Quick—What Do Merged Hospitals and a Woman Stock Car Race Driver Have in Common? One Health Care Advertising Agency Found Plenty of Similarity
Notable Health Care Advertising
// By Peter Hochstein //
In 2013, three hospitals, along with various satellite practices and facilities in the western suburbs of Chicago, merged. Edward Hospital in Naperville, Illinois, with 309 beds, all in private rooms; Elmhurst Memorial Hospital in Elmhurst, Illinois, with 259 beds, also all in private rooms; and Linden Oaks Behavioral Health (on the Edward Hospital campus) with 108 beds, became Edward-Elmhurst Health.
The new entity needed to spread the news and its new name, and to make a case to potential patients for why the merger was a good thing. To help, it brought in Maricich Health, an Irvine, California, advertising agency. So far, no surprises.
Initially, the agency did all the professional things you’d expect. It checked existing research. It established benchmarks. It interviewed hospital employees and management. But the advertising campaign that emerged from all of this was more than a bit unexpected.
Print, television, radio, outdoor, and internet advertising feature Danica Patrick, an attractive stock car racing driver and sometimes model. In an introductory print ad, the new hospital system threw down a gauntlet by asking, “Who says being driven is a bad thing?”
In an accompanying TV spot, Patrick, standing on an automotive race track, declares, “Some say being driven is a character flaw. Downright unhealthy. Well, not so fast.”