When Centura Health was formed in 1995, the result of a merger of 10 Colorado hospitals, it took a branding gamble on addressing an issue that has haunted healthcare since the managed care revolution - inadequate customer service.
Centura's branding campaign, launched in 1998, makes a bold positioning statement, "It's all about getting better," featured in its ad materials that addresses various consumer-based healthcare frustrations.
Although that statement tested high among consumers, it rubbed some of Centura's own audiences the wrong way. Physicians and other employees said that the campaign seemed too apologetic and suggested that Centura Health was "sick," says Deborah D. Hood, Centura's director of marketing.
After an internal education effort addressing the ways Centura is working to resolve key consumer disappointments with the healthcare industry, physicians and other employees came around, eventually contributing creative campaign ideas.
This is just a snapshot of some of the issues Centura's branding team faced in developing not only a brand identity for the new company name but also building awareness for a new category in the market - a system of hospitals, which was a novel concept then.
Getting Started
Four years ago, Centura Health was born as Colorado's largest integrated health delivery system, formed by the combined services of Catholic Health Initiatives and the Adventist Health Care System. The marketing challenge was to create messages that resonated among different audiences and regions: healthcare consumers, managed care organizations and employees.
Another challenge was addressing the concerns of rural hospitals that felt they would lose their identity under the Centura umbrella name, says Hood.
To develop a brand strategy that would have mutual appeal to all of the hospitals and communities involved, Centura assembled a brand team in 1997 drawn primarily from Centura's marketing, PR and operations. Outside advertising and market research consultants were also used. These firms include Southfield, Mich.-based Market Strategies, Inc. for a series of market research projects to gauge consumer perceptions of healthcare, internal attitudes about the merger and Centura's positioning statements and PRACO Advertising in Denver.
Doing market research early on allowed the brand team to immediately identify areas in customer satisfaction on which Centura could have an impact. Billing, access to specialists and other managed care barriers were at the forefront, says Robert F. Klein, VP of Market Strategies.
The Verb Tense Approach
The challenge of tackling a hot button issue like customer satisfaction, especially as a large hospital network, is ensuring that the system can support your consumer claims, says Hood. In reality, smaller hospitals could probably streamline their systems much more easily than a statewide network.
The brand team decided that to establish a brand promise using the active verb tense - "getting" better - would be the best way to avoid disappointing consumers while conveying Centura's commitment to enhancing customer satisfaction. The approach mirrors the United Airlines "rising" ad strategy which conveys UA's efforts to meet customer needs amid airline delays and flight cancellations, says Klein.
Centura's advertising campaign rolled out in two phases. The first, launched in September, communicated about a general commitment to improvement. Copy highlighted positioning statements from the system's 14,000 employees and physicians.
Phase two focused on specific areas in which Centura was improving customer satisfaction such as pediatric surgery, cancer and overall room service. This allowed individual hospitals to focus on the service line areas they felt they delivered high patient satisfaction. The advertising campaign cost $800,000 and involved regional TV, radio and print.
Internal buy-in was important to communicate the campaign's strategies to all employees, not just managers. For this audience, one-to-one communications is most effective. Beyond that employee newsletters, bulletin boards and the intranet are ideal tools for educating about brand strategy.
Internally, the campaign is also boosting system morale and motivating employees to contribute ideas, says Hood. So far, 12 employees have submitted campaign ideas and the open communication on brand strategy has led to an internal "grapevine" culture.
(Centura Health, Deborah Hood, 719/776-5053, Market Strategies, Robert Klein, 248/350-3026)
Post-Merger Branding
Developing a brand team either during or soon after the merger process is key to salvaging your image. The team should involve PR, marketing, advertising, market research and operations and identify:
- Consumer expectations for healthcare;
- Internal perceptions about the new organization's brand strategy before the campaign is executed.
- Ways for individual hospitals to customize the brand concept.
Source: Centura Health/HPRMN