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The Dalton Marketing Blog
Another Step Forward: Non-Virtual Meetings
Another Step Forward: Non-Virtual Meetings
June 21 , 2021
We’ve all been dabbling in the return to normal: getting our COVID vaccinations, eliminating face masks as state and local ordinances have changed, restaurant dining inside, visiting museums, etc.
Today, I had my first in-person group meeting since March 2020. It was held by an executive women’s organization’s networking group. Yes, it was outside in a member’s large and beautiful garden on the perfect early summer evening. And, yes, it was only about 15 people.
Here are my light-hearted takeaways and some lessons learned:
1. Time Travel Is Not an Option: Very few colleagues want to go back to the workplace full time. That said, hybrid calendars will require some time management reengineering. Most members of my business networking group were late to this meeting we were all looking forward to, because we had neglected an important detail of non-remote meetings, i.e., you need to factor in travel time, and pre-pandemic travel time at that. Going hybrid means you cannot continuously Zoom right up to 6 PM, and then make an in-person 6 PM meeting 30 minutes away. Remember?
2.You Look Different in Zoom: This business networking group had started during the pandemic. A bold move, especially considering many of us were not acquainted. So, we got to know one another in virtual meetings and breakout sessions. We’ve been doing this monthly for one year, yet there were several instances where some of us did not recognize others who we hadn’t met in person. Who knew one member was nearly six feet tall, and that most of us don’t wear glasses all the time?
3.Keep To the Agenda: Honestly, I had forgotten two important things about dinner meetings. The first is how wonderful it is to share a meal in person with colleagues and, second, how food slows everything down. That, and our general excitement about meeting in-person, caused a major agenda failure. This meeting was professional but extracurricular, yet I’m betting the same issues will arise as we return to more in-person work situations.
4.No, You Can’t Share Your Screen Here: One of the things I’ve liked best about virtual meetings is that anyone can become a cohost and share their screen to show presentations or other documents, on the spot, that often clarify or elaborate the content of the meeting. That flexibility is not possible in the “real” world, although several of us did say something to the effect of “If only I could share my screen right now, I could show you that information”. In the “real” world, we have to wait to get it via email.
5.Now You Have to Remember Everyone’s Name: It could not only have been me. Didn’t you just love having everyone’s name displayed in their Zoom window? No more struggling to put a name with a face – it was all there. Well, not in person.
Innovation and the Health Care Journey
Innovation and the Health Care Journey
January 2 , 2021
I’ve been fortunate in the past six weeks to consult with four brilliant early stage start ups in my beloved health care industry. One surgical medical device breakthrough had completed its Series A funding, two health technology initiatives were venture backed and preparing for Series A, and one remarkable bioengineering solution was still in the proof of concept phase.
So why would they be reaching out to a health system marketing executive and consultant like me? Because someone on their team of advisors realized that they had deep knowledge of the biological or technological system of concern to be wildly successful, but they did not know the “DNA” of the intended user, be it physician or patient. And this knowledge needed to be acquired and factored into their business planning.
Here are 3 issues about the health care journey that start-ups need to consider.
1.Physicians Follow the Innovation Curve
Physicians behave like other consumer groups when faced with decisions about adopting new treatments, technologies or processes. There are the innovators, like the ones I’ve been meeting with, and then early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards). Start-ups targeting physicians need to partner with other innovators in their specialty or interest group and use these key opinion leaders to enlist early adopters as advocates. The better the pedigree of the physician’s hospital or organization, the more influential their involvement will be.
2.Physician and Patient Journey Are Interwoven
Hospital and health system marketers like myself are passionate about using communications and digital platforms to engage caregivers and their patients in a smooth journey – especially when this involves a complex condition. We know how tortuous the journey to the correct specialist can be for referring physicians, and self-directed patients and families. And the team of specialists ready to assist often must advocate the insurance coverage journey, especially with novel treatments. Start-ups often have one or two incredibly creative PhD researchers, and maybe one or two clinical advisors, but none who can provide the deep knowledge of the cumbersome and bureaucratic systems the users of their innovations will have to navigate to use these advances.
3.Hospitals and Health Systems Approve and Pay for Innovations
Understanding the administrative journey inherent in hospital and health systems is a critical success factor. It seems to me that most start-ups in the patient care space need a primer on hospitals’ Institutional Review Boards or IRBs. When I had to work with hospital principal investigators on a device or technology roll-out, I always found the IRB to be my best friend. They assure compliance with a host of standards, and advise and approve all communications, with the sole interest of protecting human subjects. Especially with device start-ups, I encourage both the clinical researcher and the start-up partner to rely on the IRB, rather than viewing that team as a hindrance.
In each of the companies I’ve met with recently, the end user was the medical staff and the end beneficiary the patient, but neither the physician’s name nor the patient’s was going to be on the check paying for the biomedical device or technology. Understanding the pressures on the capital budget as distinct from the operating budget is essential to offering creating payment options.
Use Rigor in Planning Covid-19 Vaccine Communications
Use Rigor in Planning Covid-19 Vaccine Communications
December 12 , 2020
Both federal and state agencies are concerned about vaccine hesitancy as the country is now at the point when the Pfizer vaccine has received emergency authorization and the same is expected for the Moderna vaccine within the next few weeks.
These agencies, as well as hospital and physician providers, are gearing up educational initiatives to inform vaccine accepters, and more especially those who are hesitant or plan to avoid vaccination. As a just-released comprehensive Institute for Public Relations Guide details, typical approaches like detailed information and celebrity endorsements may not be effective in addressing vaccine hesitancy.
This in-depth piece - A Communicator’s Guide To COVID-19 Vaccination: Research, Theories, Models, and Recommendations Communicators Should Know – relied on over 100 research articles on previous vaccine introduction as well as preliminary research on Covid-19. It weaves into its analysis and recommendations a handy refresh of relevant communications concepts in addressing hesitancy, resistance and refusal of vaccine and other public health programs.
Some key takeaways are:
•Vaccine hesitancy is not due to a lack of information, i.e. it is less a cognitive issue but a complex set of motivations around the emotional aspects of health decision-making.
•Transparency is key but keep it simple. Some early testing has shown that a moderate amount of straightforward information about vaccines is more effective with the hesitant than information overload.
•As with all communications, trust and respect is as important as authenticity. Language matters, and no group should be denigrated or made suspect, whatever their views.
•The anti-vaccine groups, though, should not be ignored, as they can influence the hesitant. A few tips in the Guide are:
oInoculate your targets against misinformation, by deliberately mentioning and refuting it as early as possible before it goes viral;
oMisinformation should not be continuously repeated, though;
oUse multiple sources when providing accurate information;
oStories tend to be more influential that just statistics in engaging hesitants to become accepters.
•Among the vaccine hesitant, it is especially important to tailor communications to specific groups, especially when considering underserved and marginalized populations. Communications need to be developed with input from these communities and tested with them.
•HCPs (health care providers) are key to vaccine acceptance, but only when they clearly have no doubts and especially when they have already been vaccinated themselves.
•Opinion leaders and celebrity endorses must be specific to each major group targeted, or this can backfire with a lack of trust.
A key takeaway from this detailed set of guidelines is to use the research on past vaccines and public health emergencies, which many communications teams have not experienced, and not default to more traditional patient education strategies. The most important task is to provide vaccine acceptors with the logistical information they need, and to address the more complex situation of the vaccine hesitant. s.
