How to Build a Health Care Brand with Multiple Ad Agencies, Multiple Specialty Campaigns—and in the Face of Multiple Competitors. (Hint: It’s Complicated.)
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 a $2.7 million overall budget to work with, your situation is something of a balancing act. You’ve got to spend it in a way that assists 49 different hospitals that belong to your system, with a total of more than 5,000 licensed beds systemwide, and multiple specialties that want to advertise. And what’s more, a media tracking company reports that one of your competitors is outspending you two-and-a-half to one.
That’s the situation in and around the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where the hospital system that appears to be in the lead is Baylor Scott & White Health.
According to research done in the north Texas area by the National Research Corporation, Baylor Scott & White beat its five big-name competitors most of the time on six different critical measurements in 2014, even though the competing hospital systems have considerable clout in their own right. Those systems are: Texas Health Resources, Hospital Corporation of America, Methodist Health System, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and Tenet Healthcare.
Baylor Scott & White scored highest on top-of-mind awareness with 66 percent, compared to 50 percent for the next-highest-scoring competitor, and a low of 9 percent for the least. It also led all but one of the hospitals in its score for “image.”