These were da Vinci Surgical System robots, those high-tech devices increasingly used in Read More
Word of mouth may help to build your brand over time—but sometimes advertising really helps get the ball rolling quickly. Such was the case in and around Phoenix, Arizona, where Arizona OBGYN Affiliates (AOA), now the largest OB/GYN practice in Arizona, consolidated from several smaller practices in 2007. AOA soon found its future growth and Read More
Advertising Worth Noting By Peter Hochstein You could argue that there’s nothing new about doctors running ads. In New York, one maverick dermatologist has been the star of his own earthy subway car posters for decades. They are busy horizontal spaces that simultaneously display his photograph and such things as rhyming headlines, before-and-after acne treatment Read More
By Peter Hochstein I once knew an advertising creative director who said his constant prayer was, “Grant me the luxury of a tightly written creative strategy.” The following strategy would most certainly have answered his prayer: Position UC Irvine Health as Orange County’s top destination for cancer care. Leverage our status as Orange County’s only Read More
by Peter Hochstein Is there a best time of year for health care marketers to advertise? In light of current events, the answer may be yes. That special time is the open enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act. During open enrollment season, even people in good health have reason to pay extra attention to Read More
We’re back—and today we’ve got something special for you. (If you missed the first or second installments in our series, you can read them here.) Peter Hochstein is a veteran New York copywriter, and he’s written for some of the biggest and best in the industry. Over the years, his employers have included Ogilvy, Benton Read More
by Peter Hochstein It all starts with mysterious-sounding music, images of equipment and people you can find at any hospital, and a young child’s voice. All together, they make magic. There’s a picture of a hospital bed with a teddy bear lying on it. “Secret lair,” confides a little girl’s voice, barely above a whisper. Read More
by Peter Hochstein Imagine you live in Aurora, CO. One attraction in this third-most-populous city in the state is the rich availability of recreational sports activities, including soccer fields, ice hockey mountain biking, and—well, you get the idea. While taking the kids to soccer practice, you suddenly see an alarming sight. A soccer player behind Read More
// By Peter Hochstein // Despite specializing in kids exclusively, Boston Children’s Hospital confronts a wall of competition that hospitals elsewhere might find daunting. Liz Vanzura, chief marketing officer for Boston Children’s advertising agency, MMB, can list 10 other local hospitals that treat children—among them such formidable names as Mass General, Tufts Medical Center, and Read More
by Peter Hochstein A few years ago, it became clear to the marketing people at St. Vincent’s HealthCare, a 903-bed, three-campus hospital system in Jacksonville, FL, that their institution’s brand image could do with some strengthening. Little wonder. The organization’s awareness and reputation was in fourth place compared with the competition. That competition, in a Read More
by Peter Hochstein Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, more hospitals may begin offering health insurance, while insurance companies may increasingly supply some limited health care services. True, a few organizations, perhaps most notably Kaiser Permanente, have explicitly and extensively offered both health care and health insurance for years. And some health plans offer their Read More
by Peter Hochstein Next time some doubting Thomas clears his throat and asks how you can be sure hospital advertising pays, cite this case concerning Nash Health Care in Rocky Mount, NC. Nash Health Care, anchored by a 403-bed general hospital, is located in a mostly rural area, flanked roughly 80 miles in one direction Read More
by Peter Hochstein You know the drill: Effective hospital advertising campaigns should consist of a single idea and a single graphic treatment to produce results with the sheer power of a concept, preferably emotional. Licensed for 760 beds, Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, KS, has taken a decidedly contrary route. Faced with an unusual marketing Read More
by Peter Hochstein So there it was, a sprawling health care behemoth, at first glance scarcely recognizable as a single entity. It was named Novant Health, created in 1997 by the merger of two North Carolina organizations, Carolina Medicorp and Presbyterian Healthcare, into a single system. Over time, other organizations joined Novant Health until the Read More
by Peter Hochstein As hospitals continue to merge or in some cases drop their partners, marketers for those institutions find themselves challenged to explain what’s new and what’s the same about their organizations – even to their own constituencies. It was just such a need that led The Christ Hospital Health Network in Cincinnati to Read More
by Peter Hochstein Yesterday’s irresistible news, the old saw used to go, is today’s bird-cage liner. A few striking advertising campaigns don’t suffer such fates, owing to advertising annuals and industry halls of fame that enshrine some nationally known promotions. But small regional campaigns, even if they do a great job and win awards, are Read More