Hospital Advertising Doesn't Work

An article in the July 29 issue of Crain’s HealthPulse, aptly titled “It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World for Local Hospitals” references a report that says that hospital advertising expenditures in the New York area have increased by over $10 million, or 28%. The article’s title, a play on the 1963 movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” is apt, in that hospitals spending this kind of money for advertising makes about as much sense as the madcap chase across the California desert that was launched in the movie after Jimmy Durante “kicked the bucket.”

For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, let me simplify my premise: New York-area Hospitals are flushing more money (over $10 million more) down more toilets (by running costly and ultimately ineffective ads) than they did last year (when they flushed almost $70 million down their collective commodes).

Simply put, advertising to attempt to build hospital business or to enhance a hospital’s reputation is almost entirely a fool’s errand. Why? Because, frankly, hospital advertising doesn’t work (go ahead and try to find bona fide research – not some overblown “case study” puffery that ad agencies love to put on their websites – that shows otherwise).

99.9% of the time, hospitals use ads to merely “push” information at their intended audience – an audience that long ago turned its back on this type of one-sided communication, and which fails to find any personal relevance in your newest state-of-the-art thing-a-ma-bob. As a result, traditional hospital advertising doesn’t engage the intended audience. Almost always, these ads are done to pacify doctors who insist that the hospital run ads (after all, 4 years of medical school, various internships and hospital residency certainly qualifies you as a marketing expert!) that showcase their undeniable talents. This approach is akin to going to a cocktail party, and beginning a conversation with “Hey, let’s talk about ME!”

Against the backdrop of already-thin hospital margins being squeezed tighter and tighter, it is astounding that hospitals continue to waste money at these levels.

The rules of marketing and advertising changed a few years ago, yet apparently nobody told the hospital community. Today, merely touting your “state-of-the-art facility,” your “world-renowned specialists,” your “latest technology” – regardless of how “unique,” “innovative” or “leading-edge” it may be – will earn your ad nothing more than a yawn and a quick trip to the recycling bin. The key to successful hospital promotion is to achieve true engagement – connecting with your customers, fostering two-way communication, and delivering value to them as a result of their engagement with your brand. And this can be done successfully for a fraction of what hospitals now spend for advertising space.

The More Things Change...

In my last post, I not only quoted the philosopher Ferris Bueller, I talked about how much things have changed in public relations over the course of the past several years. While it is always important to stay ahead of the technology and communication curve, it is far more important to have a sound base for any PR initiative. These are among the things that have NOT changed in the past several years.

The need to plan. You’ve heard the old saw, “If you don’t know where you are going, then ANY road will get you there!” It was true when I was a young pup in this business, and it remains true today. Planning is essential. Set objectives, outline strategies, assign tactics to those strategies (including all of the new social media platforms), determine what success will look like, and set measurement matrices. A good, sound PR plan is like the score for an orchestra; each instrument knows when and what notes to play, and the end result that emerges is far greater than the sum of its parts.

The necessity of the media. To paraphrase another modern-day philosopher, Mr. T, “I pity the fool who thinks you should disregard traditional media.” In most cases, there is still no better and more credible way to connect to your audience than with traditional media. The New York Times remains the number one most quoted and referenced site on the Internet for a reason. And what people see on television or in the news (even if it they receive it tweeted, emailed or posted on Facebook) is often seen as holding far greater value and gravitas than a piece that originates solely on the net.

Content is still king. I don’t care how many “friends” or “likes” you have on Facebook or followers on Twitter. If you are not delivering solid, relevant, useful content, you will not be able to engage with your audience for long. And speaking of engagement…

You need to engage. Public relations is the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its public. That takes engagement. And while connecting with various publics is often accomplished in a very different ways today than it was 10 years ago, the end result should be the same: to create and maintain connections. In other words, engage.

Yes, things have absolutely changed for PR agencies and practitioners. We would be among the fools that Mr. T would pity if we were to think or act otherwise. But a solid foundation that starts with a good, sound and well-vetted plan, that employs the strengths of both traditional and social media, that delivers good and useful content and makes and nurtures connections is still the way that excellent PR is practiced today.

Life Moves Pretty Fast

One of the great modern-day philosophers, Ferris Bueller twice said (at the beginning and at the end of the iconic 1986 movie, so it must be important), “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

The same can be said generally about all businesses. But in particular, the Public Relations business has moved incredibly fast.

