category / inspiration

Jan
10

Healthcare marketer tip: better questions for better branding and marketing

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Your healthcare brand is only as strong as the customers you create. The customers who you advance through your marketing beyond what they can do on their own, and beyond the reach of competitors.

One important key to unlocking this value is the power of a BETTER QUESTION. Obvious questions yield answers that are more affirming and validating. Better questions lead to new perspectives, new insights, new ideas. They provide answers that lead you to “wow, I never thought about that in this way before”,  ”never imagined they felt this way before”, “never imagined they looked at their world this way before”, “never imagined we could provide value along these lines before.”

Better questions help you to see, think, believe and then give you the power to act in new ways.  They’re questions that peel away at the outer layers of an issue to reveal new things about category, company, customer, connections and communication – to yield inspirational new insights and ideas.

Here are three tips to get to more provocative questions, and more inspiring answers:

1. Force new connections. It gets people out of the category and their comfort zone, but provides a frame of reference for them to relate back to.

2. Think short story. Ask a question that must be answered in the form of an elevator-like “short story”.

3. Personal instead of place. People have visions, values and feelings, places (organization’s) don’t. Make your questions personal.

Better questions lead to better brands, better marketing, better customers. Who then create better brands. And so it goes.

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Dec
09

Re-energizing a storied brand: Arnold Palmer

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Being able to help steer the future direction of the Arnold Palmer Brand is a dream assignment. Fortunately, that honor is ours.

Icing on the top of a really big cake that we’ve been enjoying since we started our work, was this front-page article in the 12/5 Ad Age – Arnold Palmer takes a swing at positioning his brand for the future.

There are few sports figures that have earned the level of respect and admiration that Arnold Palmer has. Beyond his achievements on the golf course, his brand has played a role in our daily lives for more than half a century.

When you meet Mr. Palmer and spend time with his team, and begin to talk with employees and business partners, you quickly come to understand why. And they relate back to some important principles:

• Timeless values and ideals never grow old. That’s why they’re timeless.

• The importance of an authentic and emotional, simple and repeatable story as a foundation for growth.

• Regardless of how compelling a story, quality products are ultimately critical to success.

• While considering new ways to surprise and delight customers, you must remain true to your original identity.

• Your brand is the cumulation of everything you say and do, no more and no less. Everything matters.

I truthfully can’t say enough about how special this experience has been. For many reasons. But at the end of the day, what really blows us away, is how humble and kind the people are at Arnold Palmer Enterprises. And as usual, this tone emanates from the top. Good life lessons.

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Dec
01

Fresh views for healthcare marketers: Masters of Marketing conference

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The 2011 ANA Masters of Marketing conference brought together more than 1,700 marketers and marketing service firms to share in the year’s official theme — growth. Forrester Blogs has provided a good “cliff notes” version of the conference, which you can find here.

Despite the somewhat cautious tone of many speakers, the CMOs delivering growth are doing so by demonstrating enterprisewide leadership. Three strong examples, very relevant for healthcare marketers, were from:

• Stephen Quinn, VP and CMO at Walmart, who talked about leading like your customer is your boss.

• Esther Lee, senior VP of brand marketing and advertising at AT&T who talked about leadership beyond the marketing department.

• And Jon Iwata, senior VP of marketing and communications at IBM who talked about leading by building corporate character.

Easy to relate these three examples back to the need for an expanded enterprisewide leadership role for the healthcare CMO…

• Customer as boss. Disruptive technologies (access to information, influencers, communities, grades, reviews, wait times…), new business models, alternative care options, etc, translate to an empowered customer, not a captive patient.

• Leadership beyond marketing. Consider how much brand value is enhanced or destroyed based on the customer experience, pre-during-post care, across the organization’s many access points. This evolves the role of marketing to impact brand-led culture, experience design and operationalization.

• Leading by building corporate character. What’s your bigger envisioned place in the world, beyond that of (obvious) community health provider. The “core energizing idea” that resonates with, inspires and aligns employees and customers. As CMO, help to create the platform that continuously works to move both customer and organization forward in more meaningful ways.