The Telehealth Trajectory: What’s Next
The Telehealth Trajectory: What’s Next
October 20 , 2020
CMS earlier this month added 11 new services to the Medicare telehealth services list - since it’s last May 1st addition and its initial March 6th loosening of prior restrictions. These unprecedented actions to coverage for telehealth services set the bar for other government and private payer reimbursement to enable safe access to healthcare services during the pandemic. These actions permitted reimbursement of services provided virtually to be reimbursed at the same rates as in-person care.
This literally flipped a switch in the adoption and utilization of virtual health care. According to Blue Cross Blue Shield, before the onset of COVID-19, less than 1% of total physician visits were virtual. STAT last month reported that national data obtained from Epic systems indicated that at the height of the early part of the crisis in April, 69% of visits were virtual, and that this had decreased to 21% by the middle of July. STAT reported similar statistics from the large University of Pittsburgh Health System, where peak virtual visits at 10,000 per day in April dropped to 4,000 per day during July-August (compared to 250 per day pre-pandemic).
So, while exigency and reimbursement equity fueled a rapid transition to virtual health use during early lockdowns, the quieter summer months and reopenings in many previously surge states significantly decreased demand despite full reimbursement by payers.
This has left providers having to do yet another pivot, in order to provide the right ration of virtual and in-person appointments, to allow clinicians to provide optimal care for routine visits, patients with chronic conditions, and those having acute episodes.
It is still unclear whether government and private insurance plans will continue to pay for virtual visits at the same rates as traditional visits over the long-term. Demand seems elastic regardless of out-of-pocket costs but is hard to imagine that the delivery system will return to the almost non-existent demand of pre-pandemic days.
5 Steps To Better Engagement In A Remote World
5 Steps To Better Engagement In A Remote World
September 23 , 2020
There’s so much buzz these days about the Zoom backdrops of pundits and celebrities. I’ve even read and heard commentaries about the books on the ever-present bookshelves behind the talking heads in Zoom boxes. Who hasn’t been in a Zoom meeting where someone hasn’t asked about a book, photo or keepsake?
Certainly entertaining in these stressful times. But we are working and playing in Zoom, and I’m preparing to teach a graduate public health course for the first time fully remotely. We’ve all had the unfortunate experience of Zoom meetings that have been as boring – or as ineffective – as our former experiences. And teaching colleagues are saying the same about online classes – I’ve observed some good, some bad.
So here are 5 guidelines from the field on getting through our remote journey, since no firm deadline is in sight.
1.Prepare – And Prepare More – Than for In Person Activities
Your antennae should go up high for a Zoom meeting or class without a solid agenda – time stops, accountable roles, desired outcomes sent out in advance. These should be more detailed for virtual meeting
2.Plan for Productive Discussions
Any discussion items critical to the meeting should be sent out in advance with the agenda. Ground rules about the use of chat vs verbal discussion should be clear, as well as requirements to have camera on.
Set the ground rules for a group discussion – is it hand raising, round robin or some other format. If everyone is expected to contribute, let that be known. Use polling or voting mechanisms as needed to facilitate decision-making.
Breakout rooms need to have the same attention to clear structure and output. Sending 4-6 people to breakout rooms without specific format (roles, responsibilities, reporting requirements) is insensitive and counterproductive.
3.Accountability
Somehow, at least for me, it’s easier to have meeting details and decisions escape into the ether than in person meetings. Is virtual accountability something we haven’t quite mastered? It is most helpful to have someone use a virtual whiteboard, have breakout groups use a Google doc or any tool to record major conclusions and recommendations.
4.Process Improvement
It used to be pretty easy to gauge engagement of in person meetings, both during the meeting, and in the buzz or post-mortem gossip afterwards. It’s not so easy when we’re no longer meeting in place. I appreciate post-meeting surveys to check in with attendees on meeting agenda and project goals, and what could be done in this still rather new virtual world to improve the next meeting.
5.Warm Starts and Ends
Remember, if you can, the catch up with colleagues in the conference room that was part of the run in to a meeting? And the chit-chat on the way out? Well, creative meeting organizers can facilitate this in virtual meetings because it is important to the work and to learning processes and relationships. Starting with a round robin on fact-finding or insights since the last meeting, or something at least tangentially related to the group’s purpose, sets the stage for engagement and for making a somewhat impersonal platform allow us to express ourselves. Ending with final thoughts, suggestions for going forward, does the same.
And for The Future
Since many posit that we will never return in many cases to a fully in person work or learning world, continuing to shape the virtual space for engagement and productivity is important.
Can Uber Deliver Better Medication Compliance?
Can Uber Deliver Better Medication Compliance?
August 23 , 2020
Can the ubiquitous ride-share pioneer improve the health of the public? Uber announced last week both a typical product line expansion and a new way of thinking about delivering prescription drugs. It has partnered with the startup on-demand prescription platform NimbleRx to pilot a prescription delivery service in Seattle and Dallas, with plans to expand to other markets in the coming months.
Industry research has shown that 1 in 4 prescriptions are never picked up, impacting compliance and obviously effective treatment. The partners have announced that the average wait time to get a prescription delivered once it is ready at the pharmacy is 30 minutes.
The new service is part of the Uber Health business, which currently has one service – an app that health care providers can use to arrange a ride for patients without access to transportation to medical appointments.
The new partnership offers a less stressful way for patients who are homebound or have limited mobility to get their prescription drugs delivered to their door. It’s an extremely clever joining of app technologies to improve user experience and health outcomes.
NimbleRx’s prescription ordering app offers the option to pick up at the pharmacy or have home delivery. It partners with local pharmacies, and needs Uber’s fleet to compete with CVS, Walgreens and Amazon, all of which are investing in home prescription delivery. Uber gives NimbleRx the reach to compete beyond its current base of roughly 700 pharmacies in 34 states.
For Uber, it’s all about technology to keep everybody and everything in motion.
Reframing How Patients Will Return to Health Care
Reframing How Patients Will Return to Health Care
August 3 , 2020
Last month, Anthony Fauci and five leading health experts were quoted in a Washington Post article saying that they personally were no more ready to resume routine doctor and dental visits, or health screenings, than they were to fly or return to the gym. This is sobering for hospitals and health systems in states that have bent the pandemic curve and need to resume normal operations due to dire financial circumstances.
That said, the news reports from hospitals in states like mine (Massachusetts) during the Spring surge and, now, from most of the country in the current Summer surge are anything but reassuring. We see reports from overflowing ERs and ICUs, still hear reports of staff and PPE shortages, and health care workers who have contracted Covid-19. Compare this with the reassuring CEO videos on many hospitals’ websites, touting “safer than ever” reassurances.
For my entire executive career as a chief marketing and planning officer in large health systems, I bristled, along with my colleagues, when market research indicated that most consumers equated quality of care with cleanliness and good customer service, vs. the sophisticated outcomes and safety measures we espoused as critical to our performance. And now, hospitals and medical and dental office communications are front and center focused on how clean their facilities are. But is cleanliness alone enough to get patients back to medical appointments?
In busy medical facilities pre-Covid, lobbies often have had rest rooms with overflowing trash bins, which were jammed with visitors, and patients who arrived on time for appointments faced waits to see a clinician with no clear endpoint in sight.
In order to counteract these ingrained experiences, here are three key actions that health care providers can follow to reassure their patients.
1. Don’t Just Say Your “Deep Cleaning”:
Nobody really knows what this means anyway, despite the fact that it is now the most commonly used term by all public-facing industries. Be specific about what you’ve made touchless, and how often commonly touched surfaces are cleaned. Also be specific for visit types and communicate this in advance. A patient having a mammogram or an MRI, or even a blood pressure check, wants to know how the equipment has been cleaned prior to touching them.
