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Hospital-related TV dramas are nothing new. But one hospital's take - Hollywood-inspired documentaries based on real life patients - made for some innovative marketing, profiled in the latest issue of Marketing News.

In July 2008, St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., a 278-bed facility, launched a campaign fitting for the movies. Chris Bevolo, president of Minneapolis-based healthcare marketing agency Interval, says the goal was to create a campaign that wasn't self-congratulatory, one that people would pay attention to.

To do this, the teams avoided the standard approach of boasting of the physicians, the hospital's ranking and the latest healthcare technology. Instead, they focused on people, specifically three real-life patients who survived their brushes with death after receiving care at St. Joseph's. The patients became the focal point of movie posters and Web sites, touting new movies with names like Courage Girl, The Warrior and Ceil's Story. But while the marketing materials made the movies look like new theatrical releases, they were instead the names of three 10-minute documentaries about the patients' St. Joseph's experience.

"We showed something people related to," Bevolo says. "Whether they like it or not, people wonder, 'What is in it for me?' When it comes to health, they want to know how they'll be treated and what the experience will be like."

The poster and TV/online ad campaign drove more than 15,000 people to the microsites, and in October 2008, the documentaries made their debuts online, airing the following month as a half-hour special on the local PBS affiliate. In all, the budget for the cinema-style campaign was $825,000, a paltry sum by Hollywood standards. It contributed to a 0.5% market share increase in October and November last year, says Kimberly Morgan, senior marketing and communciations manager for St. Joseph's.

Click below to see the documentaries and trailers for yourself. You can also find out more about the campaign in the Best in Class feature "Lights! Camera! Patients!," appearing in the October 15th issue of Marketing News.

Posted by Piet at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We’ve had our differences with the French over the years (remember banning french fries in Congressional cafeterias) but I have to shout Vive La France to a story I read this week in Ad Age that several French legislators have backed a bill that would require magazines to tell readers when photos have been air brushed to make celebrities, models, etc. look better than they are.

The proposed warning would be (as translated in Ad Age): “retouched photograph aimed at changing a person’s physical appearance.” The measure is backed by groups concerned about the impact of picture-perfect models on those with such eating disorders as anorexia.

I’m tired of touched-up photos of all kinds. When I worked for a real estate magazine, for example, the art director would routinely change photos of houses on the cover to conform with whatever image the accompanying story hoped to convey.

I’d like to cast a vote for photo integrity, whether on the editorial or the advertising side. What do you think?

If photo re-touching doesn’t worry you, just watch for what happens to my photo in the Marketing News Halloween issue. That should make you think twice about the joys of Photoshop.

Posted by John at 11:19 AM | Permalink

Just as there's something extra special about your Grandma's tomato sauce, some products and services are all the better thanks to a differentiating ingredient.

If that differentiation matters to consumers, there are extra profits to be had, not just for the brand the consumers are buying, but for the B-to-B brand that makes the consumer product so desirable.

Welcome to the world of ingredient branding, a B-to-B measure where marketing to end-users can enhance partnerships with other businesses. Think Intel and Dell, Dolby with stereo equipment, Nutrasweet and sodas. Its a fascinating topic, making for one of the best presentations I saw at Mplanet earlier this year (check out my blog post from January 27th), as well as an engaging Business Marketing Association Chicago presentation earlier this year about Underwriters Laboratories' holiday season end-user marketing campaign. (I blogged about that on February 6; look for it here). Ingredient branding is also the subject for Marketing News' September 30th cover story "B-to-B-to-C." The piece features anecdotes and advice from the marketers behind Texas Instruments' DLP digital image technology, Cargill's CoroWise cholesterol-reducing plant sterols, and other B-to-B products.

DLP, you may have noticed from cinema trailers, is the technology behind many movie theaters' digital 3-D presentations. CoroWise is found in Minute Maid Heart Wise orange juice and Centrum Cardio multivitamins. Consumers can't buy CoroWise in stores, just products embedded with CoroWise, and yet the brand is featured on product packaging, on its own Facebook page and even in Centrum Cardio commercials. That's because the ingredient is marketed as the differentiator, providing the characteristic that can make a product desirable. But to get into this space, you have to really understand how your product can benefit end-users and your business partners so you don't waste your dollars in the consumer marketing arena.

You can learn a whole lot more about this topic a few different ways. First off, there's the Marketing News story -- although I don't recommend reading it while you're hungry. (We really play up that secret sauce analogy with our layout).

Second, there's a MarketingPower podcast episode featuring two sources from the story: Michael Guillory, manager of worldwide communications for DLP Products, and Kathy Hall, vice president of marketing for Microban International Ltd., which produces the antimicrobial solution product Microban featured in cutting boards, plungers, medical equipment and hundreds of other products. Click here for a listen.

Finally, there's Hall's e-book Ingredient Branding: The Secret Ingredient to Growing Your Brand, co-written by Microban CEO David Meyers. Have a read by visiting www.ingredientbrands.com.

Posted by Piet at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)