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Jul
29

Insight for health brand marketers: inspiring action through “why”

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People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

This is Simon Sinek’s simple, smart idea presented through his TED talk: How great leaders inspire action. He calls his idea the ‘golden circle.” And it explains why some leaders and companies are able to inspire while others are not. It’s a concept that can’t really be boiled down to it’s essentials any further. But its value is big.

All companies know what they do. Most can identify how they do it. But far fewer (like Virgin, Harley Davidson, Six Senses, Innocent, Lululemon – my examples) can really identify why they do it – articulating why they really do what they do.

And “why” reflects how people make decisions (within their limbic brain, which controls our feelings) supported with the information (the “hows and whats”) people need to know to make them.

Simon’s ideas can just as effectively be applied to brand-building. And in some cases, might effectively replace the vision and mission statements which tend to sit and collect dust on corporate shelves.

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Jul
05

Tips for creating successful health brand marketing partnerships

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Though outside the health industry, this article by Gary Leopold of ISM which appears in MediaPost’s Marketing:travel – Playing With Partners: Some Rules of The Game – provides eight important considerations for creating successful co-brand partnerships.

These include:

• shared purpose and objectives
• shared strategies
• shared risk
• collaborate and support each other
• responsive to each other
• invest appropriate resources
• negotiate and work in good faith
• measure results and seek continuous improvement

Read the full article here. Any comments to share?

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Jun
23

Is healthcare marketing in need of new energy?

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High-energy brands share similar characteristics:

• strong and compelling visions
• central energizing ideas
• brand-centric cultures
• ability to link businesses and stakeholders
• drive shareholder value

And this energy shines through in their marketing. To marketing that is far more meaningful beyond messaging alone. Marketing that in and of itself adds value to people’s lives and that at the same time unlocks the real differentiating value of their brand. To marketing with energizing differentiation.

Healthcare, given its importance in people’s lives, has a real opportunity to up its marketing game. But this begins with acknowledging that communities and prospective patients don’t really care about the narrow view of what you have to offer. But they care deeply about their broader view of what you can do for them.

So beyond marketing messaging, consider additional ways to deliver what your audiences really want. Being the focus of their interest – instead of the interruption (by focusing on your hospital, service lines, procedures or technologies) – you’re much more likely to succeed.

Change the frame and look through your customer’s lens:

• consider their vision rather than yours
• their desire for participation vs. your desire for attention
• their aspirations vs. your functional benefits
• their desire to engage by doing vs. your selling
• their desire for community vs. your focus on the transaction
• wrapped in the most individualized, differentiating and branded experience you can provide

Competitors can copy much of the functional things that reside within your hospital, but they can’t copy your organization’s unique brand energy. This is your most sustainable competitive advantage.

If you truly look at the world from your customer’s pov, you’ll be surprised at all the different creative ways you can provide them with information they can use, with knowledge not easily gained elsewhere, and opportunities exclusive to their relationship with you.

Every year, Ad Age comes out with their list of the worlds Top 100 marketers. I look forward to the day when a healthcare marketer makes it to this list!

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Apr
22

Inspiration for creating new health brand energy

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You can create health brand energy, and new customer value, in many different ways.

You can do things instead of saying things. Empower people rather than control them. Engage them in dialogue instead of delivering a monologue. Create a community rather than focus on transactions.

Easy enough to say this, but you still need inspiration and fresh insights to make it happen. And there are many places to look.

Here are seven “ignition starters” (beyond the obvious one of Customer Insights) to help you see things differently and create new value for your customers and your organization:

1. Market Insights
2. Purchase & Experience Insights
3. Usage & Experience Insights
4. Brand Idea Insights
5. Cultural Insights
6. Future Insights
7. Outside Category/Role Model Insights

Are there others to add to this list?

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Apr
15

Health brand insight: innocent’s recipe for success

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Make it easy for people to do themselves some good. And to make it taste nice too.

Thus begins the story of three guys who quit their day jobs in 1998 to make smoothies. Who today, zealously lead an innocent brand continuing to deliver interest, excitement and more relevancy to people’s lives by getting natural, healthy food and drink to as many people as possible.

