Not just for sneakers: Brand name positioning enters the practice arena
Not just for sneakers: Brand name positioning enters the practice arena
How one health system changed its name and created brand awareness
Una Newman inherited both a marketer’s dream and a major challenge shortly after her employer, the Emory University System of Health Care (EUSH) in Atlanta, gained a new chief executive officer. The challenge for Newman, senior director of marketing for the system, is similar to one facing savvy physician practice marketers everywhere: how to build brand identity and loyalty among health care consumers.
The CEO, Michael Johns, MD, had come from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "They were always in the top 10 nationally, and he felt Emory could be there too, if we built up our name," says Newman. "We had never done much marketing. We had never said, This is who we are.’"
After eight months of research and meetings, the system has a new name Emory Health Care and renewed interest in its services.
How did Emory do it?
The first step was to determine what various customers thought of the system, says Newman. To do that research, two consulting firms were hired Anspach Grossman Enterprise of New York and Endresen Research of Seattle. The two polled patients, small and large employers, insurance brokers, and managed care organizations about awareness, perception, and utilization of EUSH.
Internal customers also were questioned. Fifty people from board level to midlevel operations were interviewed, both individually and in groups. While Newman set up all the interviews and attended focus group sessions, the actual discussions were run by the two consulting firms.
The research pointed out some big problems, says Newman. For instance, 35% of those asked thought a referral was needed to get into the EUSH system at all. Most people also thought that the system provided just tertiary care. "We knew we had to change those perceptions," she says.
Choosing a name
After the research was completed, five new names were suggested to the executive board. "Three were throw-aways," says Newman. "There were only two we were really serious about." Those two were Emory Health Care and Emory Health. "The board wanted the former because of the word care," she says. "We just wanted Emory Health."
The board won out.
There were other issues to be considered, too. There were 32 different logos in the system one for each part. For instance, the EUSH eye clinic had its own logo, which was different from the EUSH spine center. The decision to create one identity for the system was easy. Selling the idea to 32 pieces of the system was much more difficult. "It took a lot of politicking and convincing people that they would be better if we were known as one entity," says Newman.
Newman pushed the idea that patients at the eye clinic would want to know that it wasn’t just an eye clinic but one which was linked to a neurology practice or an optometrist if needed. "In the end, people realized that we were bigger and better together."
Part of creating an external identity, she adds, was creating an internal one. To further that goal, Newman wanted to create an internal identity sentence. "I wanted us to find something that exemplified how we see ourselves and translate that to the outside."
There were many meetings about this issue, and Newman says it took a lot of time to explain to the physicians that an identity statement is not an advertising slogan, but an explanation of who you are. In Emory’s case, the statement A World of Knowledge Close to Home worked both as an identity statement and as a tag line which has since been incorporated into advertisements for Emory Health Care.
It has been five months since the name change became official, and the first advertisements for Emory Health Care hit the press in August. The initial response has been positive, says Newman. "My gut instinct is that internally, we are using the brand, Emory Health Care much more," she says. "And the ads are getting positive responses. I even had a competitor call me up to say we had done a really great job."
Community awareness is also up, she says, as indicated from increasing participation by the community at Emory-sponsored events and through a willingness of the community to serve on advisory boards.
The real test will come in November when follow-up research will test the attitudes of the public towards Emory Health Care. Newman says an increase in primary care patients will be another measure of success, since most people didn’t equate the system with first-line health care.
It can’t be done in one meeting
There are also new clinics opening, and if they generate good patient loads quickly, then Newman says she will view the exercise as worth the cost which Newman will only say was between $25,000 and $150,000.
While she views her experience as positive, Newman has advice for practices and systems thinking of undergoing a similarly identity program. "Spend a lot of time with your board and executive committee," she says. "I tried to do too much in a short time and overwhelmed them. Next time, I would do in three or four meetings what I tried to do in one."
Newman warns that even though your board may be full of geniuses, don’t assume that they understand marketing. "What is intuitive to a marketing executive is not intuitive to physicians. They don’t understand why you need a positioning statement. It’s a foreign idea to non-marketers."
She is hoping to avert the problem in the future by training some of her physicians on marketing issues. There is a new 20-physician task force on brand management which is learning about marketing and in the future will be used to make recommendations to the executive committee. In this way, says Newman, the suggestions will be coming from physicians to physicians and will require less "selling."
When you do run into a wall of objection, Newman advises that you show a financial outcome to the balkers. "Explain to them what, in dollars and cents, will be the expected return on investment. Doctors respond well to that."
Finally, Newman says you should choose your consultants carefully. "Take your time. I looked at a lot of local firms, but we chose someone with a national perspective who did a lot of health care research. If you are smaller, then a local firm might be fine. But I needed someone who knew what Blue Shield of California had done."
Una Newman, senior director of marketing, Emory Health Care, Atlanta. Telephone: (800) 248-3542.
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