No Sympathy: Gillette Children's Unflinching Campaign Against Pity

One of the most common reactions to someone else's bad news is not knowing what to say. The first instinct is to give comfort, to be positive, to offer advice. These reactions are grounded in basic human goodness; without thinking about whether or not we should, we take full responsibility for taking away someone's pain, someone we perceive as helpless. Using only two words, Gillette Children's brand campaign cuts through to overturn those unquestioned assumptions decisively: “Cure Pity.”



Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare is a world-renowned, non-profit hospital in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. The integrated campaign, which uses local broadcast, web, and out-of-home advertising to feature stories like Noah's, inspires a new way of thinking---going from great to greater; from achievement to lasting achievement---as an alternative to our habitual response, which is to go from what we think of as "bad" to slightly better. From disabled to merely able. As a message, Cure Pity is powerful enough to help people start looking at their fellow humans a little differently.

Advertising also has a practical agenda, especially for organizations that thrive on donations. The campaign is as smart and strategic as it is inspired.

A more "pity-focused" message doesn't always prompt an immediate response. You see pictures of children suffering from widespread, incurable diseases, or social conditions like poverty, and feel no hope that your one, meager contribution can make any difference. You won't cure leukemia; you can't stop AIDs; and to date, there's no immediate way to prevent or stop certain congenital conditions like cerebral palsy. Perhaps you make one donation, one time, to shake off the uncomfortable feeling of pity. Instead of pity, a more positive message invites compassion, which is an invitation to a deeper experience of shared humanity.

Cure Pity asserts a call to action based on admiration instead of despair. In for-profit marketing terms, the tagline competitively positions Gillette Children’s as an organization focused on overall improvement of quality of life. Other hospital systems seem more symptom- and condition-focused in comparison.

From a visual perspective, the campaign has one unrealized opportunity. It could do much more to back up the inspiring images, and inspired copywriting, with inspired design. Something to stimulate the eye as much as the spirit, and likewise, to promote immediate recognition. Copy works together with design; if either seems weaker than the other, it can appear as though an organization is not fully committed to delivering what it says.

(A long time ago Blue Cross Blue Shield's "Do" campaign introduced a design approach that was unusually sophisticated for an insurance company. It was hot. And it was immediately recognizable. It's getting tired now, probably because Crispin Porter + Bogusky has left the building. Many non- and semi-non-profit organizations end up here: taking over a creative services role that falls outside of their core strengths. Neither the organization nor its agency can afford to maintain the relationship.)

Rethinking the way design can frame the existing patient stories and messaging is one way to refresh Cure Pity’s media approach, which is actually a few years’ old now. The brand messaging is strong and there’s no need to reinvent it, but the organization could look again at how it is expressed.

The strength of Cure Pity is storytelling. As a creative achievement, it asserts a social message that also helps a mission-driven organization continue to do great work. Advertising becomes culturally relevant when it can do either one of those things; curing pity does both.


- Eric Hayward

How Emotions Shape Our World.

Are we engaging in honest, compassionate communication when we talk to people about their health, or just spewing data? More importantly, are we listening?

If you go far enough out into space, the Earth looks like little more than a pale blue dot. Astronomer Carl Sagan said the following about such a picture of Earth, taken by Voyager spacecraft, in an excerpt from a 1996 commencement address.

That's home. On it...every hunter and forager...every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every...mother and father, every inventor and explorer...every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. Think of the rivers of blood spilled [to] become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

The delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe [is] challenged by this point of pale light... To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

From this perspective, it’s hard, at first, to think that anything we do matters. Fortunately we have emotions. Seemingly at war with the cold logic of space, the color of emotion paints our world as far bigger than a mere dot. Logic assembles our experience as data and facts. Emotions, however, spin facts into stories.

Telling ourselves these stories we define realities that challenge meaninglessness. These are the realities of family, lovers, and friends. Our emotions expand the significance of these circles to become worlds in themselves.

Health care: world of confusion

Are we pushing out data or addressing people's emotions when we talk to them about health?