Look beyond the cover of the innocent story and you see what makes them so special:

It begins with their name. innocent reflects the fact that their drinks are always completely pure, fresh and unadulterated. It’s simple, full of honest and healthy meaning and easy to remember.

Standing for something. Simple, strong, meaningful. And the basis for every single decision the company makes, and doesn’t make. Starting with a purpose of “make food good.” A long term vision of becoming “the earth’s favourite little food company. One core principle around which they base all their decisions “create a business we can be proud of”, supported by five simple values: “be natural, entrepreneurial, responsible, commercial, generous.”

Relevant brand story. Distinctive, real, light-hearted and highly meaningful. Brilliantly, meticulously and seamlessly delivered across all aspects of the business (both inside and outside).

Exceptional, coherent customer experience. From cow vans, to playful packages, to fruitstock music festival to the big knit to raise money to Help the Aged, among other things, innocent delivers a distinctive, powerful and true customer experience.

Passionate Leadership. innocent leaders embrace the brand, in fact “are the brand”, and work zealously to deliver what it promises through their own behavior.

Cult-Like Culture. The people at innocent go to great lengths to protect the DNA of their brand. Unique rites and rituals reflect this. As do employee hiring practices and rewards, separated (in a uniquely innocent way), into two pots: the important stuff and the nice stuff.

Staffing. With marketing people who are really into their products. innocent isn’t a job for these people, it’s a lifestyle.

Importantly, the glue that holds consumers, company, brand and products together is that innocent reflects a healthier, happier, fun lifestyle. It’s a point-of-view that continually opens up opportunities for the company to play more of an important role in customers lives. And ultimately, for both innocent and customers to grow stronger together.

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Apr
01

Health brand marketing: when media and creative become one

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Not being able to distinguish where your health brand creative stops and the media begins.

The smart brand just kicked off a new campaign developed by BBDO Berlin revolving around travelling together in a car, which is designed just for couples, trying something new and being unique.

The tagline of smart’s advertising push, which was launched across multiply media, is ‘smart fortwo—A big idea for…’ which mirrors the light-hearted and adventurous nature of the brand.

The important takeaway about this campaign, exemplary of the local posting above, is that creative and media tend to be seamless. It’s hard to tell where the creative stops and the media begins.

Consider that the most innovative and compelling ideas to drive business forward might actually be the result of a 50%/50% partnership between creative and media teams. Where they’re working collaboratively from the start to bring to life strategy and tactics.

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Mar
21

Inspiration for health marketers: Polaroid and Apple

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“You always start with the fantasy.”

These are the words of Edwin Land, inventor of the polarizing filter and the Polaroid Land Camera. They’re from a good article over at Fast Company – Polaroid and Apple: Innovation Through Mental Invention. The article is excerpted from a new book written by Erik Calonius called Ten Steps Ahead: What Separates Successful Business Visionaries From the Rest of Us.

When “visualizing” the elements of the instant camera (in the time span of about one hour), Land stated that “you always start with a fantasy. Part of the fantasy technique is to visualize something as perfect. Then with experiments you work back from the fantasy to reality, hacking away at the components.”

40 years later, Lands agreed to meet with Steve Jobs (who idolized Land), with John Sculley sitting off to the side. When describing the Polaroid camera, Land said “I could see what it should be.” It was just as real to me as if it were sitting in front of me before I had ever built one.” Jobs responded “yeah, that’s exactly the way I saw the Macintosh.”

Later, when driving home, Jobs told Sculley, “It’s like when I walk into a room and I want to talk about a product that hasn’t been invented yet. I can see it as if it’s sitting there right in the center of the table. It’s like what I’ve got to do is materialize it and bring it to life–harvest it just like Dr. Land said.”

Sculley drove on, stunned. “Both of them had this ability to–well, not invent products, but discover products,” he wrote later. “Both of them said these products have always existed, it’s just that no one had ever seen them before. We were the ones who discovered them.”

I like the idea of starting with the future perfect picture of something, then working backwards and deconstructing it to make it a reality. Now I’m trying to think of health-focused products and services that might have been brought to life this way. Any ideas?

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