Healthy Conversations
Imagining & Creating New Value For Health Brands & Consumers

We’ve had a number of similar client conversations over the past few months. They begin something like this: We feel like we have far too many brands in our portfolio. More than we can probably support. Every time someone introduces a new service, it becomes another “brand” with another logo.

The truth is, not all programs and services are created equal. Not all are “brand/logo worthy.” Particularly in this economic environment, energy and resources must be focused on supporting those health services that best align with vision and business strategy, build strategic and financial value back to the organization, and meet customer/stakeholder current and future needs.

Here are our seven portfolio “P”s that you can begin to use to evaluate and strengthen your healthcare portfolio:

Purpose. Do each of your brands reflect your strategic vision, business goals and strategies
Perspective. What story is the portfolio telling from a customer perspective
Place. Do each of the brands in the portfolio have a clearly defined role; are relationships clear; is there sufficient separation between them
Potential. How do your different brands contribute to building strategic advantage, and to current and future growth and profitability
Performance. Do you sufficiently cover the market given the needs of your priority audiences
Potency. Does market attractiveness (size and potential growth) merit investment
Pink Slips. For those brands that don’t meet this criteria, what is our plan for phasing them out

Have I missed any “P”s?

According to a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, CEOs value “creativity” as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.

That’s creativity—not operational effectiveness, influence, or even dedication. Coming out of the worst economic downturn in their professional lifetimes, when managerial discipline and rigor ruled the day, this indicates a remarkable shift in attitude. Until now, creativity has generally been viewed as fuel for the engines of research or product development, not the essential leadership asset that must permeate an enterprise.

As they step back and reassess, CEOs have seized upon creativity as the necessary element for enterprises that must reinvent their customer relationships and achieve greater operational dexterity. In face-to-face interviews with IBM consultants, they said creative leaders do the following:

• Disrupt the status quo. Every company has legacy products that are both cash—and sacred—cows. Often the need to perpetuate the success of these products restricts innovation within the enterprise, creating a window for competitors to advance competing innovations. As CEOs tell us that fully one-fifth of revenues will have to come from new sources, they are recognizing the requirement to break with existing assumptions, methods, and best practices.

• Disrupt existing business models. CEOs who select creativity as a leading competency are far more likely to pursue innovation through business model change. In keeping with their view of accelerating complexity, they are breaking with traditional strategy-planning cycles in favor of continuous, rapid-fire shifts and adjustments to their business models.

• Disrupt organizational paralysis. Creative leaders fight the institutional urge to wait for completeness, clarity, and stability before making decisions. To do this takes a combination of deeply held values, vision, and conviction—combined with the application of such tools as analytics to the historic explosion of information. These drive decisionmaking that is faster, more precise, and even more predictable.

Taken together, these recommendations describe a shift toward corporate cultures that are far more transparent and entrepreneurial. They are cultures imbued with the belief that complexity poses an opportunity, rather than a threat. They hold that risk is to be managed, not avoided, and that leaders will be rewarded for their ability to build creative enterprises with fluid business models, not absolute ones.

While “image” used to sell, and ads used to be at the center of the marketing universe, today’s playbook is driven by the idea of actions speaking louder than words. The most important question to ask of your brand is what can be its place in people’s lives?

The challenge ahead for brands is to maintain their relevancy in a world in which marketing is no longer a spectator sport, but rather one that is involving, dynamic, authentic and interactive. Where the brand-customer relationship is one that increasingly resembles two close friends growing together, looking out for each other and helping each other succeed.

Here are six strategies important for growing healthier and more prosperous brands (and customers). The common denominator is that each of these practices add value to the lives of their audiences (as you’ll note from my health brand examples). In turn, audiences add their own value back to the brand. And both grow healthier and more prosperous.

1. From assembling followers to growing participants (PatientsLikeMe)
2. From capturing customers to liberating them (Teavana)
3. From making claims to creating experiences (Walgreens Take Care Clinics)
4. From generating transactions to growing communities (P&G’s BeingGirl.com)
5. From innovation silo to group think (Sermo online physician community)
6. From hiding behind the curtain to transparency (Marty Bonick, CEO Jewish Hospital, Kentucky)

Do you have comments you’d like to share? Other brand examples you can share?

