Everything starts with the desire to be more than you are today. Holds true for your healthcare organization. And your customer’s.

– You want to be a stronger brand. They want to be stronger individuals.

– You want to be more skilled in what you deliver. They want to be able to accomplish more than they can on their own.

– You want to be a better employer. They want to be a better parent, sister, brother, individual.

– You want to leave a legacy. So do they.

Think more deeply about your opportunity. And theirs. The intersection is where magic can happen.

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.

We presented to the Board of a healthcare system client last week. We’re rebranding the organization and were reporting on our Discovery and initial Strategy direction.

To provide context for our presentation we opened with a few slides titled “Great Brands.” This cross-functional senior team, comprised of employees and community members, don’t spend much time thinking about the “b” word, so we wanted to make sure we were all on the same page from the outset of our session.

They found the slides extremely revealing as they challenged their beliefs about brands. As a result, it widened their lens and provided a much richer (and rewarding) picture of their opportunity. Expanding on the few opening slides…

Great Brands bridge brand strategy and business strategy. Using brand to differentiate organizations, products and services to maximize their value and potential – by managing all of the tangibles and intangibles that surround these offerings – successfully achieved when championed by the CEO, embraced by leadership and lived by every stakeholder.

Great Brands create relationship and financial value inside and outside the organization. They create relationship value internally by impacting recruitment and retention, staff connection and commitment, pride in the organization and confidence in the future. Externally, they enhance community health status, influence consumer choice and build loyalty, create leverage by attracting partners, enhancing relationships and allowing the organization to seize new opportunities.

They create financial value internally by optimizing marketing/spend resources, enhancing future cash flows and bond rating and promoting coherent and efficient brand management. Externally, brands influence service volumes, donor attraction and contribution, capital fundraising and higher revenue procedures.

Great Brands are built on a foundation wider and deeper than brand positioning. They are nurtured with connecting Stories, shaped by shared Values, guided by Promises, expressed by way of their Positioning and Personality, and succintly captured through their Tagline.

Great Brands know that actions speak louder than words.  To talk only of their “campaigns” diminishes their opportunity to help communities, patients and ultimately the organization itself grow stronger.  An easy example is Nike + iPod which gives you feedback while you record your run or workout and then lets you track your progress.

In short, great brands provide the energy that drive your communities, patients and organizations forward.

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.

Key takeaways:

• new social operating system: networked individualism

• impacts include: “second opinions, allies and complements for care delivery, providers assessed and judged in public ways”

• empowered and engaged: 61% getting health info on line, 29% contributing, 19% consult rankings/reviews of providers and hospitals

• relevancy of mobile: 63% of adults, 50% have apps on phone, 29% have mobile health apps

• searching for health: 48% for others, 36% for self

• affecting decisions: 60% say information found online affected decision about how to treat, 56% say it changed overall approach to maintaining their health, 53% say it lead to ask doctor new questions, 49% say it changed the way they think about diet, exercise, stress management, 38% say it affected decision to see a doctor

• three levels of physicians as “nodes” in e-patient communities: act as sentries, act as trusted/wise companion, act as helpful producers/enablers

• at the end of the day: 41% say they’ve been helped via online medical advice or information, 3% say they’ve been harmed

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.

Great article on mediapost.com – Fastest-Growing Brands Are Ideal-Driven. It recaps the research conducted by Millward Brown and Jim Stengel, former global marketing officer of P&G.

It seems that the common denominator across the 50 brands showing the fastest growth both in depth of customer relationships and financial value between 2000 and 2010 is that they’ve been built on an ideal of improving lives in some way.

By “ideal, they’re referring to a “higher-order” purpose or benefit that the company/brand seeks to contribute to the world, with this purpose being the central driver and determinant of all of its strategies, decisions and actions.

Health and well-being brands that made the top 50 list include:
• Dove (personal care)
• Innocent (food and beverages)
• L’Occitane (personal care)
• Method (household cleaners and personal care)
• Natura (personal care)
• Pampers (baby care)
• Sensodyne (oral care)
• Seventh Generation (household cleaners and personal care)
• Stonyfield Farm (organic dairy products)

Health brands – which at their core exist to make lives better – should own more places on this Top 50 list. It starts with finding your energy. Stepping back and reconsidering your story and the big idea that defines you. Your more heroic purpose. And then letting your actions follow from these beliefs. Which ultimately become a platform for customers (and your brand’s) continuous growth.

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.

The cover article is ten brands to watch in 2001. And the sub-head reads Brand Marketing picks the consumer products and services most likely to make an impact this year. It’s their top picks for the biggest potential newsmakers. Not necessarily the most successful, but those judged to make the biggest impact.

Here they are. Hot off the presses (so to speak), with summary rationale for their inclusion on this list:

1. amazon.com – given its diversity beyond books, personalizing the on-line experience and strong bent on customer service. Truth be told, I’m a big fan.

2. america online – having just acquired Time Warner, the 23 million subscriber company was trying to vault ahead in the multimedia world. FYI, it’s subscriber base (as of 6/10), was 4.4 million.

3. AT&T – which was just breaking up (again) in 2001, splitting into four companies (business long-distance, consumer long-distance, wireless and broadband) and introducing it’s new Boundless ad campaign. Is it’s equity any clearer today?

4. hillary clinton – just having inked an $8 million deal to write her White House memoir, her new appointment as U.S. senator from New York and being hailed as one of the political brands with the greatest potential to impact the country.

5. firestone – once one of the most venerable brands in the tire business, was actually fighting for survival given the deaths that were linked to alleged failures of its tires. Some speculated that it wouldn’t survive the year. It did.

6. napster – was responsible (operative word being “was”), for 150 million downloads a month.

