To position the Washington Hospital Center (WHC) as offering "world-class" cardiac treatment to emphasize its accessibility, WHC relied on impressive stats and a little competitive advertising. Rolled out last year, the three print ads trumpet the fact that 4,100 cardiac specialists come to WHC to hone their skills and makes the bold comparison that it performs twice as many cardiac procedures (15,000) as its leading competitor, Johns Hopkins.
This factual "yard stick" marketing approach gave consumers impressive numbers to associate WHC with when choosing a cardiac center. The visuals -a globe and surgical team in action -were particularly effective with men, a tougher target to impress than women.
The ads, which tested well in focus groups, spoke to a growing consumer need to "show" how hospitals care instead of just saying it, said Sue Duvuque, president of Market Strategies, Inc. (Richmond, Va.), WHC's advertising agency. The $225,000 print plan, which supported the campaign's radio effort, targeted an upscale demo in the tri-state metropolitan area (Washington, D.C,, Virginia and Maryland) through targeted placements in the Washington Post (health section), Washingtonian, Kennedy Center Playbill, Town & Country and regional editions of national business weeklies.
WHC marketers were careful not to plug just any numbers in the promotional copy, according to Lisa Wyatt, WHC's VP of public affairs. "We learned (in focus groups) that mentioning big patient volume numbers didn't work, consumers felt like they would be just another number, so we had to really look at what the numbers communicated about our delivery of care."
One of the key goals of the campaign was to make the phones ring and influence physician referrals. Since the print campaign hit, the volume of calls on the hotline has surged to about 7,000, 250 of which were generated from the print ads. (A nice showing given the collateral role of the print ads)
(Washington Hospital Center, 202/877-6301; Market Strategies, 1800-VIP-2MSI)