2.Do More Than Say You’re Practicing Social Distancing:
Before Covid, every patient has experienced crowded waiting rooms with long waits and no real sense from staff when the doctor will actually see them. Since the pandemic hit, everyone has grown accustomed to following one-way signs in supermarkets, is used to waiting outside during crowded periods, and 6-feet apart floor stickers upon check-out. Patients will appreciate these safety measures. But they also will appreciate not getting stuck indoors for long periods of time with others when onsite to receive care. Enabling patients to wait outside or in their cars (with no garage charges for this period) until their visit is ready to begin is one option. Check-in can be completing by phone during this period, and the patient then can report directly to an exam or diagnostic room when the clinician is ready to see them. Another option is for the patient to be escorted directly to the exam room, where all vitals and history updates can be taken as well as the physician services provided. This involves reengineering processes and perhaps some lost capacity but is more meaningful than simply saying the hospital or practice has implemented social distancing. Lay out the specifics on your website, in your Patient Portal, and in appointment reminders.
3.Have Patients Tell How You’re Doing:
If you’re doing all this and more to keep patients safe and feeling comfortable about their care, then this is the place and time for patient testimonials on how they felt. Patients’ can share stories in an online website gallery or through social media. These statements will be more meaningful and reassuring than all the C-suite videos combined.
Can Industry and Hospital Marketers Effectively Comarket?
Three Mini-Case Studies and Three Key Steps for Success
Can Industry and Hospital Marketers Effectively Comarket?
Three Mini-Case Studies and Three Key Steps for Success
July 13, 2020
Amazing diagnostic and surgical devices, as well as therapeutic and technological innovations, have advanced global health and reduced human suffering through industry partnerships with academic health centers and large health systems.
The actual drug, device, and technology development collaborations have a well-defined path forward. There are stringent regulations and organizational standards and protocols on both the industry (company) side and the medical center side to guide this development, in order first to safeguard patients who participate in clinical trials and experimental protocols. Legal teams, institutional review boards, and other oversight groups work hard to ensure safe practices, as well as contractual agreements that meet board, executive, and researcher reviews. In addition to patient safety, these processes iron out the business relationships around issues like IP, ownership, and revenues.
In over 25 years as a strategic marketing executive and consultant in the health care provider space, I’ve been consistently astounded, though, about the lack of strategy and agreement about how the company and medical center will collaborate on marketing initiatives, once all the regulatory and other approvals are in place.
What Does the Company and the Medical Center Want?
There tends to be tremendous alignment between the medical center’s clinical researcher(s) and the company on the development of the innovation. Whether the concept originates in the medical center or in the company, they need one another to develop the drug, device or technology in a format that can scale, as well as for the patient base and oversight to test in the clinical setting.
Both parties want the same thing – the successful innovation. The medical center team is committed to research that solves clinical problems for their patients, and to advance knowledge about the issues – consistent with their academic and research missions. Any share of revenues and profits is of course desirable as well. The company certainly shares these aspirations, but the brass ring for them is a financial success in their portfolio.
How These Goals Impact Go-to-Market Goals and Collaboration
The clinical researcher at the academic medical center has and will continue to publish the results of trials and studies in peer-reviewed journals, in order to advance the science of the innovation and to educate colleagues, trainees and students about the work. This is the space in which the medical center and their clinical and research teams are comfortable.
The company needs to sell the innovation to its intended markets – hospitals, medical professionals and sometimes consumers/patients directly. They want to use the medical center’s name as an implicit endorsement, get explicit endorsements from their research collaborators at the medical center, and make the latter part of their actual sales initiatives. This is often in conflict with medical center formal policies and, where (often) none exist, with the medical center’s cultural bent.
Generally, the marketing teams – medical center and company – are not involved in the legal agreements hammered out before the development begins. There are often different assumptions about use of prestigious hospital names, about the role of clinical researchers in sales and marketing, and content approvals on both sides for all marketing activities. Without explicit guidelines about these, and acceptable turnaround times, the go-to-market roll-out becomes contentious and cumbersome.
Three Mini Case Studies: What Can Go Wrong and Right
1.Information Technology in the ER
A large medical center Emergency Room leadership team contracted to be an alpha site for the implementation and refinement of an innovative IT solution for records and results management specific to the unique ER environment. This pilot measured improved performance, which aligned with the ER team’s research mission, and had a training component for physicians and other clinical staff, which had been a primary rationale for engaging in the pilot at this hospital. Both the ER leadership team and clinicians were impressed by the trial and the company’s responsiveness in making modifications, and proceeded with the move from a trial site agreement to a preferred pricing contract. The medical center’s chief marketing officer, who was not in the loop on the initiative, then unexpectedly received a promotional video for approval from one of the world’s most prestigious advertising agencies on behalf of the company. There was nothing in the video about results measurement or professional training. The ad agency director had posed a leading question to a variety of the ER staff about how the solution met the concerns that kept them up at night. The resulting series was a string of ringing, unsubstantiated endorsements for the solution, with no substantive content, along with implied medical center endorsement of the product. It was rejected by the medical center. It violated the medical center’s broad use of name policies for the organization and its employed staff. The agency was asked to use footage that touched on the results and educational aspects that the ER team had been intimately involved in, and the CMO could then move forward with it. There was no such content, and this video project had to be scrapped.
If the medical center marketing team had been involved in the marketing strategy development, given the collaborative relationship with the company, a mutually beneficial video and/or other communications could have been designed and implemented. The medical center would have shared its policies, its focus on research and education in marketing, and the company’s marketing team would have been fully informed while the pilot agreement was being finalized. The legal team at the medical center made this upfront sharing part of all medical center-industry contracts going forward.
2.Innovative Diagnostic Equipment
A similar situation occurred between a hospital radiology subspecialist and a leading imaging manufacturer. The specialist had been an advisor and proof-of-concept user of a prototype of an impressive new imaging technology. She agreed to codevelop a white paper on the positive results in using the equipment but was troubled enough by the final draft to forward it to the hospital’s marketing department for review. Again, the clinician was featured as an overwhelming endorser of the technology, sounding like the head of the sales team, with no real content on the science and positive impact on patient care. In this case, since it’s easy to rewrite a white paper, that content was added and the commercial endorsements eliminated. The clinician and medical center were comfortable with the new content, and the clinician was part of the company’s continuing medical education programs and presented on the work at professional meetings. In this way, the medical center’s name was able to be included in these specific communications, in line with its detailed policies.
3.Surgical Technology Advancement
The chair of a surgical division at a major medical center had had to deal with numerous faculty conflict of interest issues and industry relationship missteps. He also was a brilliant researcher and had developed a concept for a novel minimally invasive device, which was codeveloped with an overseas device company. He had involved his marketing team in the contract development, which indicated that all communications, sales materials, and any use of the medical center or chair’s name had to be preapproved by the marketing team. The marketing launch of this device proceeded smoothly. There certainly were some grandiose quotes attributed to the chair that had to be recalibrated, but that was done cooperatively and the launch was an international success.
Three Key Takeaways
1.Clarify Conditions for Use of Medical Center Name: The organization’s brand – unless it is part of the new product name – will never be able to be used freely by an industry collaborator. Major medical centers with large research and innovation enterprises generally have robust use of name guidelines, and industry collaborators and partners are often surprised at how limited use of name will be. It is best to understand this early in the collaboration and work for win-win solutions as the marketing plans are being developed.
