Consumers waffle, products obsolesce, and tactics come and go with the newest technological upgrade. But generally speaking there are always two things that we as advertising people can count on when we are asked to make an ad for a client’s product.
First, that the people we’re talking to have a need that our product fulfills. For without a need there’s no reason for us to be having a conversation at all.
And second, that there is some kind of opportunity for us to make those people want our client’s product’s particular way of fulfilling it.
Except in hospital advertising, where neither of these things is true.
And frankly, this is one of the things that makes it so interesting. And also, why there’s so much terrible hospital advertising being foisted upon the public.
Wait, what?
Most of the time, hospitals are advertising services to people who don’t need them. “#1 cancer center”? Yeah, well, I don’t have cancer. “Top maternity services”? Um, sorry, not pregnant right now. “Leading cardiac care unit”? Thanks boss, the old ticker is just fine.
To translate this into the language strategists try to impose upon poor creatives during briefings, the consumer by and large is not in the hospital CATEGORY. They’re not currently hospital users. Furthermore (and more troubling for the aspiration-obsessed world of advertising), they don’t aspire to be hospital users. That’s because – with the possible exception of maternity – hospitals imply disaster, disease, and crisis. And who aspires to that. No one. So the public is not in the category, which is the opposite of the situation when we’re talking about a soda (thirst), or car (transportation) or tv show (entertainment) or pretty much anything else.
And if they’re not in the CATEGORY, how the hell can I make them select MY client?
This is why you end up with advertising that basically says “that disease you don’t have and hope you never get? Yeah we’re better at it than other people.”
Compelling right?
But wait, it gets worse. And it has to do with that word “better”.
Because even the people who do respond to your message, the ones who, for whatever reason, do have a need they think your hospital can fulfill – they really have no way of evaluating whether or not your offering is really, actually, “better”. And if they can’t perceive you as meaningfully better, then they won’t choose you over your competition (I realize that’s really obvious basic advertising fundamentals there, but it bears reminding).
A car, I can drive – and I can like the handling or the power or the suspension. Or I can not. But I can call one “better” than another for those reasons. A beverage I can like the taste of, or not. A movie can entertain me or not. But a doctor? How do I know if this person knows what they’re doing? I have a disease, they sit me down, they explain things. They ask me if I have any questions. How the hell should I know? I’m not a doctor. All I want is the best. All I want is to know that I’ve got the best doctor for whatever the hell it is that ails me. And I want to know this while 1) I’m not feeling great (because I’m sick, remember?) and 2) I’m sort of terrified that I won’t find out whether I do have the best doctor until its too late.
So what I do is what most advertising does – default to externalities.
If they went to a good school, they must be good. Or if they won awards, they must be good. Or if they have cutting edge technology they must be good.
Except, really?
The most successful college football program of all time hasn’t had an MVP in the NFL in forever while conversely arguably the greatest NFL quarterback of all time couldn’t get off the bench at his alma mater. Or said another way, “past performance is no indication of future earnings.”
And awards? Citizen Kane wasn’t awarded best picture in 1942, James Joyce never was awarded a Nobel Prize for literature, and Jim Brown wasn’t awarded the Heisman. So you know, sometimes who gets awards isn’t the best measure of actual quality. Plus there are so many of them now, split into so many confusingly different and nuanced categories that it is almost impossible to determine what’s really meaningful.
And technology? Just because you have some big machine I’ve never heard of in some speciality that I’m not suffering from, doesn’t mean you’re great. My uncle has a Porsche 911 GT3 RS but that doesn’t make him Dale Earnhardt. And I know a brain surgeon who literally cannot operate his DVR.
And remember, that’s for the relatively small group of people who actually do care about your advertising. For the rest of the public who’s seeing your billboard, your tv spot, your radio commercial, your proof points are, well ridiculously irrelevant. It’s like you’re saying “our buggy whips went to Harvard!” “Our buggy whips won this award you’ve never heard of!” “Our buggy whips use cutting edge technology”.
Framed this way it becomes really understandable why not only is so much hospital advertising terrible, so much of it looks so similar. You can literally swap logos on creative and no one will know the difference. How do I know this?. Because I’ve done it and they didn’t.
So you have to start from a different place. Not from outside, but inside.
You have to figure out what makes the hospital unique and special – to the community, to its employees, to its patients. Not the category things.
Specific things, but not anecdotal.
You have to start by remembering that you are talking to one person. Not 20 million eyeballs on a website, not 15 million viewers on a tv spot. One person.
One person who, if they are in the category, are worried, upset concerned, Because they, or someone they care about, are sick.
It’s kind of like, everything you do for every client, you have to do it dialed to 11 with hospital advertising. The focus, the uniqueness, the nuance, the attention to detail, the insight.
Because the thing that the people who are in the category want, is trust. They want to be able to trust you. And the thing the people who aren’t in the category will remember, is that they feel they can trust you.
You know, like with any client, really.
It’s just more important with hospitals because the stakes for your customers are literally life or death.