The Win
Sometimes, in those rare moments, when you believe your agency has done a particularly impressive job of acing a new business presentation, your instincts prove to be way off.
LevLane Advertising/Public Relations/Interactive had to swallow this bitter pill when it was initially passed over to promote Tenet's Healthcare News Bureau of Pennsylvania at the
beginning of this year.
In spite of the agency's extensive healthcare background and what it thought was a rock-solid presentation on "top-down" PR strategies for branding Tenet's Philadelphia
hospitals, the client was not sufficiently impressed to hire them. "I couldn't believe it [when the agency didn't get the business], it caused me to question my PR instincts and
everything I know about this industry," says Mikki Young, an agency VP and senior strategist.
But the agency's talent did not go unrecognized for long. Six months after being passed up, they were called back to make another presentation. The second time around, LevLane
tweaked its strategies to better address Tenet's expectations of what its news bureau should achieve. This time the agency's instincts - to focus more on local hospital PR
priorities than it previously did - were on point. In July, LevLane was selected to create and promote Tenet's healthcare news bureau.
Main Competition
LevLane competed against five other agencies when it was called back to make a second presentation. Tenet would not disclose who the competing agencies were.
Pitch Team
Mikki Young, VP and senior strategist; Susan Carter, senior supervisor; Kim Flounders, AE; and Christy Gelona, account coordinator.
Assignment
To get Tenet's business, agencies pitching the account had to demonstrate their ability to establish and maintain a Philadelphia-region news bureau to promote the events and
services of Tenet's seven area hospitals. The key PR objective was to position the news bureau as a top resource for local media, capable of providing articulate physician
spokespeople for a wide range of health conditions and pitching compelling story ideas to support Tenet's core product lines, like acute care, women's programs, senior service and
home health.
Presentation
When LevLane was invited to make a second presentation for Tenet's news bureau account, it knew it would have to make a philosophical compromise. One of the chief reasons it
lost the business initially were because of its top-down approach to promoting the Tenet brand where corporate umbrella themes would be filtered through its Philadelphia
facilities. But Tenet's regional managers disagreed with this strategy and felt that the news bureau should be driven by local hospital services and events.
In its second presentation, Levlane recommended a corporate/local branding mix where some stories would focus on meeting Tenet's national branding goals and others would
highlight efforts at individual facilities. "We struggled philosophically with where Tenet's news should emanate from because they had a strong global message as an innovative
healthcare provider," says Young. "But as the only for-profit provider in the market, there were some negative community perception issues Tenet had to deal with that made it
smarter for them to highlight the local facility over the parent name."
Pitch Tips
In addition to making this branding compromise, the agency drove home these three points that demonstrated why it was the best firm for the job:
- an extensive healthcare PR background with more than 20 years in the industry;
- a seasoned account team that would develop a combination of top-down PR campaigns and individual initiatives to support each of Tenet's hospitals; and
- the ability to hit the ground running by immediately developing a database of Tenet physicians to serve as media experts in different specialties, using existing Tenet PR
resources more effectively and establishing a pipeline of pitchable story ideas.
(LevLane Advertising, 610/667-7313; Tenet , Peggy Flen, 215/255-3253)
LevLane AdvertisingLevLane Advertising/PR/Interactive
Founded:
Location:Bala Cynwyd, PA
Billings: $37 million
Focus: advertising, PR, interactive marketing
Healthcare Clients:ReMed Recovery Care Centers
Phone: 610/667-7313