(continues)
1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5

Landmark Research on Health Advertising Reveals the Pitfalls of Preaching

The problem of pushing individual accountability as a way to sell” good” health behaviors

People are great. In spite of our misguided moments, we’re generally trying to do best by ourselves, our families, and if we can swing it, by our neighbors and our communities.

If you share this basic belief, you might be troubled by the tone that creeps into a lot of consumer health messages. These messages suggest America’s trillion-dollar health care problem is our fault, because we eat Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, smoke, drink, sit on the couch, or forget to get our blood pressure checked.

The messaging I’m talking about often emphasizes individual accountability for “better health behaviors.” The object of the communication is a mysterious cabal of unhealthy Americans, kind of like Reagan’s Welfare Mothers, whom it demonizes.

Media studies suggest focusing on individual accountability is not only ineffective, but worse, avoids targeting social and economic factors that may be the underlying causes of health problems.

The study in question, Advertising Health: The Cause for Counter-Ads, is actually about a form of advertising recommended by many public health, communications, and media experts. Personally, I don’t love counter ads, which generally include some form of attack against an organization or institution. However true, any message posed as a negative risks not asserting a positive. I think positives reflect better on the speaker as a brand foundation for ongoing messaging.

But the real revelation of this study is not so much the specifics of the counter ad format. It’s the underlying approach, which is significant in the way that it avoids targeting the individual. Rather, it builds affinity with the audience, pitting viewers as unwitting players in a bigger but unbalanced story, one with inequities that that can now be righted.

So—rather than saying, “Hey, stop eating so many carbs, fatty,” we can say, “Foodmakers mix secret ingredients into everyday foods that taste just fine by themselves.” The ad could go on to reveal the shocking number of unnecessary calories contained in mega-carb additives. The tone could bear some enlightened outrage at the challenge to our independence posed by producers, who try to inform our sense of what tastes good.

This approach works better, the study suggests, because it raises the attention of communities and institutions whose programs, support or legislation can help attack the real problem. It led to things like the creation of food labels, for example.

I think this approach works better not because it leads to more legislation, but because, as the recipient of it, I don’t resent the message. It doesn’t judge me for my waistline or my habits. It doesn’t assume I have the time or income to spend two hours at the gym or buy organic foods. It has some compassion for my position but also makes me feel like I have power and choice.

Mostly, it doesn’t judge me for the ill effects of being a Consumer (think about the real meaning of that word), which is exactly what government and industry want me to be.

Here’s an ad I’d love to see. We hear a quirky, fast-paced, techno-carnival soundtrack.
We follow one and then more everyday people trying to get through their everyday lives despite a barrage of comforts and conveniences, all of which impede their natural progress. (If you’ve ever been corralled onto a moving walkway in the airport to traverse the distance of only a couple gates, you’ll get what I mean).

Corporate health care is part of the same consumer system that continually peddles convenience. With a change in awareness, health care leaders can help extract the industry from this giant, idling hamster wheel. Health care can become a powerful agent of reform for our whole way of life.

Google's blog on Google Health

Google's official blog has a current post about Google Health, which I discovered the existence of myself at Moveo's blog and posted an entry about yesterday. Google Health is a new personal health record (PHR) letting people post and manage health records and histories online.

I'm just spitting back some information from the Google blog, which gives four differentiating factors of the new site over others: 1) Assurance of privacy and security; 2) A platform letting you import records and test results, and later, set appointments and fill scrips; 3) Portability of health records; and 4) User focus.

I'm particularly interested and excited about the last point. Google says, "We aren't doctors or healthcare experts, but one thing Google can create is a clean, easy-to-use user experience that makes managing your health information straightforward and easy."

If Google can execute on the usability promise, which certainly is a brand asset, it's a piece that's been missing piece all along. Past PHRs have been convoluted and kind of ugly. I'd be surprised if they built any consumer confidence in the security question, as a lot of the ones I saw have kind of a homegrown look. Here's some other PHRs:

http://www.myphr.com/
http://www.recordsforliving.com/HealthFrame/Ideas/PersonalHealthRecord.aspx
http://www.pdhi.com/webnew/products/ConXushealth.asp

The other point of interest is the platform description, which claims it will allow integration with services, tasks and providers. In the past, similar services have lacked background muscle on promotion and networking to fill them adequately with participating providers. Again, I'm hoping Google's brand clout will get the participation to make this aspect worth consumer's time.