7. nokia – was the world’s largest maker of wireless handsets, and for several years “has been focusing on how consumers actually use the devices after realizing that they were moving from pure functionality into design and fashion.” Funny reading this now.

8. onstar – the 600k drivers of GM vehicles who were already subscribers has new increased tenfold to six million.

9. revlon – things were looking bleak in 2001, following a decade-long decline that witnessed some fuzzy and dated imagery around the brand.

10. xfl – remember this upstart league brand (backed by WWF Entertainment) that was going to challenge the dominance of the NFL? probably not, as they played one season on 2001.

To paraphrase Walter Cronkite, “and that’s the way it was” back in 2001.

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.

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.

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.

Can we evolve healthcare marketing? Yes we can.

This was the topic of a recent talk of mine, which included five reinforcing themes.  As a foundation for these themes, it was agreed that whatever form of marketing you undertake, it needs to be:

• Grounded in truth: genuine to an organization’s story, values and ambition
• Relevant to audiences: in ways that are real and genuine
• Deliverable based on promises: able to be reinforced through the patient experience (which means deliverable across the organization)

The five themes included:

1. Wider Angle Lens: seeking out new inspiration and insight by looking in new places and making new connections. Understanding what truly drives and moves your audiences, and those who influence them. Identifying the customer strengths you enable, customer weaknesses you lessen, customer opportunities you can create and customer threats you can remove (yes…this is a SWOT analysis, but from your customer’s pov).

2. Creating New Brand Energy: thinking more holistically about how your brand can serve as the platform to move customers, and therefore your brand, forward. Thinking beyond transactions to creating relationships. Creating win-wins such that your organization and customers both grow stronger.

3. New Marketing Energy: creating marketing that has utility. Beyond communications to marketing that enables, involves and unifies. Consider the metaphor of a gear, where your organization’s teeth engage those of the customer and move them to a better place. Helping them do what they can’t on their own, beyond the reach of your competitors.

4.  Mass Customization: Leverage the unique strengths of some channels and mitigate the weaknesses of others. Use traditional to reach the masses (though can also target to discrete target segments), and digital/social to heighten relevance and utility to specific target populations. If Burger King let’s you have it your way, shouldn’t healthcare?

5. Synchronous Actions: Can the brand promises you make truly be delivered across the organization? Are all internal audiences (docs, nurses, staff, volunteers) aligned around a brand-led culture and able to deliver your uniquely branded experience? Be aware that every action sparks an equal reaction which either enhances or detracts from your desired perception. There’s a great native American saying – “it takes a thousand voices to tell a single story.”

Thoughts about this list? Others you’d add?

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.

Wishing everyone a fulfilling and prosperous 2012.

Here are some life/work tips (my humble opinion) that will make for a great year:

1. Be passionate. Everything starts with the desire to be more than you are today.

2. Have vision. All meaningful change begins here.

3. Keep your eyes wide open. Truly see everything that’s going on around you.

4. Good Company. Surround yourself with positive, and great, people.

5. Focus. You can’t be everything to everybody, but you can be invaluable to some.

6. Great everyday. Do something (it doesn’t have to be big) that truly makes a difference every day.

7. Follow-Through. Do what you say you’re going to do.

8. Get started. Take the first step.

Here’s to a great year!

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.

Are brand and marketing at the center of your healthcare organization’s attention? In this extraordinarily competitive and challenging healthcare environment, I’d suggest they should be.

This really came to light for me while meeting with a prospective client. Regardless of which way you looked out from the tenth floor of their offices, you’re in view of a competing healthcare provider. But beyond competition, there are a few other forces at play that lead to re-thinking the traditional siloed approach to marketing:

• Unlike other industries and organizations where employees are tightly aligned around their corporate brands, e.g. Whole Foods, Google, Zappos, to name just a few, healthcare brand and marketing delivery are often subject to the performance of dispersed, individual (often unemployed) care providers.

• Patient service revenues continue on the path of being generated outside the inpatient side of the business, calling for stronger operational integration and communication.

• The customer experience, so important to fostering longer-term relationships and enhancing overall brand value, is rarely informed and shaped by “marketing.”

• Customers are now co-steering your fate. They’ve evolved from passive receiver to active investigator and empowered influencer. They can access and interface with the organization through numerous channels. And they have new alternatives to traditional providers in terms of new upstarts, intermediaries, resources – changing the rules and redefining consumer value.

Given these forces, I’d suggest that brand and marketing management need to become a team sport. An organization-wide effort where brand and consumer are at the heart of business strategy. Where all are enabled and compelled to foster relationships (internally and between organization and community) and grow total enterprise value. And the marketing department just happens to be the hub of this collective effort. So…

• Tear down the walls (to paraphrase one of our President’s) to move brand and marketing to the center of the organization, and the CMO to the proverbial “table” alongside the other “O”s (Chief Operating, Financial, Nursing, Medical, HR, Quality…).

• Lead with brand as an organizing principle for the organization and as a basis for guiding business forward, beyond simply a brand-building communications function detached from strategy.

• Consider a broader definition of marketing to include the relationship-making or breaking patient experience. So regardless of what door someone enters your healthcare system, there are points of consistency in brand delivery.

• Work as a cross-functional team, with marketing as the linchpin, to create continuous value for the consumer. Value that is beyond marketing communication to marketing that involves, enables, and unifies.

• Align internal audiences around a common purpose (through the lens of your brand), so they make your mission their own.

Just some ideas to think about as you peer out your own “tenth floor” window. Wherever that might be.

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.

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.

Eric Brody is President of Trajectory, a New Jersey-based branding + marketing company creating new brand energy by uniting organizations, creating new value and igniting new growth.