Today, more than ever, simply communicating the facts about your cardiovascular services won’t be enough to build awareness and gain credibility among your audiences.
To get noticed, you must package your message within an intriguing creative premise. After all, people are exposed to hundreds of marketing messages every day.
Here’s an example. A few years ago, we began working with a community hospital on the outskirts of Kansas City, Missouri. We knew that, to build awareness and compete with some of the larger hospitals in the region, we would need to do something bold and differentiating.
We conducted some initial research in which we showed benefit statements and rough creative concepts to people in our targeted demographic group.
The concept that ranked highest in the research featured a photo of a doctor wearing a surgical mask, with the headline: “Another masked superhero from Liberty Hospital.”
The positive response to this idea led us to pursue “doctors as superheroes” as a creative strategy.
One of the initial ads in the campaign showed an illustration of a superhero beside a photo of an actual doctor from Liberty Hospital.
The illustrated hero was labeled “Super Powers.” The photo of the doctor said “Healing Powers.”
Later, when the hospital introduced its new Heart & Vascular Center, we built on the existing campaign with a slight variation.
Instead of showing illustrated superheroes, the ad for the Heart Center featured a child in a superhero costume, with the headline, “All kids dream of becoming superheroes. Some actually do.”
The copy in the ad positioned the cardiologists as “real-life superheroes,” giving the facts about their proven abilities, as well as information about the new state-of-the-art facility.
The campaign was extremely successful in building awareness for the hospital and the new heart center.
This is one example of how an interesting creative premise allowed us to connect with people on a human level and make them more receptive to the important facts we wanted to communicate.
Posted by Julie Robinson 