2.Educational Role of Medical Center Staff as KOLs: Medical center faculty physicians are researchers and teachers, as well as clinicians. Too often, industry teams overlook this cultural framework, and assume they can script these professionals as they do their sales staff when they enlist them as key opinion leaders in their field. This will blow up in their faces both from the individual researcher and the medical center perspectives. What both will embrace, though, is enabling the researcher to share results, impact and case studies, through CME, professional meetings, educational white papers and videos.
3.Approval Is A Process: The approval process is as complex on the hospital and medical center side as it is on the industry side, and ample time for approvals needs to be factored into the marketing plan. Too often, the company marketing team gets all its ducks lined up over the course of months, and then seeks the medical center’s approval of “final drafts” in a matter of days. This is a recipe for failure. There are various levels of approval needed, and often the medical center researcher and marketing team have to advocate for the plan inside their enterprise.
There is much common ground to be had, and much less interorganizational tension, when the culture of the medical center and its own policies and procedures are factored into industry marketing plans. Of course, medical centers and systems must codify these policies (many today put these on their web sites) and share their procedures for review and approvals.
Advertising Boycott of Facebook Is Getting Serious
Advertising Boycott of Facebook Is Getting Serious
June 29, 2020
The New York Times reported today that a list of major US corporations have announced that they are boycotting Facebook, i.e. not advertising on the platform, during the month of July, in protest of Facebook’s inability or unwillingness to monitor and address misinformation and hate speech, including problematic posts by Donald Trump.
This reaction is taken in light of the diversity and inclusion internal and external messages and programs this enterprises have undertaken in light of the Black Lives Matter movement. They are clearly concerned with maintain an authentic voice during this pivotal time, and Facebook’s practices endanger this.
The ball is clearly in Mark Zuckerberg's court.
10-Step Checklist for Post-Pandemic Hospital Marketing
10-Step Checklist for Post-Pandemic Hospital Marketing
April 22, 2020
Hospitals and health systems made rapid-fire, dramatic organization-wide changes when Covid-19 overran their communities. Command centers opened indefinitely, elective procedures were postponed, ambulatory care went digital, and inpatient care units became ICUs.
Marketing and communications teams also went “full-Covid” 6-8 weeks ago. I advised clients struggling early on to redeploy marketing staff to internal and external communications, and as additional content support to digital teams, to meet the communications needs of their executive team and managers.
As some regions of the country are at or perhaps just past the apex of the surge, and CMS guidelines are changing, C-suites – especially CFOs – are turning a cautious eye to the timing and shape of a gradual return to normal hospital and health system operations.
Recent consumer studies have consistently shown that patients are not intending to rush back for their deferred colonoscopies, joint replacements, cataract surgeries and mammograms. And the optics about systems rushing to restore margin-building services too soon can be tricky. Here is a checklist I developed for some of the systems I’ve been working with, on go-forward planning for post-pandemic hospital and health system marketing.
1.Assign your strategic thinkers to think strategically about the emerging new normal. Hospitals won’t reopen, as they never closed, and the desired economic “V curve” may be elusive, given some of the research just mentioned. Marketing needs to be at the table with finance, operations, and business planning on what the likely scenarios will be. Whether your MarCom team is big enough to assign your analysts and strategic marketing manager(s) to this, or whether you need to carve out a schedule for your smaller team to have some dedicated time, as your region crests the surge you need to think about the market strategy, messages and execution that the organization will need when it no longer is totally Covid-19 all day, every day.
2.Audit everything you stopped doing in February and were planning to do in FY20, for fit in a world and regional market recovering from a pandemic. Don’t assume you can resume brand messages, tag lines, advertising campaigns and other business-as-usual tactics in the first phase of post-pandemic business. You’re in a completely different – and unimagined – geopolitical environment than you were on January 30th and flipping the “on switch” for your extant plan may be ineffective or even detrimental. Take a vigilant eye to everything during the audit phase, thinking at least 3-6 months out. Make assumptions about what life and your market’s perspective will be like in each quarter and determine how/if you will phase in past work.
3.Take a hard look at your brand strategy in light of the current environment, and the most effective and expeditious way to transition from Covid-19 messaging. In the space of less than three months, hospitals and systems went from elegantly derived brand positions to all becoming similar Covid-19 hospitals. As a former hospital CMO, it’s hard to accept this. But as a consultant, and one living in a market (Boston) with a plethora of outstanding hospitals, I know this to be true. As part of the analyze and audit everything maxims, determine the go-forward path in emerging from the “health care heroes” pack that you are in, to your distinctive position in your market.
4.Evaluate your agency and third-party partners re cost-benefit and goodness-of-fit. Since budgets will be tougher than ever, and some organizations have furloughed some marketing staff, you will rely on your external partners for devising cost-effective work, and work that fits in with recalibrated plans. If you felt pre-Covid that any of these partners were slipping, or that any currently seem out of touch with the reality of what your organization is going through, it’s a good time to reevaluate.
5.Create a multi-phased recovery marketing and communications plan that follows the organization’s operational plan for phasing in paused services. While nobody has the timeline on this, systems are examining how to restart elective procedures and routine ambulatory care. For example, you may be called upon to execute geographic strategies for reopening satellite centers while the hospital hub is the Covid care center for as long as needed. Those traditional service line campaigns you’ve relied on in the past may have to wait a bit.
6.Develop a content plan for the next phases of recovery. This too will be dictated by the operational plan, but the marketing team has more leeway in developing a robust content strategy across all its owned media platforms, as well as paid and earned media. Certainly Covid-19 messages and information will continue, but start to think about the service resumption messaging, especially in light of research findings re consumer/patient reluctance to rush back to care settings. Develop a flexible content calendar for the next quarter.
7.Reconnect directly with your “furloughed” patients and those that have gone AWOL. Staff aren’t the only stakeholders that have been furloughed. A significant cohort of patients were instructed not to come for intended surgeries and care. Indications also are that some patients have gone AWOL on follow-up for chronic conditions, or even new symptoms, for fear of entering hospitals overrun by Covid-19 patients. Use your call centers and CRM technologies to reach out to the furloughed patients, and also to patients who’ve missed important revisits.
8.Don’t forget your physician engagement strategy. Share your plans with employed and affiliated physician leadership – medical staffs, CIN and/or ACO leaders. Integrate your call center and CRM initiatives with their practice efforts. Use your physician liaison/sales staff to keep in touch with key members of the external referring medical community, and to keep them apprised of post-pandemic service resumptions.
9.Leverage digital health, which has reached its tipping point. Virtual visits became covered by health plans during the early weeks of the pandemic, and there most probably will be no going back. The technology has been widely adopted by a wide range of patients, and many systems reached their virtual visit business goals for the fiscal year in the first month of the pandemic. Build support for telehealth, apps, and other digital tools into your marketing plans with new emphasis.
10.Say Thank You. Hospitals have been overrun with well-deserved expression of gratitude, donations of dollars, masks, face shields, meals for staff, to name a few. When the crisis begins to subside, and you need your patients and community members to return for non-Covid care, kindly remember to thank your communities for their support during the crisis. It just might set you apart, and it will be the right thing to do.
Webcast: Managing Physician Communications During the Coronavirus Crisis
Webcast: Managing Physician Communications During the Coronavirus Crisis
April 1, 2020
Excited to be part of this BroadcastMed April 2nd webinar, discussing information physicians need during the pandemic, with doctors from the US and Spain. More information and eventually the archived webcast at this link below.
