Hospital Branding

"Facing" is a great term used in marketing circles for decades.  Originally, it referred to the level and amount of shelf space a brand received in retail and centered around the "P" word, "place," from the   4 P's of Marketing . Today, it's used more than ever as it relates to the promotional strategy and audience mix a brand is pursuing.  In marketing meetings everywhere, statements or questions arise about a brand's facing such as "what's your consumer facing?" or "our brand also has a business-to-business facing," or "our online facing..."  Still a great term, but the context has shifted dramatically. The more it comes up in conversations, the more we need reminding that a brand should only have one face.  Sometimes the way it faces  toward different audiences, will change, however, the profile of the brand should be consistent.  Different messaging should be used to motivate different audience...

(As recently published in Healthcare Marketing Advisor, February 2010, by Rob Rosenberg - President, Springboard Brand & Creative Strategy, Ltd.) Ironically, the most effective way for marketers to break the mold and breakthrough with consumers is to start with a well-defined strategy and creative brief. The tighter the strategy, the more liberating the opportunity to create outstanding advertising campaigns. The irony is that advertisers (and many creative people) feel that tight strategies actually stifle the creative process and limit the number of "big ideas" that can be generated for an ad campaign. The opposite is true. A clear strategy actually opens the world of big ideas and you won't waste time by thinking execution before strategy. The idea is to execute the strategy, not strategize the execution. Consumers are bombarded with over 3,000 messages a day in some manner, so you have to break the mold to be noticed. But that doesn't mean you have to bre...