I wrote a post last month about PatientsLikeMe, a wonderful organization dedicated to making a difference in the lives of patients diagnosed with life-changing diseases after they were recognized by Fast Company as #2 on the list of the top ten most innovative healthcare companies. 

It was co-founded by Ben and Jamie Heywood after their brother Stephen (who has since passed away) was diagnosed with ALS. At it’s core, it is “an ingenious website where people share and track data on their illnesses – and where the collective data has enormous power to comfort, explain and predict.”

Here’s a video of a talk by Jamie last October at TED. It’s about his brother, their company, the community they’re building/have built, and the possibilities for the future. Above all else, it’s a wonderful and inspiring story.

As part of our “Insider Insights” series, I feature the personal perspective of a health brand CEO, senior marketer, digital or social media expert. I’m pleased to have Lee Aase, manager of Syndication and Social Media for Mayo Clinic, as this month’s participant.

Here’s what Lee has to say about the future of health brands and social media:

1. The organizations and brands that will thrive in the future are those that…

Are trustworthy and transparent with key stakeholders, whether they be employees or customers or patients. In this regard, social media will be a force for good because it enables open communication. When organizations don’t treat people well, word will get around even faster than in the past. In the broadcast era, companies could buy gross tonnage of advertising to try to buy a consumer perception, and if they managed media relations skillfully they could pitch positive stories about their organizations to journalists.

There’s still some place for that in the conversational era, but it will be decreasingly effective.

On the positive side, if organizations provide a fantastic, remarkable experience to most customers, social media will enable that word to spread more quickly, too.

2. Specific to social media, how has it impacted the way your organization conducts business?

Social media enable Mayo Clinic to provide in-depth information to patients and consumers, with little production cost and virtually no distribution cost. We can talk in depth about relatively obscure medical conditions, for example, without worrying about turning off the mass audience. The new market has now been called “a mass of niches” and through social media tools we can provide the specialized information people crave, particularly when they’re facing a major medical issue.

We also are much more able to listen, both internally to employees and externally to patients and consumers, and to have discussions with them. This gives us great opportunities to learn and improve.

3. What are the key challenges your organization is grappling with as it considers participation?

We’re pretty well along the road to participation, so now we’re into the phase of seeing how we can incorporate social media into everything we do, and making all of our communications more conversational. It’s really an exciting time now. Early on, we had some understandable organizational trepidation about these tools, but as we understood that social media are just the way word of mouth happens in the 21st century, and that word of mouth has been the most important factor in building Mayo Clinic’s reputation for more than 100 years, we knew we needed to engage. And as we have had positive feedback we’ve been able to extend our social media presence even further.

4. What are your top lessons learned for implementing a social media strategy?

Don’t let strategy become an excuse for inaction. Often organizations wait to become involved in social media until they have thought through every imaginable scenario, and that’s fine, to a point. But too frequently they go way beyond due diligence to a social media form of hypochondria or paranoia.

Realize that if your organization is worth talking about, people are already discussing you online, so it would behoove you to join the conversation. And if you’re not being discussed online, that’s actually worse: it means you’re irrelevant, not worth talking about. That’s all the more reason to get engaged.

Social media are just another way of communicating, and are cheaper and more cost-effective than traditional means. In a twist on the defense department supercomputer’s line in the Matthew Broderick movie, “War Games,” I would say the only way to lose is not to play. It’s great to think about strategy in using social media, just as it’s appropriate to have a strategy for use of the telephone. For example, you may ask whether you will have a voice mail system or whether every call will be answered by a real person, or whether you will have a toll-free number for incoming calls. But it would be extremely odd for a company to decide it wasn’t going to install phones until it had its complete strategy decided.

So by all means, give a little thought to creating a potential growth path for social media in your organization, but don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The sales trainer Zig Ziglar used to say that if you wait until all the lights are on green before you leave the house, you’ll never get out of the driveway. If you spend any money to communicate with employees or customers, why wouldn’t you take advantage of free tools that help you do it better?