ReviveHealth Webcast: Hospital Communications During The Covid-19 Crisis
ReviveHealth Webcast: Hospital Communications During The Covid-19 Crisis
March 30, 2020
Looking forward to joining Chris Bevolo, SVP at ReviveHealth, on April 1 for a wide-ranging discussion of how hospital and health system chief marketing and communications offices are meeting the challenges of the pandemic. Join us for Wednesday's Revive Health noontime Daily Briefing.
https://www.thinkrevivehealth.com/covid-19/daily-briefing-live-april-1-2020
Millennials Are From Venus, Boomers From Mars
Millennials Are From Venus, Boomers From Mars
March 2, 2020
The new research from 5W Public Relations on the buying habits of Millennials is interesting, but the real divide between Millennials and Gen X'ers and especially Millennials and Boomers on brand perceptions and use of social media is compelling, even astounding. The latter is certainly generational, but Boomers now seem more like the Greatest Generation than the Social Activists that launched feminism and political activism. Brands, pay attention!
https://www.5wpr.com/new/wp-content/uploads/pdf/5W_consumer_culture_report_2020final.pdf
The Gospel of Growth: Conversation and Book Preview
The Gospel of Growth: Conversation and Book Preview
November 22, 2019
Webcast: November 22, 2019, 12PM CST
Join authors Chris Bevolo, Vicki Amalfitano, and Brandon Edwards in a conversation and sneak preview to the launch of their new book: The Gospel of Growth.
Health system marketers must have a place at the table, and there is one word that can get them there – growth.
There have been many hot button issues sweeping through the industry: digital transformation, data adoption, brand evolution, and consumer experience. But they are all means, and for marketers to establish themselves as true leaders at their health system, they need to focus on the end – growth. It needs to be your watchword. Your North Star. Your one thing. Your vision. Your goal. Your objective. Your mantra. Your raison d’etre.
The webcast is available at this link:
https://www.thinkrevivehealth.com/webinar/gospel-of-growth-sneak-peek
REQUEST A COMPLEMENTARY COPY OF THE GOSPEL OF GROWTH HERE: https://www.thinkrevivehealth.com/gospel-of-growth
US Split Along Party Lines on Health Care Solutions
US Split Along Party Lines on Health Care Solutions
October 28, 2019
The Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health, the New York Times and the Commonwealth Fund surveyed 2,000 Americans on the three major proposals for health reform shaping the Presidential campaign debate over the coming year. The results depict the polarization we are facing, and provide a detailed depiction of the beliefs, values and experiences of the two cohorts favoring Democratic approaches and the one favoring the Republican platform.
Boeing’s Crisis Communications: How It Differs From Health Care
Boeing’s Crisis Communications: How It Differs From Health Care
April 27, 2019
All of Boeing’s statements on the fatal crashes of its 737 MAX have followed media training for crises 101 in all industries, including mine, health care:
What Happened: “Tragic crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610”
Why It Happened: “We now know that the recent Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accidents were caused by a chain of events, with a common chain link being erroneous activation of the aircraft's MCAS function”
What We’re Doing To Fix It: “Releasing a software update and related pilot training for the 737 MAX that will address concerns discovered in the aftermath of the accidents”
Because: “We continue to be driven by our enduring values, with a focus on safety, integrity and quality in all we do.”
Health care communicators follow a similar formula when bad things happen. The best practice with sentinel events in health care practice though, which unfortunately can involve harm or death to a patient, instructs the provider to apologize to the patient and/or family, to clearly say that you are sorry. It is the responsible, respectful and humane thing to do.
None of Boeing’s spokespeople nor CEO Dennis Muilenburg, have said they are sorry for the incredible loss of life. Rather, Muilenburg has consistently said “We were devastated by the recent Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610 tragedies. We continue to mourn those who were on board and extend our deepest sympathies to their loved ones. All of us feel the immense gravity of these events across our company, and frankly these last few weeks have been the most heart-wrenching of my career.”
I’m certain that Boeing’s crisis communications team has carefully reviewed these statements with corporate and external counsel to sound sincere but mitigate liability. I doubt it would help with the latter but is disingenuous to the flying public and most certainly to their internal stakeholders not to apologize for their errors. And Boeing needs all of us to recover.
Medicare For All – Can Democrats Make Health Care Any More Complicated?
Medicare For All – Can Democrats Make Health Care Any More Complicated?
March 25, 2019
Several in the now Democratic Congress and in the pool of Democrats running for President are tossing around the term Medicare For All as their health care platform. If you ask me, they’ve taken on a slogan that is confusing at the start – Medicare is the brand for a complicated and for some costly bundle of coverage options – and applied it to mean a variety of initiatives with no consistency among leaders in their own party.
At face value, it seems positive, right? Vox, in a recent column, has done a good job at developing a line-up and comparison of the nine Democratic plans offered up to date. While they all have an underlying commitment to the public good, there are significant differences in the reach of government, the future of employer-sponsored health care, participation of enrollees and other factors.
These different factions are analogous the pre-Presidential primaries, rather than a unified party platform that can succeed. Congressional Democrats need a consensus platform with a clearly delineated message, set of initiatives and unified communications – yes, a marketing plan.
Democrats are misusing oversimplified slogans to further muddy desperately needed clarity on how all Americans can have access to the basic right of health care. Seems like they don’t need their rival party to pick them apart.
5 Ways Crisis Communications Is Like Running A Political Campaign
5 Ways Crisis Communications Is Like Running A Political Campaign
February 27, 2019
I’ve been focused on crisis communications issues in my consulting practice these days, and how focused media scrutiny, even when unfair, impacts public perception and stakeholder engagement. As we’ve had a number of Democratic hopefuls recently announcing their candidacy for the 2020 Presidential nomination, it led me to consider the similarities.
1.It’s A Journey, Not An Event
Don’t be fooled into thinking that the trigger event in a crisis is all you need to deal with. In my health care practice, my clients deal with medical errors, data breaches, executive transgressions, and more. The day that these occur is just the beginning of what can be months-long issues. Prepare for the long haul. Much like a candidate’s announcement that he or she is running for office can be newsworthy, it is just the start of a communications program that can span months or more than a year.
2.It’s About Strategy
Again, it will be a long haul and not a day-of-event issue. Successful political campaigns result in election because the campaign had a strategy to reach the right voters with a meaningful message in the right format and media, over time. Crisis communications often require a rapid fire response immediately – it’s the nature of the beast. But communications leaders need to take quick stock of the reality of the incident, all possible ramifications to operations, reputation and staff, and think through the steps to resolution.
3.Have A Plan
Even the most immediate crisis response requires a team – leadership, legal, involved operations and communications. Pull together the team not just to develop and issue the required immediate response, but the team that will develop an action plan over the coming days and weeks. While the immediate response acknowledges the issue that occurred and the appropriate response, the plan will deal with ensuing aspects of the crisis situation, how these will be ameliorated, how and what information will go to involved stakeholder groups, and when and how the recovery process will unfold. Political campaigns are also a team sport, with a campaign plan that addresses key audiences and geography, key steps forward to primaries and then election day, as well as contingencies.
4.Know Your Audience
We’ve all received polling calls during election time. Independent pollsters take the temperature of the electorate, and identify trends among various population segments. Crisis communicators can use the same tools to understand the impact of the crisis on the company, the impact of their communications, and even testing different messages.
