Some marketing savvy hospitals are joining the ranks of beer, bank and sporting goods businesses by adding their corporate logo to popular sporting events.
These hospital marketers are throwing out the quiet, conservative non-profit status of yesteryear and aggressively looking at ways to become part of the public eye.
For example, last month Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Fla., made a marketing power play at the local hockey stadium, Ice Palace, hoping to score in the public perception arena.
Ice Palace hockey fans and their couch-potato counterparts at home can expect to see plenty of the hospital's corporate logo amidst the usual arena fare.
The hospital decided, despite its recent financial difficulties (including cutting its staff by 20 percent), to spend big bucks as a prime sponsor of the Tampa Bay Lightnings sports team.
Starting last month at $410,000 annually for five years, the deal puts the hospital's teal logo over the scoreboard, along rinkside "dasherboards" visible on television and in arena concourses.
Tampa General also becomes the exclusive supplier of stitches, splints and medical succor for wounded players. The fit is natural for the most advanced trauma center in West Central Florida, according to hospital president Bruce Siegel.
"It's important for Tampa General Hospital to tell Tampa what it does and what a great place it is," he said. "The worst thing we could do is to pull back in these kind of times. We have to cut costs, but we also have to market ourselves and expand our business. If we don't, we'll watch our business just slip away."
Another hospital, TriHealth/Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, is now devoting about $100,000 a year to a marketing partnership with the Cincinnati Cyclones hockey team.
The linchpin of the effort is "Healthy Goals," a 3-year-old program in which Cyclones players visit area grade schools to espouse a message of good nutrition, exercise and avoidance of drugs.
"The program has been very successful," said Mickey Smith, hospital special events coordinator. "We wanted to get a prevention message out to the community and we were able to with this program."
For the last two years, TriHealth also has sponsored the Concrete Clones, a roadshow of players who give hockey tips in 40 locations and a soccer team the Silverbacks.
Tampa General's sponsorship, however, works into a bolder, bigger advertising program for the hospital, which is trying to bolster its image following recent periods of financial instability.
Tampa General has budgeted $4 million for marketing for 1997, compared with $2.2 million in 1996.
The money spent for marketing is important as public hospitals sometimes seen as medical backwaters and indigent care facilities keep a low profile amid more upscale rivals. Tampa General can't afford to be seen like that.
Siegal's predecessor, Fred Karl, used full-page newspaper ads and starred personally in broadcast spots promoting the theme "It's your hospital." In this marketing deal, Tampa General gets:
Radio spots during 82 Lightning games plus ads on the 53 televised games;
Ads in team programs, reference books and pocket schedules;
Eight season tickets and four VIP season parking passes; and
Autographed jersey raffled at each home game to benefit Tampa General.
"One and a half million people will see our advertising there in the first year, at the Ice Palace alone," Siegel said. "And millions more on TV, during hockey games."
(TriHealth, 513/872-1400, Tampa General Hospital, 813/251-7000)