I'm considering reviewing the service and writing about it; has anybody used Google Health?

with Google and Microsoft involved, big step for health care "consumerism"

This is some news: http://blog.moveo.com/moveo_weblog/healthcare/

Both health care organizations and technology companies (from portal providers to more back-end-oriented shops) have been trying to get into the online health records business for years. The idea is giving consumers a single place to post information about their health visits and history --- most humans don't do a great job of this. At least I don't.

Anyway, I don't believe anybody's quite done it right. The attempts I've seen that have failed mostly did so because of the same combination of elements: great technology, terrible web design. (Also possibly a lack of promotion).

The news posted on Moveo's blog that Google and Microsoft are getting into online health records is of interest.

Hopefully this will bring a level of consumer-sensitivity to the navigation, content, and most importantly, marketing of these sites to drive participation.

Here is a link to Micrsoft's HealthVault: http://www.healthvault.com/
Here is Google Health: http://www.google.com/health

Have a Healthy Downturn

Actionable Strategy for Health Care Brands

In the last post I launched a new effort I'm spearheading to help my favorite companies through the alleged downturn: a marketing audit.

A marketing audit is intended to save money, by eliminating redundant efforts. It also sets the stage for future, highly-profitable activities. When better budgets arrive, a plan is in place for execution.

Health care organizations have unique issues to consider, particularly health insurance companies and hospitals.

All types of organizations can benefit from collateral reviews, analyzing customer touch points, consumer segmentation, and a review of core messaging.

Health care organizations, however, can especially consider a "communications audit." They often send out a lot of collateral to patients and members.

Auditing your collateral

Content-wise, there's tremendous value in having someone go through the various pieces, from an editorial and communications-planning perspective, to look at messaging:

Can certain print pieces, bearing redundant messages, be eliminated?

Even three or four fewer pieces sent out a year per member (for insurers, for example), at multiple thousands of members, not only cuts costs but increases the likelihood the right message lands.

More administratively, are you sending the same pieces out twice? Religiously I received two, big benefits booklets from my old health plan, every year.

These audit projects pay for themselves.

And at the very least, the organization has now also invested in a valuable review of its core messages. At the very most, they've gotten closer to the bigger, fundamental review of health care branding that I am recommending all health care organizations take (see this post):

We need to reconsider the fundamental story we're telling patients and members in light of what they really care about. Talk to your writers about this meditative activity for the downturn.

In addition to a deeper analysis of a health care brand, a cheap, high-value activity is this:

Review photography that can be easily replaced on the web or in print.

One of the most valuable services your design and advertising partners can offer in health care branding is photo direction. As we evolve the underlying story, or "messaging platform," an interim step is simply choosing more original imagery. With a little help you can replace photos and artwork without changing layouts just yet. (Which I also recommend considering).

So a downturn is a time for strategy. I keep "strategy projects" at arms length of course, wanting to ensure they are always linked to executable suggestions and not simply generating documents. The ideas here perfectly represent actionable strategy for health care brands.

A Movement Toward Better Health Care Marketing

The stakes

Of all the marketing messages consumers receive, those dealing with health care are arguably the most important.

I mean, it's hard to argue against the value of knowing there's a "spicy" Baconator out there, and who would deny the role of Mighty Putty as a vital glue to our consumer civilization?

But connecting people with the professionals, tools and technology that can enrich, if not save, their lives still seems a more valid exercise for mass communication.

"Importance" is subjective, and not the best metric for evaluating the potential cause and execution of good advertising. But if we do care about the mission of better health, we have a responsibility to share that mission more effectively with patients.

Pharmaceuticals have it sewn up pretty tight. Big marketing budgets are one thing, and they sure have them. But underlying the most effective campaigns is something that transcends money. It's an understanding big pharma shares with Wendy's, OxyClean and Nike.

The understanding is that advertising is a translation process. Advertising maps a mere product agenda to heartfelt human desires. Where Wendy's has escape, pleasure and convenience going for it, health care has these true biggies in the realm of human want: love, lovemaking, longevity and freedom. For starters.