When I started R&J back in 1986, the same year that Ferris gave us his great advice about life, I had an IBM Selectric typewriter on my desk, and the only Gekko we ever heard from was Gordon, who was telling us (convincingly) that “greed is good.” We didn’t even have a fax machine; they were just then gaining widespread utilization. Back in that time, our role as public relations practitioners was clear and simple: to get publicity – and lots of it – for our clients. We did this by writing lots and lots of press releases (and mailing – yes mailing – them out to the media, usually with 5” X 7” glossy photo prints), establishing personal relationships with journalists (and there were a lot more of those covering much narrower “beats” back then), and pitching like crazy. It was a great business – fun and rewarding in so many ways.

But a funny thing happened along the way. Life moved pretty fast.
Business changed, and with that change, came the need for a far greater degree of strategic, forward-looking business counsel and strategic thinking. To accommodate these business needs, the public relations industry also underwent tremendous change. And the transformation of our business and our industry that was necessary to stay ahead of our clients’ needs has been incredible – often happening at break-neck speed.

Today’s successful PR firm is far more than a publicity shop. Today, we often play a central role in brand development, market strategy and business-building for our clients. We’re called in at the beginning of discussions on positioning, market strategy and brand personality. We consult on the ins-and-outs, and the potential ramifications of every communication tactic – both traditional and in social media. We prepare, and when needed, execute crisis management plans. In short, we are important counselors and marketing partners for our clients, and not simply “publicists” (although publicity is still a very important deliverable for many of our clients).

Firms like ours welcome this never-ending change. We thrive on it, and look forward to engaging with new media channels and outlets, and new techniques. It’s actually become fun to learn how express a full marketing thought in 140 characters or less! And I am very fortunate to have surrounded myself with a lot of smart, curious and insightful people, who don’t hesitate to remind me how fast things change, and how if we aren’t riding the wave, then we risk being swallowed up by it.

Yes, Ferris had it right: Life does, indeed, move pretty fast. We are happy to have evolved along the way, and to have helped our clients through many of these changes. We continue to look ahead for the next inevitable round of changes.

Finally, to many of our clients who’ve been along with us for much of this incredible ride, as Ferris would say,Danke Schön!

Communicating in a Crisis -- Choose Wisely

We do a fair amount of crisis management work for our healthcare and consumer products clients. You never know when a crisis is going to hit, and you never know what twists and turns it might take. No matter what your industry, crisis preparedness and a plan for a disciplined response are a necessity. How your organization behaves and communicates during a crisis can be crucial to your future.

With many organizations that we’ve consulted with over the past several years, especially recently, we have highlighted and planned for the use of social media – Twitter and Facebook predominantly – as prominent communication vehicles within their crisis communication plans.

The temptation by many organizations is to rely on those very useful and quite effective social media tools exclusively for communication. But every crisis is different, and all audiences are not created equal.

Case in point, the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010.

While Twitter was an incredibly useful tool in communicating from Haiti to the rest of the outside world, a new study by the Knight Foundation reminds us that sometimes we have to think on a more basic level. The study concludes that radio – yes, radio – was the “most effective tool for serving the public,” just as it had been with the Indian Ocean tsunami and other recent natural disasters.

My point here is simply this: Don’t ignore the obvious when it comes to communicating in a crisis. In the case of Haiti, getting the word out to the widest audience – an audience without many modern tools, and one in which a good deal of people were illiterate – was the number one priority. And good old fashioned radio was the best tool to get the word out.

As the old expression goes, “horses for courses.” It isn’t necessarily the vehicle you need to focus on, but the environment in which your message needs to be delivered.

Reports of the Demise of Conventional Marketing Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Happy New Year!

So I read the other day that some folks are actually saying that the meteoric rise of social media tools has rendered conventional marketing irrelevant.

You gotta be kidding me.

I am a BIG proponent of incorporating social media into almost everyone's marketing mix. And yes, for some products, services or brands, social media should be a cornerstone of their marketing effort.

And there is no question in my mind that social media's importance, its use and its prevalence will increase geometrically as time goes on.

But ask yourself this: Can you really afford to put all of your eggs into the social media basket when (pause for effect here), THE VAST MAJORITY OF CONSUMERS ARE NOT USING ANY TYPE OF SOCIAL MEDIA.

Every now and again it's best to stop and take a reality check.

Email -- a great tool, but no substitute for REAL communication

I have often marveled at the new communication methods and tools that have emerged over the past several year. As a business owner who employees a good deal of "twentysomething" employees, I have seen the proliferation of IMs, Skype, Facebook and MySpace, and now Twitter as communication tools.

There is no question that these tools have changed the way we communicate, and have certainly changed the PR community as well. But there is a danger inherent in the immediate, truncated communication that is favored by modern communication tools -- that danger is in misinterpretation of meaning and/or intent, which strikes at the very core of good communication.

