Hospital Builds Awareness Among Future Decision-makers
Hospital campaigns that have the familiar task of building awareness for various healthcare services often target obvious audiences - women, adults and certain ethnic groups. Rarely, however, do hospitals consider advertising to tomorrow's decision-makers.
A teen-focused campaign launched by the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals (MCV) at Virginia Commonwealth University in April became this exception.
Located in the heart of Richmond, this 161-year-old academic institution enjoyed a prominent reputation among the area's mature residents. But baby boomers and their children were not as aware of its extensive history as a high-quality, internationally renowned provider.
Teens, in particular, mostly knew MCV as a place to go for gun shot wounds or serious injuries and had little awareness of its extensive research and technological achievements, says Bill Bergman, president of The Bergman Group, the Richmond advertising firm that launched MCV's teen campaign.
To challenge these limited perceptions, MCV and The Bergman Group enlisted the creative talents of high school students to develop "Medical Minutes," two television commercials that promoted wellness and prevention. This effort complemented a larger campaign that promoted MCV's Outpatient Surgery Center.
Though the campaign has only generated anecdotal results of being "cool" to teens and impressive to MCV physicians, the hospital is confident that teens are a worthwhile target to develop broad awareness and outreach.
"We're looking at [this initiative] as a long-term investment; we may not know what works for another four or five years," says Mandy Setliff, MCV's manager of print and video communications. Setliff also says it makes sense to target teens because they will become the country's next population surge after baby boomers.
Scare Tactics Don't Work
When Bergman's creative team began brainstorming ideas for campaign messages, they immediately thought of promoting the typical topics - anti-smoking and drug prevention. When they ran these ideas by area teens, they quickly found out how clueless they were, says Bergman. "They told us that scare tactics [involved with anti-smoking campaigns and other public health efforts] are too similar to everything else and they don't respond to a non-tolerant mindset."
The agency and hospital approached teens who are involved in a media program at Varina High School, located in a Richmond suburb. Four upperclassmen helped develop campaign strategies that were a drastic departure from the concepts the agency initially considered.
The students were more interested in pursuing health topics that were relevant to their everyday lives and highlighted a positive outlook. They chose sleep deprivation and how participation in extra-curricular activities affects a student's stress level. It also was important for them to feature an MCV physician to discuss these issues and provide credibility for the TV spots.
Ultimately, the four high school students ran the show. They wrote, directed and acted in the commercials. Using a news-format style, the students "reported" on how to handle sleep deprivation and over-involvement in school activities with MCV physicians providing medical tips in teen-friendly language.
The commercials ran exclusively within Fox teen programs.
Keeping the Costs Down
Campaign costs for the teen portion of the overall television advertising effort at $100,000 were minimal because production expenses were so low, says Setliff. Varina High School allowed the agency and hospital to use its sophisticated communications center with a studio and the students were well-versed in news production including script-writing, b-roll and shooting and editing, says Bergman. In addition, the marketing team was able to negotiate an efficient media buy with Fox as the exclusive media partner for the teen effort and as a major network used in the larger advertising campaign.
Teen-focused campaigns work best as a collateral effort to a bigger promotion, says Bergman. In MCV's case, Medical Minutes helped break through the clutter among the market's seven other hospitals and position the hospital as a preventive health resource for teens.
Teens represent an untapped market, says Setliff, which is why she is confident MCV will continue its teen initiatives. In doing so, teen-teen messages resonate best, as MCV and The Bergman Group quickly learned. While teens want health solutions, they don't want to be preached at. You get their attention by talking their language and finding out what health issues relevant to them.
(MCV, Mandy Setliff, 804/828-4504; The Bergman Group, Bill Bergman, 804/225-0600)
Reaching the 'Y' Generation
Teens are an exciting group for hospitals to target for broad awareness of preventive health and wellness services, but don't expect to win their trust without a long-term investment. Bill Bergman of The Bergman Group, which launched a teen-focused campaign for the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals in April, suggests reaching teens, often called the "Y" generation, by:
- collaborating with a high school or teen community organization for campaign strategies;
- featuring teens in campaign materials.
- incorporating the Internet into campaign plans; and
- partnering with media outlets that have a strong teen focus.