// By John Gonda // While many health care marketers seek to limit their media outlets, the reality is that successful marketing plans need to incorporate a blend of many efforts to produce a desired reach, frequency, and outcome. For many years, hospitals have used traditional media outlets such as newspapers, direct mail, radio, and Read More
// By Peter Hochstein // If editorial and PR people fall into a passive-aggressive relationship, something’s wrong. Sometimes on both sides. There’s no magic to how I find sources for most of the stories I write in this space. Sometimes I start by calling the advertising agency that was involved. Most ad agencies love publicity Read More
More than ever, it’s important for health care executives to understand that broad brand strategy alone doesn’t drive business. Successful service-line growth campaigns are based on insights from marketing and consumer data. Without direction from digital marketing data, health care organizations will struggle even more in the post-pandemic world. Brand/MarCom strategist John Marzano recently spoke Read More
“In some cases, letting your ads ignore the news about [your hospital’s] name change can be a smarter move than headlining it,” notes SHCM contributor and veteran copywriter Peter Hochstein. While this may seem hard to believe, he makes his case with the real-life story of the hospital formerly known as the Floating Hospital for Read More
// By Jared Johnson // More than ever, it’s important for health care executives to understand that broad brand strategy alone doesn’t drive business. Successful service-line growth campaigns are based on insights from marketing and consumer data. Without direction from digital marketing data, health care organizations will struggle even more in the post-pandemic world. Brand/MarCom Read More
// By Peter Hochstein // In some cases, letting your ads ignore the news about a name change can be a smarter move than headlining it. Here’s a case in point. It all seemed like a brilliant idea back in 1895. Fresh sea air is good for you, right? All that bracing oxygen and salt Read More
The nonprofit Ad Council has announced plans for a $50 million educational campaign aimed at encouraging vaccination against COVID-19. The effort will be funded by private-sector contributors and has been created to overcome reluctance by two-thirds of the public to get vaccinated. According to a recent survey, although 86 percent of Americans believe that a Read More
Do you read billboards when you’re driving? If you do, you’re not alone. According to the 2019 Nielsen out-of-home advertising study, eight out of 10 Americans consciously look at billboard messages. As technology evolves, more and more advertisers turn to digital billboards — a computer-controlled display that shows advertisements on a rotating basis — to Read More
The coronavirus continues its rampage throughout the country, sickening people, taking lives, devastating the economy, and overwhelming our health systems. Even if we are not sick, COVID-19 wears down our will to keep fighting until vaccines are widely available. That includes abiding by public health guidance: avoiding large group gatherings, social distancing, handwashing, and wearing Read More
// By Peter Hochstein // You might think that co-opting language associated with COVID-19 could scare people away. Instead, it called attention to advertising that helped to reassure worried parents. Let’s clearly state a few factual negatives first. Tilt, the advertising agency behind the campaign you’re about to read about, is not the same Tilt Read More
At the Deborah Heart and Lung Center in southern New Jersey, the task of letting patients know it was safe and even wise to return evolved into a multimedia effort. The campaign has been paying off with a substantial increase in patient visits. In Peter Hochstein’s new story, he explains how they’re doing it. Here’s Read More
// By Althea Fung // Switching from renting to owning digital billboards gave Willis-Knighton Health System ultimate control over messaging. Do you read billboards when you’re driving? If you do, you’re not alone. According to the 2019 Nielsen out-of-home advertising study, eight out of 10 Americans consciously look at billboard messages. As technology evolves, more Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // If marketing is about influencing people to change behaviors, then a new public service campaign launched just before the Thanksgiving holiday — #MaskUp — is marketing at its best. The coronavirus continues its rampage throughout the country as of this writing in early December, sickening people, taking lives, devastating Read More
// By Peter Hochstein // At the Deborah Heart and Lung Center in southern New Jersey, the task of letting patients know it was safe and even wise to return evolved into a multimedia effort. The campaign has been paying off with a substantial increase in patient visits. Don’t let the bed count — there Read More
“Hey, there’s a pandemic going on!” writes Peter Hochstein, crackerjack copywriter and regular SHCM contributor. “Hospital workers are supposed to look harassed, grave, and ready to collapse from exhaustion, right? That’s not quite the way the communicators and staff at Johns Hopkins Medicine saw it. Result? Internet views by the — no, not by the Read More
// By Peter Hochstein // Hey, there’s a pandemic going on! Hospital workers are supposed to look harassed, grave, and ready to collapse from exhaustion, right? That’s not quite the way the communicators and staff at Johns Hopkins Medicine saw it. Result? Internet views by the — no, not by the thousands, by multiples of Read More
Los Angeles is home to many world-class health care organizations, and they compete vigorously for the same patients. But even in a competitive market, joining together for the greater good may be the best way to get an important message across to the community. “It became apparent early on that people were not accessing health Read More
“The situation seemed dire at Vassar Brothers Medical Center,” writes Peter Hochstein, copywriter and SHCM contributor. “Doctors at a large medical group were under orders to refer patients to a different hospital. Then Vassar launched an ad campaign that empowered patients to defy their doctors. And everything changed.” Here’s an excerpt from Hochstein’s new article: Read More
// By Richard Cohen // One of the central issues when a health care organization acquires other hospitals or entities on the care continuum is how to get all the employees from its disparate parts on message. This was something that the folks at the Baltimore-based LifeBridge Health took to heart several years ago after Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Los Angeles is home to many world-class health care organizations, and they compete vigorously for the same patients. But even in a competitive market, joining together for the greater good may be the best way to get an important message across to the community. “It became apparent early on Read More
Health care marketers know that building a successful brand is not just about new logos, taglines, and ads. The brand must accurately reflect the vision and beliefs that make up the culture of the organization, drive all strategic decisions, and form the foundation for communications with all audiences. “If your brand is authentic, you can Read More
As the U.S. emerges from what is likely the first wave of the COVID-19 global pandemic, many health care organizations are launching campaigns to encourage patients to seek the medical care they have delayed. Northwell Health, a 23-hospital system with nearly 800 outpatient facilities in the New York metro area, wanted its campaign to communicate Read More
// By Peter Hochstein // The situation seemed dire at Vassar Brothers Medical Center. Doctors at a large medical group were under orders to refer patients to a different hospital. Then Vassar launched an ad campaign that empowered patients to defy their doctors. And everything changed. The news arrived more than a little jarringly at Read More
View from the C-Suite: Don Stanziano, Chief Marketing Officer, Geisinger // By Sheryl S. Jackson // Health care marketers know that building a successful brand is not just about new logos, taglines, and ads. The brand must accurately reflect the vision and beliefs that make up the culture of the organization, drive all strategic decisions, Read More
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” is the motto at Richmond-based NDP. Last year, the full-service marketing and advertising agency added a media planning division — Neathawk360. As the name implies, this new service embraces a 360-degree approach to the many and diverse forms of media that can impact a consumer’s engagement Read More