5.Keep Communications Simple and Engaging
The most effective messages are memorable and engage on an emotional level. Radically different and successful campaign messages from the past decade are Barack Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In” and Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again”. Both struck a chord and connection around the need for change with very different constituencies. To be effective, crisis communications messages – the immediate one and the longer term messages – must stick to the strategy, be easily consumed, as well as transparent and authentic. A tall order indeed!
Is There Still Such A Thing As Industry Category?
Is There Still Such A Thing As Industry Category?
January 21, 2019
Digitalization has not only blurred reality-virtual reality to the increasing numbers of us who spend a significant portion of our day and life online. Traditional industry categories are blurring and morphing, so much so that Ted Levitt’s age-old question – what business are you in – is not as easy to answer as it once was.
Take Neflix, for example. What started out as direct-mail movie services morphed into streaming-video movie services and then original in-home entertainment, the bailiwick of the major television networks. Premium channels like HBO and Showtime, which hosted recently released feature films, also got into original series productions as well.
As if that wasn’t disruptive enough, Netflix has gone one step further in industry encroachment and disruption. Its original production, Roma, is rocking Hollywood traditionalists with its 10 Oscar nominations. Smartly, Netflix met all of the Academy’s eligibility requirements. It released in theaters in over 30 countries, albeit briefly, in November and December. The defensive backlash by major studios that Roma is a made-for-television film, not eligible for an Oscar (but certainly for an Emmy), has had interesting repercussions. AMC Theaters and Regal Cinemas have declined to show Roma since its Oscar nominations, a standard practice with prior released nominees.
The argument that Roma is a “television” drama is outdated on many fronts. With so many of us consuming video on numerous screens in innumerable locations, television and in-home entertainment are rather archaic definitions.
Brands That Defined 2018
Brands That Defined 2018
December 28, 2018
Would anyone be surprised that Amazon is America’s most loved brand and that Netflix is America’s most shared brand? Morning Consult released the results of survey of over 1.5 million US consumers on their most loved and trusted brands. Top ranked Amazon, Netflix, Doorstop, Walmart and Google all have several things in common. (Check out the methodology and results at https://morningconsult.com/brands-2018/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pm&utm_campaign=mlb2018__20181204&utm_content=_
1.They make it easy – Consumers can find what they want, when the want it.
2.They’re reliable – Consumers know – through immediate access or endless tracking emails, text updates, etc. – when “it” will arrive.
3.No hidden costs - The costs are clear before you hit that final “confirm” button.
This type of ease, reliability, and transparency builds trust. And these big brands are taking pages out of one another’s playbooks, which makes for interesting brand watching. Food delivery is important to consumers, and Amazon and Doorstop are in that space, and Walmart may well be joining them.
Free delivery is something Walmart has picked up from Amazon, who has crossed big time into Netflixs streaming and original content creation space.
Distribution is an underlying competency, and all of these brands have big plans!
Hospitals Finally Pushed to Price Transparency – Or Not
Hospitals Finally Pushed to Price Transparency – Or Not
November 30, 2018
According to a new federal law, hospitals will be required to post prices online effective January 1, 2019. To those outside the industry, this may seem like a great leap forward in a landscape that has been dominated by hospital “explanation of benefits” that do no such thing for very scary amounts that nobody pays, and multiple bills for what seems like one hospital stay.
And in fact, hospitals will be required to post their “chargemaster” prices, which essentially are like list prices which no insurance plan or individual ever pays. This new rule, the Inpatient Prospective Payment System rule is part of the Medicare program and the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare efforts for price transparency in health care.
The devil of course is in the details. These sticker prices do not reflect any complexity of care involved in a specific patient’s procedure, or the typical negotiated and discounted rates for a patient’s care that are negotiated by their insurance plan – including Medicaid and Medicare.
In my home state of Massachusetts health insurers and providers for several years have been required to provide patients who inquire – generally by phone – the cost of a procedure in total and in out of pocket costs to the patient – ostensibly so they can comparison shop for the “best deal”. It’s unclear if this is having any impact on health care spending.
Health care decisions, especially those for serious illnesses, are not like buying a car or a high-end refrigerator. These are usually personal decisions based on the input of trusted physicians and family. The administrations push to transparency, while on the face of it seems a reasonably good thing, doesn’t touch any of these key decision criteria. On this one thing I agree with President Trump – health care is complicated.
Brand Recovery Today
Brand Recovery Today
October 18, 2018
I’ve been working in Houston for a few months, at the esteemed Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center and parent CHI St. Luke’s Health System. Baylor St. Luke’s has been under intense and unbalanced media scrutiny by the Houston Chronicle and ProPublica for poor outcomes in its heart transplant program in 2015 and early 2018. In a one newspaper town, the Houston Chronicle coverage, with increasingly sensational headlines, has worn on the otherwise elite Baylor St. Luke’s brand.
Many in the Houston community have pointed to the brand recovery of Wells Fargo, which seems to have a bank or ATM on nearly every one of Houston’s thousands street corners. About one year post false accounts scandal, Wells Fargo launched its public apology plus its “Building Better Ever Day” marketing campaign deployed aggressively and broadly on all its platforms.
The campaign focuses on Wells Fargo employees providing excellent customer service and major commitments to community service, in the hopes that the public will forget or forgive the series of operating scandals that led to the Federal Reserve Bank issuing $500 million in fines and driving the replacement of top management.
Many in my interim city in Texas believe that Wells Fargo has bought its way back to brand credibility if not brand trust with its expensive, omnipresent ad campaign.
What’s Taking A Knee Got To Do With Branding
What’s Taking A Knee Got To Do With Branding
September 10, 2018
As the NFL season gets underway, the issues about athletes “taking a knee” during the national anthem are swirling again. The NFL is wisely backing away from last season’s Trump-inspired demands to initiate policies to fire any athlete who expressed opinion through this action.
Several major brands, though, have engaged and taken positions on the issue and the athletes. Nike Brands sales reportedly rose 31 percent between Sept. 2nd and 4th, when it announced that it had signed former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for its latest ad campaign. Others took to social media stating their objection and reporting that they had burned their Nike apparel. Nike has engaged in social activism in the past, including sponsorship of the Homeless World Club, and other initiatives which position sport as a change agent. It seems at this time to be taking a consistent stand.
Under Armor, however, initiated a Nike-like position last season, retreated from it, and seems to be mum, which leads fans and Under Armor customers to wonder what its brand narrative really is.
Boldness and consistency have to go hand in hand for brand credibility and impact.
TED Talk Marketing Classics
TED Talk Marketing Classics
June 14, 2018
Who doesn’t love a TED talk? All the speakers – just to get to the TED stage – are innovative and brilliant thinkers. But not all TED talks have long-term staying power – that authenticity and relevance that can inform and enlighten over time.
Here are three classics from the last decade that are favorites of mine and still have something to teach.
Seth Godin's The Tribes We Lead
Seth Godin’s 2009 TED talk on how the digital era, while it challenged mass marketing, nurtured the formation of digitally-generated communities Godin calls tribes. This evolution continues today, and the levers are still in play.
https://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead
Malcolm Gladwell's Choice, Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce
Futurist Malcolm Gladwell highlights how data has informed successful product development through diversification, not homogenization, helping explain, on a very granular level, why it takes us so long to pick our spaghetti sauce.
https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce
David Kelley’s On Human-Centered Design
IDEO founder David Kelley gives an early perspective on what exactly user-centered product design is and how if fosters organizational success
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_kelley_on_human_centered_design
The Fundamental Things Apply (Still)
The Fundamental Things Apply (Still)
May 7, 2018
For fellow film buffs who love Casablanca, the theme song is a classic. Who hasn’t hummed those famous lines – “…the fundamental things apply, as time goes by…” Some of the fundamentals in the marketing field have been time-tested as well. I’m referring to the classic “4 P’s” – product, price, place and promotion.
