Though most consumers are bombarded with advertising messages every day, there's one advertising image that is getting them to listen. A service line campaign from WakeMed Health & Hospitals in Raleigh, NC, has taken a different approach to speaking with consumers. Instead of using doctors or other medical professionals, the campaign is using an object that each and every patient is close to--their heart.
WakeMed is located in a very competitive healthcare market and needed a way to differentiate itself from the heavy marketing messages of the competitors. With their agency Craig Jackson & Partners in Chapel Hill, NC, and some feedback from their employees, the 'Listen to your heart' campaign with 'Heart Guy', was born.
The campaign primarily focused its efforts in TV and radio, though there were some tries at print and outdoor as well. The TV images show an animated heart with a sort of New Yorker voice and charm, according to Deb Laughery, vice president of public relations for WakeMed.
The spots start out with Heart Guy calling out to the consumers by asking if he can have a heart-to-heart with them. It goes on to tell them the risks of not listening to your heart and follows with a call to action for WakeMed. What makes the campaign so effective is that the campaign message is clear, and the mannerisms and speech from the heart are attention-grabbing and direct--in a very non-threatening sort of way.
"We wanted him to come across in a way that would be a little bit different and that would get attention. He's a more human, lighthearted way of presenting a very serious subject," Laughery says.
The campaign was effective in growing market share but most importantly it opened up doors for future endeavors. "Because the concept is so different it has a lot of legs and we will definitely expand on it," says Laughery. "We actually have already started a new concept. Heart Guy now has a friend, the brain, who is going to talk to consumers about reducing the risk of stroke."
Kandace McLaughlin is an editor with HealthLeaders magazine. Send her Campaign Spotlight ideas at kmclaughlin@healthleadersmedia.com If you are a marketer submitting a campaign on behalf of your facility or client, please ensure you have permission before doing so.
Next week I'll be reporting from a physician strategies conference in Los Angeles. If I have time, I'd like to immerse myself in the beautiful setting and inspiring art at the Getty Center and then climb aboard a minibus to take the tackiest tour of the stars' homes available for the pure campy fun of it. But what does my disparate taste in leisure activities have to do with physician relations? Everything.
Dealing with physicians is quite possibly the most complicated function the modern healthcare marketer will ever undertake. The model itself is simple: Patients don't tend to walk into hospitals out of the blue. They come because their physician told them to. And although patients are the reason hospitals are in business, physicians are what keep hospitals in business. The bottom line is that physicians have a huge impact on, well, the bottom line.
But after that it gets a little more complicated.
For example, to keep physicians happy, you have to understand what they want and need and then make sure they get it. Sounds simple enough. But actually figuring out what all those different physicians--each with unique personalities, business models, and personal lives--want? And then delivering it? That's a mite more complicated.
Some doctors want networking opportunities in the form of cocktail parties, others want more time on the dirt bike trail, others want to be involved with decisions from business planning to reducing the hospital's carbon footprint. Before they'll relocate, some physicians want to know what neighborhoods have the best schools, while others want to make sure their spouses don't divorce them for moving to the middle of nowhere.
A physician relations rep has to be part event planner, part lifestyle coach, part real estate agent, and part marriage counselor. It's kind of like being a travel agent to the kind of tourist who wants both the culture of the Getty and the camp of the walk of fame.
Some of the things that make referring physicians most happy are difficult to provide. Some surgeons are shopping for the best-run operating room in town and a schedule that makes life easier, while others want to have their pet piece of technology. It's one thing to make sure the OR schedule is flexible and fair, quite another to buy the latest high-ticket medical device because one neurologist demands it.
Add financier and diplomat to the long list of skills required to keep physicians happy.
And even the No. 1 thing that referring physicians want--information about their patients and what's going on at the hospital--is fraught with complications. Some physicians want portals and Web sites and electronic health records, others complain that you no longer phone or fax their office with updates.
Now you have to be a member of the Geek Squad, too.
And I haven't even mentioned those physicians who are secretly dreaming of opening up an imaging center three blocks away from you.
They say you can't please all of the people all of the time. But, believe it or not, I found a full-day tour that hits the stars' homes, the Hollywood sign, Graumann's Chinese Theatre, and the Getty. Maybe it's not that difficult after all.
The Detroit Medical Center's Board of Trustees has made several conciliatory moves to try to resolve a $12-million dispute with Wayne State University's School of Medicine over physician pay. WSU representatives said they would need to cut physicians and staff, and possibly eliminate entire programs, if the dispute was not settled.
In an unofficial vote, residents of a condominium complex have supported selling their homes to Seattle-based Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center. The board of the 136-unit Laurelon Terrace condominiums have presented Children's with a tentative deal to sell the six-acre complex to the hospital for $93 million. Children's Hospital has been buying individual units with an eye toward using the site for future expansion, but the new deal would let the hospital expand onto the site sooner.
The DeKalb County (GA) Commission has approved an agreement linked to a shift in management at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. The unanimous vote is key to a management restructuring at the hospital, and is expected to bring hundreds of millions of extra dollars to Grady.
For the second time, an Illinois legislative panel has rejected Gov. Rod Blagojevich's request to allow 147,000 parents and caretakers to buy discounted health insurance through the state's FamilyCare program. Officials with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services said they have enrolled an additional 3,300 people in the program since defying the panel's first rejection.
Speaking on Capitol Hill, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick told Congress that the Bush administration has made it virtually impossible to expand health insurance coverage to more moderate-income children, and has asked lawmakers to intervene. Patrick accused the administration of essentially reneging on its commitment to let the state cover families with incomes up to $52,800 for a family of three. Under the guidelines, the income limit is $44,000.
Five makers of orthopedic implants paid more than $221 million to surgeon "consultants" in 2007, according to a U.S. Senate committee. Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat who is chairman of the committee, has proposed legislation that would mandate disclosure of consulting payments by medical-device makers and drug companies. The Advanced Medical Technology Association said it "supported the concept of disclosure" but would like changes to the legislation in order to protect legitimate payments to surgeons.
Shares of hospital operator Tenet Healthcare Corp. rose sharply after the company said its fourth-quarter loss was much smaller than a year prior and posted its first increase in patient admissions in nearly four years. Tenet also said it is collecting more money per admitted patient. The company has been plagued by falling admissions for several years as many doctors sent their patients to other providers. To reverse the trend, Tenet has raised spending on equipment and aggressively courted doctors, boosting the number of physicians on its hospital admitting staffs 2 percent in the fourth quarter.
Brokerage firms and a group of hospitals are urging federal securities regulators to allow those who issued debt to buy it in hopes of preventing failed auctions. A group of 14 hospitals and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association have sent letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission urging the agency to permit such a move with assurance that it wouldn't constitute market manipulation.
