Hospital Branding

There is a real revolution going on right now among serious branding organizations. It's popping up everywhere, from many of the presentations at Brand Manage Camp (which I attended a couple weeks ago in Vegas) to yesterday's Harvard Business Review blog by Howard Schultz, President and CEO of Starbucks. It goes like this, to borrow a key quote from the Schultz blog: "It is no longer enough to serve customers, employees, and shareholders. As corporate citizens of the world, it is our responsibility - our duty - to serve the communities where we do business by helping to improve, for example, the quality of citizens' education, employment, health care, safety, and overall daily life, plus future prospects." From BP to Walmart, Starbucks to Southwest, the most well known branding companies have implemented Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives to either support reputation management or improve on their reputation capital. And it's not only good ...

From the Marlboro Man to Mr. Whipple, Tony the Tiger or Charlie Tuna, companies have always had a knack for "putting character" in their brands. These characters rank among the icons in the ad business and brought great success to their respective products. What made these characters successful was more than their memorable names and faces. They had unique traits that brought the product's point-of-difference to life. The Marlboro Man was masculine and cool, just like the men who smoked them (or so they thought). Tony the Tiger was "greeeaaattt," just like the taste of Frosted Flakes, and Mr. Whipple was tough on the outside but an ol' softy on the inside (just like the kind of toilet paper we like). The use of characters today, from reptiles to ducks, is alive and well - just ask the brand managers of Geico and Aflac. So what does this mean for healthcare brands? Should hospitals, for example, create a credible spokesdoctor or a talking thermom...

At past BrandSmart conferences, sponsored annually by the Chicago chapter of the American Marketing Association, the talk around "customer experience" centered on the Nordstrom Model; a highly interactive, personal shopping journey. From handheld selections to handshakes at the sales counter, this model truly defined every brand manager's concept of customer service. Something was very different at BrandSmart 2011. Of the eight sessions that focused on brand promise fulfillment, only one talked about meeting customer expectations the "old fashioned way" - through personalized, in-store interactions that support the brand strategy. BrandSmart 2011 speakers - featuring, by the way, marketers from some of the top brand companies in the U.S., focused on the on-line customer experience versus the "in store" experience as the new model and metric for customer satisfaction and loyalty. For hospitals and other health-related organizations, this k...

Implications for Healthcare and the "Loyalty Loop" It seemed funny at first: An energetic, youthful friend in her early 60s posted on Facebook that she had just earned coupons from a well-known drugstore for products “she may need” – Dulcolax and Depends. We all had a sarcastic “group laugh” on Facebook. I guess we’ve become almost numb to these highly personal promotions now, and the company probably thought they had hit their target. I think they actually missed the mark, stepping over a line that we women don’t want crossed, particularly when it comes to our health. The coupons remind us all that companies know a little too much about our personal lives. As a matter of fact, they think they know us so well that they have earned the right to make intimate suggestions. Sure, we use the “loyalty cards” to generate discounts in exchange for sharing purchase information. But did this company earn my friend’s loyalty by making presumptions based on her age and trends? Or did the...

When media was mass, but predictable, and messaging was broad-based, not entirely personal, brand strategists could use the more structured way of developing a launch plan. One step at a time, each leading to the next, working to the top platform. The "ladder" approach. Today, media is highly segmented, personal, and available in forms and channels only imaginable to screenwriters. And messaging almost has your name on it. Add event marketing, social media, mobile applications, tablets, community-based networking, internal communications, and customer delivery/satisfaction - to name a few - and today's brand strategist has to step off the ladder and begin thinking in the "lattice" approach. The comparison between the ladder and lattice was first explored by Deloitte as they examined the changing workplace, but certainly works in the context of brand development and implementation. Organic, green, simultaneous, 3-dimensional, transformational, bottom-up, wi...

Lady Gaga came through Chicago last week. I was there. I'll let the music enthusiasts and concert goers blog about the show itself (okay, it was fantastic) while I focus on another important aspect of her performance. The Gaga brand. We often talk about a brand in the context of an expectation, experience, and effect. Against this criteria, this brand is a huge success. The expectation is clearly visible while walking around the United Center "monster" watching...people dressed in Gaga gear from all walks of life. See, the Gaga brand isn't targeting a certain demographic - it's about a way of life that touches monsters of all ages, genders, orientations, body size, etc. Her fans are branded "monsters" to unify and engage their inspiration and aspiration for the brand. Why monsters? The brand promise is being empowered to live life the way you want no matter who you are, how you look, or what you believe in. Every brand has a destination. In G...

At first, it seemed like another story of "progress meets obstacle." A plan to tear down old buildings to pave the way for a $150 million development project in Baltimore's re-emerging west side hit a roadblock when preservationists came out in force to protect—a former drug store. Really? Then I read further. In 1955, African-American college students staged a sit-in at that Read's Drug Store lunch counter—five years before Greensboro's more famous event at Woolworth's. The sit-in movement began in Baltimore. This is "not an African-American story, it's a Baltimore story," said David Terry, executive director of Maryland's Reginald F. Lewis Museum. That sentence caught my eye. A Baltimore story. A seminal event for a movement that changed millions of lives and an entire country. The massive development project slated for the area is certainly important for the city's continued growth. But Baltimore—like a business—grew upon a foun...