Take, for example email -- a communication tool that has been around like for-EVER it seems.

Email is one of the greatest communication tools in our arsenal. It allows us to communicate with great immediacy, and with virtually anyone around the globe. And with so many "smart phones" in use today, most people can pick up email all day and in any place.

But there is a problem inherent in email that is now getting a good deal of attention. In short, email has no subtlety, offers no richness of communication, provides no avenues for subtext, and certainly favors a truncation of meaning.

It turns out that email is a lousy way to communicate anything but cold, hard facts, figures and direction.

Daniel Goldman, author of "Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships" (Bantam) writes about this dichotomy in an October 7, 2007 article in the New York Times. In the article, Goldman writes "We tend to misinterpret positive email messages as more neutral, and neutral ones as more negative, than the sender intended."

Why? Goldman tells us it's because "Email can be emotionally impoverished when it comes to nonverbal messages that add nuance and valence to our words. The typed words are denuded of the rich, emotional context we convey in person or over the phone."

Goldman also quotes Clay Shirkey, an adjunct professor in NYU's interactive communication program, who pointedly says, "When you communicate with a group you only know through electronic channels, it's like having functional Asperger's Syndrome -- you are very logical and rational, but emotionally brittle."

It is for that reason that we encourage all of our employees to push away from the keyboard, and pick up the telephone. Moreover, we require our account service team to see their clients face-to-face at least once a month (if not more!). This is especially important when communicating difficult or complex news.

The article is a short, but very enlightening read. I encourage you to check it out here.

The News Never Changes, It Just Happens to Different People

I'm often asked for my opinion of the very best example of crisis management. Everyone expects me to cite the Tylenol product tampering case of 1982.

In what is now a legend in crisis management circles, Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Tylenol, came out of the crisis even stronger, through an unprecedented and extraordinarily aggressive campaign that was marked by the speed with which they responded, the candor with which they communicated, and the profit-be-damned commitment to public safety that they demonstrated at every turn.

Unlike the Exxon Valdez oil disaster, or the Firestone tire fiasco, Johnson & Johnson didn't think first about lost profits. The reason that J&J was able to rescue a high-profit product that at the time commanded a whopping 35% of the OTC analgesic market, was that they immediately ordered a massive recall of more than 31 million bottles (with a retail value of more than $100 million), which assured the public that J&J had put the public's health and best interest first.

But surprisingly, the Tylenol product tampering case is not what I consider the "best" example of crisis management.

The best crisis management cases are the ones you never hear about.

Mostly, the reason you never hear about them is that the company (and most likely their PR agency) realized that a crisis can happen to anybody, at just about any time, and they prepared for how to act and respond when it inevitably does happen.

Here is the short version of what you and your company should be doing NOW, in advance of the inevitable chaos and scramble that a crisis will bring on:

1. First and foremost, agree that managing your organization's reputation is always "Job One." Hold close to your heart the admonition of Warren Buffet who once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to lose it.”

2. Conduct a "Vulnerability Assessment." What are your greatest risks? (make a list). Ask your CEO what keeps him or her awake at night? Identify and prioritize worst case scenarios.

3. Then fix what you can in advance.

4. Assign responsibilities and contingency accountabilities now, while cool heads can prevail, and outside of the glaring spotlight. Hash out any potential differences now with lawyers (who often want to immediately take over and stonewall the media -- which is almost always disastrous). Remember that somebody has to keep flying the plane (in other words, you still need to be able to do business while the crisis unfolds). Make sure you that you have someone at a high enough level whose job it is to NOT be immersed in the crisis, but to make sure that business continues as normally as possible.

5. Identify your media spokesperson, and have a back-up in case that person is unavailable. Then make sure they are professionally trained in how to best communicate with and through the media. (I often say that dealing with the media is a lot like playing golf. Virtually ANYBODY can do it, but it takes a fair amount of talent and a good deal of practice to shoot under par.)

6. Develop a briefing book with background materials and "talking points" for potential problems.

7. Like it or not, your employees are front line – get them ready. Publish policies that proscribe their speaking about the company with the media, but also put measures in place to communicate with your staff, giving them as much information as you can.

Almost all crises have consistent elements, which you can -- and should -- plan for in advance. In today's world, the media cycle is down to seconds. The Internet has made widespread communication almost instantaneous. Blogs allow rumors spread by your competitors.

Remember the old saying, "The news never changes, it just happens to different people." A crisis can happen any time and to any company. If you aren't prepared to tell your story, it is entirely probable that someone else will do it for you. Can you really afford NOT to be prepared?