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May. 2005

Six Strategies for Crafting 'Ethical' Hospital Advertising

Remember that the messages sent to the public through advertising reflect on the entire healthcare organization. It is not just the responsibility of the marketing department to pay attention to these issues. The buck stops at top leadership. To avoid potential pitfalls in healthcare advertising, be mindful of the priorities of your audience. Make them aware of what you offer, without suggesting that they need it. Don't promise what you can't deliver. That will hurt your brand immensely. Make the crafting of the advertising message an inclusive process involving those who design and deliver the care, marketing, and senior staff responsible for specific service lines.

Healthcare doesn't sell itself. People do not want to be hospitalized. They don't want to go to the doctor. They go because they have to go. Hospitals are not on the priority list. Cosmetic surgery and some concierge services aside, consumers don't open the newspaper actively looking for their next medical procedure. When they do need something done, it is well documented that physician referral followed by family and friend referral rule the decision-making process. Consider these statistics:

• Two thirds of the economy is influenced by word-of-mouth according to the findings of a study by Harvard University and McKinsey and Company.
• One word-of-mouth recommendation carries the equivalent of 600 advertising exposures.
• Seventy-one percent prefer a friend's recommendation to advertising.

Grandchildren, getting the kids to school, juggling careers, taking care of aging parents, staying healthy and out of the hospital are the real priorities. If you want to make an impact, figure out a way to intersect with those priorities so that you build relationships so that people will choose your facility. It is not about buying now. It is about planting a seed so consumers will think of you when they have a choice to make later on. Many healthcare executives live and work in the same community and are in a prime position to gauge the priorities of their neighbors and friends and can contribute valuable insight to marketing.

Once the decision is made, it's about delivering – not just a great clinical outcome but an incredible and positive hospital experience. Delivering on the brand promise is everyone's responsibility. Here are six suggestions for advertising in a way that will foster relationship building for the future and keep your organization on firm ethical ground.

1. Make their lives better

Those health lectures that are hidden on your Web page or in newsletters could be better served through advertising especially if those lectures are aimed at issues that are priorities for your audience. Get them to the facility for the lecture, offer a tour, and build the relationship.

If these lectures tie directly to documented community health needs, you not only are meeting a need but documenting that need as well. Consider building additional educational and event offerings that tie to documented needs and publicizing the same. That is incredibly important in today's environment with tax exemptions and class action suits arising from a perceived notion that healthcare organizations are not living up to their mission.

And consider a consumer example. Home Depot holds entrepreneur workshops at its locations. The workshops are not directly related to what the company markets but they get people into the store and build good will. So the priority of your audience might not be on a health issue but a larger community issue. Partner with someone to address and use your facility as the host. A seemingly strange but true example from my own hospital experience – teen suicide was becoming an increasingly alarming occurrence. Funeral directors in the community were seeing this and came to the hospital asking to co-sponsor lectures around this issue. It didn't hurt that this tied directly to the hospital's mental health services.

2. Educate

There is so much confusion out there about healthcare, about report cards, about pricing, about tax exemptions. The list is endless. Be the information source for people. Use your ads constructively to educate. A perfect platform has just been provided through the introduction of the Hospital Compare Web site introduced by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

3. Deliver on promises

The Archives of Internal Medicine study showed that less than six percent of hospitals used testimonial advertising. Customer crusaders, people who passionately believe in you and recommend you to others, give testimonials. These are people of influence. Embrace them and what they have to say.

To find out what they have to say means continuous monitoring and surveying of the environment. It is not enough to have an occasional focus group, a top-of-mind awareness survey or a post-discharge survey. It is about making feedback easy and immediate. Organizations that continuously seek feedback are able to react quicker and improve services while at the same time identifying crusaders of the brand. They pay attention to the nuances of the messages received and the way they are received and quickly know when they have something to run with from a marketing standpoint. Organizations that do this are not afraid to list the names, photographs and emails of senior staff and encourage feedback. Messages received at the top trickle down to where they are needed and can be reacted upon.

4. Make them aware

People have to initially find out about you in some way. So if you open a new service, move into a new area, offer similar services as a competitor, certainly there is a place. But even then, consider your approach and your words carefully choosing to educate people about the services not scare them into it.

5. Say no

There seems to be some psychological need to advertise, some pride taken when employees and physicians see their institution in the newspaper or on television. Often you may take some heat if the competitor is advertising and you are not. Think before you act. Question the reasons you are advertising. Think about how it fits into your strategic goals. Be prepared for, and don't succumb to, every internal client who walks in the door demanding an ad.

Looking at the bigger picture, this means that the organization's goals and marketing's goals must be aligned, that strategic planning is aligned with strategic marketing tactics. It then becomes easier to prioritize what you are marketing and then determine what is the best way to market and whether advertising is the best way to reach the intended audience. It is not just the right way to do it. It provides a way to “just say no” to marketing (often advertising) requests that do not fit with the plan.

6. Quality rankings are flammable

In a recent critique published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, two physicians warn that quality report cards have not been shown to improve care and might even harm patients. They cite survey findings that suggest that many surgeons reject some sicker patients for fear of hurting their report card grades. Fred Lee, author of the American College of Healthcare Executives 2005 book of the year If Disney Ran Your Hospital, contends that people judge the hospital experience "by the way they are treated as a person" and believe that clinical outcomes are the jurisdiction of the physician who would not put their patient "in the hands of incompetent people or an unsafe environment." The public still does not understand these report cards and the jury is not in as to what standards will prevail so be careful. Use your advertising to educate people about these issues as mentioned earlier. Advertise your ratings at your own peril. As data is updated, your advertising (and maybe your credibility) may be outdated should you score lower in the ratings.

It comes down to doing the right thing. Ask yourself how your advertising can create a positive outcome for your hospital and your audience. How can you give them something of value to improve their life in exchange for the creation of good will toward your facility? Do that and hopefully there will be no follow-up study to the one conducted by the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Anthony Cirillo, CHE, ABC is president of Fast Forward Strategic Planning and Marketing Consulting, LLC in Huntersville, N.C. He is an immediate past board member of the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development, a Diplomate of the American College of Healthcare Executives and an Accredited Business Communicator of the International Association of Business Communicators. Anthony may be reached at Anthony@4wardfast.com

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