I just finished teaching a strategic marketing management course at the Harvard School of Public Health, where my students found these concepts essential as they developed marketing plans for the organizations they selected for their final projects. At the same time, I had the opportunity to do a webinar with Chris Bevolo– part of a series he’s hosting on his new book Joe Public III: The End of Hospital Marketing. The book is an optimistic view of factoring strategic marketing – not just adverting – into hospitals’ portfolios. I was as a heavy contributor to the chapter Marketing As A Business Driver, where we showcased the discipline of product, price, place and promotion as essential to meeting an organization’s sales and growth goals.
For more on the Joe Public III and the 4P’s and business building, you can see the archived webinar at http://thinkrevivehealth.com/resource/marketing-as-a-business-driver/Purpose-driven
Purpose Driven Marketing: Not Just For CSR
Purpose Driven Marketing: Not Just For CSR
April 24, 2018
Purpose-driven marketing is becoming a popular term in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) space. Despite the overt synergy between these concepts, purpose should be central to all marketing strategy, and not just those initiatives designed to provide an inherent benefit to society.
For a product – whether a good or service - to be successful, it needs to serve a compelling, undeniable purpose for its target market. There are four key elements required:
1.Relevance: For product development to drive growth and profit, it must be aligned with deeply felt consumer needs, i.e. the product serves a specific purpose in the mind of the target market. Some of the most successful products have used such purpose to create completely new categories – smart phones, digital assistants, Uber and Lyft, Airbnb.
2.Authenticity: To engender product loyalty, the good or service must openly exceed the expected value, i.e. demanding a high level of transparency and superb service. The product also needs to remain true to its “offer” or stated purpose to its consumers. Jeff Bezos recently announced that Amazon Prime has reached 100 million members worldwide – based on its performance as a delivery service that keeps on delivering. It’s determination to be the world’s biggest distribution channel keeps true to this purpose, as it continues to expand its verticals (streaming entertainment) and services (delivering your package to your car).
3.Measurability: Organizations need to continuously measure performance throughout the product lifecycle to assess whether the product is meeting its inherent purpose. Sales are the ultimate measure, but post-purchase satisfaction information through rating sites provides the organization with near-immediate insights on how their good or service is meeting its intended purpose.
4.Impactfulness: Products with a clear purpose and research-supported consumer demand have the best opportunity for success. Clear purpose drives demand and should not be confused with passing novelty and interest. Notable examples of the latter are Google Glass and the social media platform Vine.
Clay Christensen has done some renowned work on determining the job a product or service performs , i.e. the what. The product’s purpose is the big why behind why it fundamentally exists, and tapping into that existentialism to drive the marketing mix is the predecessor to its utilitarian features.
Amazon: Disrupting Online Search As Well As Distribution Channels
Amazon: Disrupting Online Search As Well As Distribution Channels
April 6, 2018
It’s hard these days to teach a graduate school class on distribution channels without a lively discussion of the great channel disrupter of all time – Amazon. It has one of the largest member bases on the planet – Prime – and it’s hard to study purchasing behavior without Amazon being a key part of the discussion. And it’s not just my graduate students at the Harvard School of Public Health. At a recent professional conference, one speaker asked an audience of over 600 who had used Amazon in the past 36 hours and at least 80% of the audience raised their hands.
A recent survey by marketing technology firm Kenshoo of 3,100 consumers across the US, UK, Germany and France found that 72% use Amazon to find and research products, often way in advance of purchasing. 56% indicated that they visited Amazon before using any other site – at the beginning of their search – i.e. using Amazon as a search engine instead of the omnipresent Google.
With product ratings, wish lists and even options for purchasing product assembly or installation at the same time as the selected item, Amazon embraces the consumer in the entire purchase journey – the most comprehensive and diverse distribution channel imaginable. It is redefining both channels and commerce, becoming an ever-increasing threat to “bricks and mortar”. In fact, 26% of respondents in the Kenshoo survey indicated that they consult Amazon for information which doing in-store shopping.
While Amazon is increasingly becoming a go-to search engine, it’s 2.6 billion monthly visits pales in comparison to Google’s 3.5 billion searches per day. However, Google has no paying members, and does not boast a 30% transaction rate. Both member and guest user engagement in Amazon is impressive, and perhaps unparalleled.
As Amazon grows its presence and perhaps disrupts product online search as much as digital commerce, it’s interesting to examine their stated mission in comparison to Google’s. Amazon’s mission is "to be earth's most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online." And Google’s is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Expect Amazon to continue to steal search volume on digital purchasing from our favorite search engine and create a new category for product search.
When the Brand Narrative is Divisive – Notes on the NRA
When the Brand Narrative is Divisive – Notes on the NRA
March 13, 2018
I teach a class in Strategic Marketing Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. It’s an introduction to the function at the graduate level, and generally none of my students have coursework or experience in marketing. The session on Brand Positioning and Brand Equity is always a favorite.
As we discussed the readings and case assignment for this session, I asked the students what their top-of-mind brands were, and got the usual responses – Amazon, Apple, North Face, Trader Joe’s. All personal favorites and routinely used – the backbone of good brands. Asked if brands can be political, I got a roomful of quizzical looks.
I then wrote three letters on the blackboard – NRA. And the discussion began, as this session was two weeks after the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 teens and teachers were killed. Not surprisingly, none of the students – emerging public health leaders in a liberal university – had a positive brand association with the NRA. They could imagine, though, groups of Americans who had an affinity for the organization – red state, conservative, Tea Party, Trump supporters. In under 5 minutes, the blackboard depicted the divisiveness engendered by the NRA brand.
Do individuals and organizations act for and against brands in this type of environment – you bet they do. Delta Airlines has decided to remove NRA members from its discount program, and in retaliation the Republican-led Georgia state legislature has voted to rescind tax benefits to Delta, which is based in Georgia and employs over 30,000 state residents. Many other organizations, though, have stepped up to do the same – United Airlines, Hertz, Enterprise and MetLife, to name a few. Other companies which sell guns and ammunition have raised the age for gun purchases – Dick’s Sporting Goods, LL Bean, REI, for example.
This activity was spurred at least in part by a speech Wayne LaPiere, Executive Vice President of the NRA, gave to the Conservative Political Action Committee days after the Parkland shooting, blaming gun control advocates for restricting Americans’ freedom and promoting guns in schools to keep students safe. Could the NRA and its supporters dream up a better brand ambassador? While the CPAC audience roared its support, American industry turned its back. There are no reports of new organizations signing on to support the NRA.
The emerging youth school safety movement and the anti-gun lobby have been highly critical of politicians “thoughts and prayers” messages after Parkland. One conservative politician, notably the Governor of Florida, crossed over from his former NRA-supporter stance, to quickly sign comprehensive gun control legislation. And his negative ratings have turned positive for the first time in over two years.
The fallout continues. I am posting this on the eve of the National School Walkout, when, at 10 am in all time zones, students and others will walk out of there schools for 17 minutes to protest Congress’ continued inaction on gun control. Social media savvy students have branded this effort #enough, #walkout most effectively.
