Is hospital marketing on life support?

by Anthony Cirillo I was attending the World Health Care Congress outside of Washington, D.C., earlier this month when the trade journals reported, and my local Charlotte news exploded with, the CaroMont Health "Cheat Death" debacle. Hospital officials hoped the unveiling of a new tagline with a provocative phrase would resonate with residents, spurring them to eat better and exercise more, and thereby embracing wellness and living longer lives. Let's see, you're trying to promote health and life. Seems the previous tagline fit just fine: "In Love with Life." Well, the community went crazy and CaroMonth's new tagline is going away. It looks like hospital marketers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing that doesn't always work. They are trying too hard, spending too much, and frankly, they are confused. Even the two behemoth health systems in my Charlotte area had to recently explain new branding and new signage/naming respectively to the press because it was confusing and unclear to the public. FierceHealthcare Editor-in-Chief Gienna Shaw recently asked marketers this: "How are you handling this shift from marketing sick services to marketing wellness services, educating patients about health data and more?" The perspective I received at the World Health Congress helped to answer this for me. John Mackey, co-founder and CEO at Whole Foods essentially said Whole Foods does not believe that government, the medical establishment, universities or...
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs