RECENT INSIGHTS
Did you hear about the Zoe Kravitz Super Bowl ad for Michelob Ultra? The spot uses the sounds of near-silence – whispers, tapping finger nails, carbonated fizzing – to draw viewers into the ad by their ears as much as their eyes. The auditory phenomenon Michelob was leveraging is called ASRM, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian […]
Nonprofit hospitals can profit from today’s marketplace Hospitals are in the midst of a slow motion pivot in their business model. The movement is glacial, but it’s there. Still rooted in a fee-for-service reimbursement model that emphasizes quantity, hospitals are now under pressure to move toward a qualitative model driven by outcomes. (And better branding, […]
As health systems expand, opportunities emerge for smaller hospitals. Here at our scenic CT shoreline headquarters, we are surrounded by monster health brands. Yale New Haven Health, the dominant regional Academic Medical Center, is right next door. UCONN and Hartford Healthcare are slugging it out in the center of the state. Humana is a longstanding […]
Medical marketers face an uphill fight in the world of paid search and PPC. For starters, Google has tough standards and doesn’t like it when healthcare marketers step out of bounds. Google does not allow remarketing, and Google Drive generally adheres to narrowly defined HIPAA standards regarding marketing content. It won’t allow inflated statements or […]
Ethical healthcare marketing has to answer tough questions When does targeting become an invasion of privacy? When does doctor advertising become doctor advocacy? When does information sharing become marketing? As consumerism presses deeper into healthcare, competition is increasing – and marketers will naturally want to create content that’s more aggressive. Here are a few reminders […]
The rise of healthcare ratings and rankings US News & World Report was losing money. In 2006, 07, and 08, the center-right Washington-based magazine saw dwindling circulation (less than half of what it had been 10 years earlier) and ad sales (also down 50%) across all its media. And what saved the publication and the […]
Looking at Academic Medical Centers (AMCs). Behold the Academic Medical Center, which we sometimes refer to as TAFKATH: The Artist Formerly Known as “Teaching Hospital.” It’s no secret any longer that AMCs are among the best hospitals in the business. US News & World Report reported that in 2017-2018, 6 of the 10 best hospitals […]
Marketers wake up to the pain of misspent resources A really disturbing recent study of 1000+ EU marketers reported that, on average, they waste 26% of their annual budget on “the wrong channels or strategies.” In other words, more than a quarter of their budget is gone and unrecoverable. In four years time, an entire […]
Note to marketers who have been investing in Facebook: Fasten your safety belts.
It’s as if Facebook listened to a focus group of marketers complaining about ad targeting: “It’s getting brutal….social makes it harder, not easier….my dollars are already stretched too thin….how can I be sure I’m reaching the right people….and how do I know I’m spending in the right places?” And then, Facebook looked deeply into its […]