I’m using this blog post to recognize the significant accomplishments of a Trajectory client, and to share how this organization has radically challenged convention and expectation to re-energize both its audiences and the organization itself.

Alpha Chi Omega is a national women’s organization represented in 40 states, with more than 200,000 members who join during their undergraduate college years and hopefully, remain members for the rest of their lives.

This past week, following our rebranding of the organization, ACO launched its new website. This was the final step in bringing its Real. Strong. Women. brand promise to life. In so doing, it changed the game for its members. And for the organization itself.

The new site changes the paradigm of the online experience for this forward thinking sorority to strengthen interactions, connections and conversations among its members. Its design, content and functionality offers both an information portal and community hub, further delivering on its promise to change the conversation for all Alpha Chi Omega women.

Among its many features, the site can be personalized to each Alpha Chi Omega member’s needs and interests by implementing a customizable platform within a sub site, My Alpha Chi. This is a major step forward for the organization, as the site is now relevant to all members regardless of lifestage or lifestyle. Other features of My Alpha Chi include:

• Starting Conversations – Alpha Chi Omega’s Blog
• Real Strong Woman of the Month – Stories of Alpha Chi Omegas who are making a difference.
• AX! Message Boards – Discuss issues whether Alpha Chi Omega or not.
• The Lyre Online – Top stories from The Lyre magazine.
• Connect with Alpha Chi –Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Flickr, LinkedIn and YouTube.

From the time that we had our first conversation with Alpha Chi Omega, they talked about two things. First, changing how women think and act about the idea of sorority. Second, changing the expectation of how a sorority will thrive, and be defined in the future. Their last major step in this journey is now complete. And for that, we congratulate this game-changing organization.

The goal of any organization is to create sustainable competitive differentiation, by providing to customers what they value and want in ways that others can’t. One way to beat the competition, according to Kim and Mauborgne in their book Blue Ocean Strategy, is to stop trying to beat the competition. Instead, create uncontested market space to create and capture new demand. Thereby making the competition irrelevant.

The classic example of creating a blue ocean (referenced in their book) is Cirque du Soleil. From a group of 20 street performers in 1984, Cirque is now a major artistic entertainment company delighting almost 90 million spectators a year. The company looked at traditional circus acts like Ringling Brothers and transformed them into “Broadway meets artistic music and dance” experiences. While increasing customer value and ticket prices, they simultaneously eliminated the largest cost items of the circus, including the star performers and animal shows.

The driving forces for creating blue oceans should be apparent. Across categories, we’re presented with more supply than we could possibly demand. Global competition. More information at our fingertips. Too many brands that look, sound and function in similar ways.

This is the situation in healthcare. Many systems and hospitals are indistinguishable. And organizational-wide initiatives that focus on the safety, service and care of patients (functional benefits) do little to distinguish one hospital from another, as these are table stake improvements that all organizations focus on. Healthcare marketing practices don’t help distinguish either – as communications and outreach also tend to look and sound a lot alike.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. Every healthcare organization can create its own blue ocean. Because here’s the thing. It’s not carved in stone that blue ocean must equate to creating uncontested market space. Creating a stronger competitive position can be, and in many instances is, a more realistic agenda. Particularly in a down economy where companies need to do more with less. The size of the ocean doesn’t matter as much as the re-energizing and differentiating value it provides to customers.

The Blue Ocean book offers powerful tools for building a blue ocean strategy. One of them is the Four Action Framework, which guides companies in evaluating what factors they can possibly eliminate, reduce, raise and create:

In the case of healthcare systems and hospitals, consider these factors in the context of how the players in your market tend to compete and how customers choose their providers. Think broadly about all of the elements that make up your value proposition (e.g. product, service and delivery). Look across:
• strategic segments that exist within your market
• different customer groups, e.g. influencers, users, purchasers (including employees)
• the scope, and delivery, of your product and service offerings (across the buyer experience)
• the rational-emotional appeals to buyers
• the trends that affect customers and business over time, etc.
• alternative industries (great stimulus for seeing and thinking differently)

Looking at these factors with a fresh and unbiased perspective, cross-functionally across the entire organization can unlock innovation that creates stronger market space for your healthcare system or hospital and new value for communities, patients, families, providers and partners. In healthcare, these innovations tend to come down to either clinical care (product) or providing care (service). Most likely, given that product is easily replicated over time (e.g. new machines, treatments), these innovations will likely reflect better ways to serve, and enhance the experience of being, a patient.

