Takeaways

Neither here nor there 

• Last week our team talked about minimalism, which resulted in a tangential (a stretch, we'll admit) conversation about Wes Anderson movies. Stephanie was to watch Moonrise Kingdom, and Chase was assigned to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel.
• Both reported on this episode offering positive remarks for the cinematography, yet a skeptical outlook on the quirky style.

A little inspiration from industries outside of healthcare

• The Effie Awards are notable marketing awards that focus on effectiveness. While many awards get a bad rap for celebrating cool ideas alone, The Effies celebrate engaging campaigns that produce quantifiable results.
• What better way to inspire bold marketing initiatives in the health industry than to look at what's working in other sectors? Each member of our podcast team selected one Effie Award-winning campaign to talk about.

Live from the Library

• Stephanie selected the Chicago Public Library's campaign, "Live from the library." The campaign, born in the middle of COVID-19 shutdowns, sought to increase access to books.
• Live from the Library was a daily storytelling series where celebrities, Chicago residents, and others read stories to audiences on Facebook Live. The campaign featured everyone from the Obamas to Dolly Parton.
• In Stephanie's opinion, one of the primary drivers of success was the campaign's simplicity and the naturalness of the content for the platform. Another was that the celebrities donated their time and produced the video from home. So, overall, the campaign cost was extremely low.
• High-profile influencers may be willing to do similar 'pro-Bono work for health systems, provided health system marketers produce simple concepts that support the common good.

"Escape Mountain," Ski-Doo. 

• Chase's favorite campaign was "Escape Mountain" by snowmobile brand Ski-Doo. To engage with a new generation of snowmobilers, the brand launched the three-part reality TV series.
• In the series, participants were dropped in the middle of nowhere on a mountain with GPS coordinates. They then navigated their way back to civilization through a series of clues and Ski-Doo products.
• Together, the three 15-minute videos collected 5 million views. The case study did not indicate whether or not the views were organic or paid.
• Our team discussed the merit of paid media impressions and views and agreed that this metric is insufficient to gauge paid media performance.

 

"The beauty of no artificial preservatives," Burger King (aka Moldy Whopper) 

• Chris took a different approach, bringing his favorite campaign to dispute. His pick: the Moldy Whopper Burger King campaign.
• The campaign sought to debunk the myth that all fast food is low quality and uses artificial preservatives by creating a time-lapse of a Burger King Whopper aging over 34 days.
• The case study published by Burger King and the agency that produced the work cites a 26% increase in quality ingredient perception, a 22% increase in visitation consideration, and a 14% increase in whopper sales.
• For many (including Chris), these results don't line up. Chris referenced a case study published to Marketing Dive demonstrating much different, less impactful results.
• Chris expressed that audiences who care about artificial preservatives likely were not considering the Burger King Whopper to begin with. Inversely, he predicted that the people eating at Burger King probably cared less about artificial preservatives.
• This campaign could be jolting enough to get people to test it out against competing products. Even if the individual doesn't become a frequent customer, they will have had heightened the consumer's brand awareness.

 

A question from our listeners

Last week we received the following question from a listener of the show.

“I’ve observed a twist in the very competitive marketing among the four major systems in my city. There are vaccination billboards signed by all four major health systems in the area rather than the typical competitive differentiation.

Would all four health systems benefit from a combined effort focused on prevention? Would their brand image improve if they collectively addressed health and well-being rather than “I’m better than you” traditional marketing?”

 Our response:

• Yes, there are many cases, like COVID-19 vaccine promotion, in which an individual system would benefit from joining a collective. In this sort of situation, you're not losing much margin or receiving a big brand lift from administering a vaccine.
• COVID-19 prevention is where the water gets murky on collectives between health systems. While it would be beneficial for public health, it could potentially undermine a system's ability to differentiate itself as consumers' partner in health.
• A good line to draw when considering collectives with other health entities is whether or not the initiative would impact patients' decisions to return to care at your system versus a competitor's system.