Why the Medium Determined the Message in a Winning Campaign for Children’s Minnesota
Notable Health Care Advertising
// By Peter Hochstein //
How can a hospital facing lots of local competition successfully undo commonplace misperceptions in a fresh way? For Children’s Minnesota, it involved taking one approach in print advertising and another in TV. There was a good reason for the inconsistency.
Sometime ago, Children’s Minnesota, a 381-bed hospital then called Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, launched an advertising campaign that chalked up some impressive results.
Despite competition for patients and philanthropic support in the Twin Cities area that included two other major children’s hospitals (and several other hospitals that offer pediatric services), Children’s increased its market share by 2.3 percent the first year the campaign ran. That same year it attracted 50,000 visitors to the campaign’s website, of whom 77 percent were new. And it sparked a 39 percent increase in year-over-year giving.
Tom Nowak, CEO, Peterson Milla Hooks
Tom Nowak, CEO of Peterson Milla Hooks, the hospital’s advertising agency at the time, supplied the stats, and with them, a case history worth remembering. It’s another demonstration of how a slightly offbeat approach can generate favorable returns.