The starting point, however, must be your brand promise. You need this focus in order to create innovations true to who you are and how you’re perceived, and that employees and providers are aligned around and equipped to deliver.

Here are a few examples of healthcare organizations that have created their blue oceans. The key point to remember is that the size of the ocean doesn’t matter as much as the re-energizing and differentiating value you provide to customers.

• Mayo Clinic Health Manager; a free tool that creates the ability for people to easily manage their families health online.
• HelloHealth; a new company mixing office and online visits to give people personal attention from their neighborhood doctor when and how they want it.
• Parrish Medical Center in Titusville, FL., who chose to compete to improve their culture and the engagement of its employees (who worked together to eliminate over $7 million in hospital costs).
• Highmark, a Pennsylvania insurer who rolled out the nation’s first prepaid gift card designed specifically for healthcare expenses.
• InstyMeds™, the health care industry’s first fully automated ATM-style dispenser of prescription medications.

I was in Atlanta for a long weekend. A couple blocks away from my hotel was one of my favorite places to visit, a Whole Foods. I love the sights, colors, smells, products, stories and merchandising.

So I just stopped by their website, which I haven’t been to in a while. And front and center there’s a new iPhone recipes app. It lets you filter by:

• categories such as budget, cooking with kids and quick and easy
• target special diets, including gluten-free, lowfat and vegetarian/vegan
• find recipes that use ingredients you already have via a search feature

You can also use the store locator to find the Whole Foods Market locations near you, or search by ZIP code.

What’s cool about this is that Whole Foods lets you create your own
Personal Brand Application (PBA) that travels with you wherever you are. It’s a virtual assistant that delivers unique value to customers 24/7.

My takeaway about their PBA:

• Brand actions speak louder than words. And this application helps customers do things, and achieve things, that they couldn’t do on their own.
• The benefits that the PBA provides extends Whole Foods value beyond other “grocer brands” to that of a healthy lifestyle brand.
• Given this, Whole Foods now has “permission” to explore even more ways to deliver value to customers in the future.
• I’ve written a lot about trust, and how it’s one of the most enduring and important competitive advantages a brand will own into the future. The PBA is an inherent trust-builder, as Whole Foods now becomes integral to helping people live healthier lives.

So how can you create your own PBA to engage and empower customers? How can you think creatively about providing value to customers beyond others in ways that move both customers, and your brand, forward?

Not all products and services are created equal. Not all deserve “brand” status. Particularly in this environment, where resources are scarce and need to be laser-like focused on customer satisfaction.

Some brands might not meet customers’ important unmet needs, be able to meet revenue or profit goals or no longer support your business strategy. Identifying opportunities to trim portfolio fat turns up more resource to support those brands that are both strategically and financially the most important to the company (and your consumers).

Your portfolio goals should be to create:
• the optimal number of brands in line with business strategy
• each with a clearly defined role
• that work together to support one another
• grow value back to the company and shareholders
• and make it easy for customers to navigate and purchase their desired products

In an environment in which you have more to do with less, here are some questions that brand owners need to be asking:
Principle. What is the organizing principle of the portfolio
Perspective. What story is the portfolio telling from a customer perspective
Place. Do each of the brands in the portfolio have a clearly defined role; is there sufficient separation between the company offerings
Positioning. Which of your brands is best positioned for growth
Profit. How do our different brands contribute to profitability
Potential. Which offer future economic potential; and does market attractiveness (size and potential growth) merit investment
Performance. Do you sufficiently cover the market and target customer segments, with the fewest brands possible
Possibilities. Which brands are more firmly positioned for future growth

Answers to these questions (which really come down to relative brand strength and market attractiveness) should lead to the following actions:
• shut down weakest outcast brands
• rationalize overlapping brands
• push sleeper brands to realize full potential
• defend power brands that are strategically and financially important
• launch or acquire brands to fill gaps