What’s hot in health care marketing

We recently sat down with one of Jack’s health care marketing experts, Nigel Downer, to discuss marketing in the health care space and what he’s looking forward to in 2019.

In your opinion, which company recently delivered the best health care brand experience?

I was really impressed with Sage Therapeutic’s “Silence Sucks” awareness campaign for postpartum depression.¹ The campaign itself – concepted by Concentric Health Experience – set out to catch the attention of women and their doctors and get them talking. To break down the stigma that’s tied to a very real, very personal health condition.

With visual creative that had stopping power (women with pacifiers in their mouths), the campaign generated a lot of buzz – both positive and negative. In my opinion, the patient portion featured great use of out of home tactics like bus and train wraps in Sage’s hometown of Boston. And to address the health care professional side, the campaign officially launched at the annual American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists conference where clinicians were surrounded with a variety of media: static panels, hanging banners, door drops, elevator clings, interactive kiosks, and a video wall featuring women from the campaign.

You can learn more about the Silence Sucks campaign here.  

What excites you most about health care marketing for 2019?

I’m excited about the opportunity that health care clients have to make conferences and trade show experiences more meaningful and impactful for their physician targets. As access to physicians via traditional direct selling channels continues to decline and lose its effectiveness, the experience delivered at these live events is becoming increasingly important. Health care clients have a real opportunity to move beyond the “bigger is better” approach to booth design and leverage experiential marketing to create memorable experiences that build real connections between their brands and physicians.

Beyond 2019, what do you see for the future of health care marketing?

From fireworks to bonfires. Health care marketers have long relied on traditional channels like television, print and digital media to communicate with their audience. Like fireworks, this type of advertising is designed to capture attention with short bursts of light and reach large audiences.

I see a shift away from fireworks and more toward bonfires – shared experiences that connect communities of people to one other and to brands. Whether those communities are patients, health care professionals or internal employees, experiential marketing will become an increasingly important tool in helping to build those bonfires and bring together all those people.

1 Modern Healthcare. (2018, October 20). Concentric Health Experience works to end silence over postpartum depression, earns ‘Best in Show’ award. Retrieved January 25, 2019 from https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20181020/NEWS/181019895