ABC’s of Brand Development
ABC’s of Brand Development
February 22, 2018
Brand development and stewardship are the most important responsibilities of the marketing world. The value of any organization – or individual (celebrity, politician or otherwise) – hinges on the perceived value of its brand. Brand custodianship is often viewed with trepidation by even seasoned marketing professionals. A handy guide is to encompass the following key elements when telling your brand story –
Authenticity
Brands must be both honest to their publics and true to themselves. Great brands use their name, logo, stories and messages to depict clearly and quickly who they are and what they stand for. The American Red Cross is an excellent example. Their mission of preventing, preparing for and responding to emergencies motivates the public to donate blood and money to aid victims of disaster. And their logo embraces the centuries old red cross (originally the symbol of medical personnel serving in a war zone) with their name to clearly depict their brand promise.
Bigness
Great brands take up space in a consumer’s mind and the minds of all consumers. They present the public with a significant purpose and reason to believe. Consider Google’s stated mission - to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Because they deliver on this brand promise 24/7, they have owned the search category and achieved the pinnacle of brand status – i.e. they have entered our lexicon as a verb. Who among us hasn’t talked about “Google’ing”.
Culture-Centric
For brands to be successful, they must deliver on their stated mission at every customer touch point. The most difficult environment for staff to “live the brand” is in retail. Yet, one national retailer has managed to consistently top the charts in this category – namely, Nordstrom. They hire, train, and support staff by creating a brand-driven culture - In our store or online, wherever new opportunities arise- Nordstrom works relentlessly to give customers the most compelling shopping experience possible. And part of this culture is empowering staff with service recovery options, for when the experience is sub-optimal from the customer’s point of view.
Differentiated
For a brand to become and remain memorable in customers’ minds, they must carve out a unique, differentiated space in their category. This poses one of the greatest challenges to marketers, because we need to dig deep into our mission, our reasons to believe and our relative standing among our competitors. Consider the crowded automobile market, and the fact that to most of us, most cars look rather similar. Yet Volvo has carved out the “safety” space quite effectively, and BMW continues to ride its brand promise of being the “ultimate driving machine”.
Easy
The best brands make it easy for their customers to get to know them and engage with them. With all due respect to brands like Volvo and BMW, they target a very select segment of the overall auto market. What about the mass market of everyday products. Well, consider L’Oréal, whose hair care product and skin care lines sit on crowded store shelves. Their message of “you’re worth it” has resonated with women for quite some time. And greeting cards – another crowded space. But Hallmark justifies its price point “when you care enough to send the very best”.
Marketers carry a huge responsibility in furthering the business goals of their organizations, and cultivating powerful brands is key.
Do Cities Have Brands: Amazon’s Search for HQ2
Do Cities Have Brands: Amazon’s Search for HQ2
February 14, 2018
Ever since my adopted hometown of Boston made Amazon’s first cut of contending cities for its much-discussed HQ2, I’ve been looking for common threads among these cities – in terms of what their well known for, their overall stature, their distinctive benefits – in other words, their brand differentiation.
The features that Amazon is seeking – population over 1 million, proximity to a major airport, manageable commute, connectivity, and an academic community that can turn out employees – are pretty much table stakes when you look at all 20 cities. HQ2 is not going to be a fulfillment center – Amazon has 70 of these throughout the US with approximately 50K employees. HQ2 though will be another technology center. If you look at the roughly 4,200 job listings at HQ1 in Seattle, 1,900 are for software developers and the remainder are in similar categories.
No, Amazon is looking for another “brain” plant, one with facilities that will support the minds and technology that will develop its future - the next Alexa, entertainment vehicle, health care enterprise, and who knows what else. So, just taking a handful of contenders, what do LA, New York, Boston, Chicago, Austin, Columbus, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh have in common?
They can all meet the features required, and I dare say, so could some of the over 200 cities not moving forward. And there are other measurable criteria, like cost of living, that are important and well documented, and even some soft data on quality of living for HQ2’s 50K employees.
But, really, where are the differences. New York is widely regarded as one of the world’s top commercial centers. Boston’s claim to fame is its educational and innovation community. Chicago brings a blend of both to its renown as the leading business center of America’s Midwest. And Columbus touts that it is America’s test market – not sure what that brings to the HQ2 table. Pittsburg former renown as the steel city isn’t going to help here, Indianapolis as the crossroads of America is great for folks who like to drive a lot and for companies that rely on ground transportation.
So, will Amazon go the way of Google, which put a major foothold down in NYC, which wants to be the tech capital of the world as well as the business capital of the world. Or of General Electric, which is relocating to Boston from suburban Connecticut to tap the university (read Harvard and MIT) environment and the innovation hubs these engender. Chicago’s reputation as the Windy City may not be a plus, but it isn’t stopping MacDonald’s or Caterpillar from moving there.
So, will Amazon pick one of these big brand cities for both the intangible vibes (benefits) they offer employees as well as for the tangibles like public transportation? We’ll know soon enough.
3 Corporate Myths That Are Killing Your Brand and What to Do About Them
3 Corporate Myths That Are Killing Your Brand and What to Do About Them
February 1, 2018
Within the past 6 months I’ve had the opportunity to evaluate and advise on the organization of marketing and communication functions in several health care and higher education enterprises. While neither industry is well known for having a super-abundance of staff in these functions, they are both techno-savvy industries noted for their innovation hubs and breakthroughs of all kinds.
That said, I was surprised at key self-imposed myths that were a drag on these over-worked and talented teams, whose role was the “sing their brand stories” to the world. And these myths are not contained in just these industries.
Myth 1: Brand Stories Are the Purview of Corporate Marketing and Communications Departments
While Marketing and Communications Departments have clear and definite responsibilities regarding overall brand stewardship, brand architecture and major brand platforms like websites and social media, they do not control brand stories, much as they would like to. This obsession for control is often driven by the worry about a “bad story” getting to the media. Since in today’s world, that story is going to get out anyway, it should not strangle all the wonderful stories that ring truer and more authentic when told directly by the participants, not corporate communicators.
With great brands, stories emanate from internal stakeholders, customers and interested observers. And they use their own platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – to tell the brand story – and contribute the good, the bad, and the ugly to public communities like Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc.
Corporate functions should provide support to internal stakeholders to make them successful in everyone’s eyes – through guidelines and policies. Customers can be included as well, with the opportunity to provide feedback on the corporate digital platforms.
Myth 2: Content Responsibilities Can Be Segmented By Department
The overused phrase “content is king” must change the way institutional advancement teams are organized – because content is king. Institutional advancement functions – those responsible for shaping and sharing key messages - are in marketing, communications, sales, human resources and non-profit fundraising areas. Generally, these functions have had discrete responsibilities for brand messaging, and leadership, and like to parse out content by their responsibility – media relations, advertising, internal communications, sales pitches, etc.
As a result, rather than brand stories, AKA content, flourishing across many forms of organizational storytelling, they are semi-stifled by false claims of ownership. This also dampens staff efficiency through repurposing good content on multiple platforms. Content must be a team sport across silos, and departmental leaders must nurture cross-functional content talent that puts the brand story first.
Myth 3: Traditional vs. Digital Teams
Face it – everything today is either digital or is intimately tied to digital strategies and tactics. While there still are some offline media and tactics, these nearly always have online calls-to-action or fulfillment. Therefore, to meet the business goals of our organizations, we all are digital marketers, and everyone on the team needs to be cross-trained in telling brand stories in a digital age. Digital storytelling is not the purview of the young “digital natives” or the techno-savvy creatives. For maximum efficiency and impact, leaders must provide the direction, training and support to eliminate the artificial bifurcation of brand storytelling into artificial categories.
The most effective brand strategies are multi-platform, content-driven and agnostic to organizational departments.