If we can subvert clichés (which I believe are the first of three health care marketing mistakes) we can more quickly connect with the needs and beliefs consumers care about, rather than losing them in a stream of hackneyed words and images the mind is all too good at tuning out.

The clichés

Of these, my favorite is the "silver-haired family doctor."

The silver-haired family doctor is always smiling, smiling as he peers knowingly into a little girl’s ear with his otoscope. She is smiling too, clutching her favorite doll. Mom is also there, just smiling away.

Why is everyone so happy?

This silver-haired doctor gets around.

You've seen him comforting an elderly woman in a hospital bed. Sometimes he looks directly into the camera. Other times he stands with a group of doctors, arms crossed in welcoming but confident postures. What are they doing?

Who can tell? The image, like most of the stock-photo scenarios used in ads and marketing materials for health care services, is steeped in unreality, emptied of relevance and meaning. Why?

Telling better stories

We've gotten lazy. We keep dipping into the same pool of superficial generic images, forgetting to create new, better underlying stories. That's what advertising is: translating the brute reality of mere marketing into great stories that reach our hearts. If we put story first and details second, the better story will inform more relevant choices for the words, images and sounds that activate feeling and drive action. A better story is one connecting health care with personal desires for beauty and freedom, versus connecting it with morality.

It's easy and convenient to recycle a preachy, "apple a day" storyline about what we should and shouldn't do as a cause for better health care.

It's harder but better to appeal to human self interest, looking at the self-generated motivations consumer/patients identify as their own reasons to pursue better health care.

If our own laziness as marketers is truly the culprit, guess what? Patients will get lazy too.

Left without a reason to choose your services over another, they also will pick whatever is closest at hand. Will it be you?

The Revolution Has Not Been Televised

Why the health care revolution has not taken root.

The past five/ten years saw the uprising of a number of "revolutionary" health care organizations.

They take a number of forms. Most are entrepreneurial ventures of health care veterans providing more customized ways to purchase services. Equally driven by idealism and opportunism, these pioneers all seem to agree --- consumers can be elevated to a position of volition and power.

A lot of these organizations have struggled. Many have failed, or changed forms. Why?

Revolution comes from the ground up, from people. It's hard to sustain a movement conceived top-down in a conference room instead of a break room. People like you and me have tried to create a revolution out of a marketing agenda.

"The people" simply haven't followed, whether it's consumers themselves, or the providers who have to participate in a new form of business to get on board. What's missing?

Two things: 1) Grass-roots organizing and 2) Effective advertising.

The advertising part is simple...

First, we can strike all health care clichés from the images and messaging used to talk about health.

Second, we can stop talking about health.

We can start talking about life, love, lovemaking, freedom and all the other emotional causes that drive people to reconsider their health. Versus talking about cholesterol and colonoscopies.

As for grassroots organizing, it's vital, but more complicated.

First, we have to reconfigure our attitude, from a top-down approach (I concoct a marketing agenda and push messages at consumers) to a democratic one (I listen to what consumers are saying and help them talk about me).

How are we letting what consumers want change our agenda? How are we communicating those positive changes back to consumers?

An alleged downturn is a great time to start formulating an attitudinal shift. It takes little money. It takes lots of inventiveness, which thrives in tough times.

Revolutions also thrive in tough times.

People are now assembling on their own to figure out their personal health care messes. Will you be tapped to join the conversation?

A Memo to Health Care Marketeers

Listen:

Of all the marketing messages consumers receive, those dealing with health care are arguably the most important.

Weigh the social impact of a Cheesy Bacon BK Wrapper against news of life-saving technology or facilities.

And yet, poor health is communicated far better to American consumers than is good health.

It's not as if health is less interesting.

Health does far more for your sex life, your family life, and your waistline than greasy pork and nicotine. Advertisers are just better at connecting these products, in consumers' minds, with the things they care about...

...The fundamental promise of pleasure (for example), especially appealing in tough economic times, is an easy sell. Identity is wrapped up in there, too. I choose Burger King because I'm funny, creative, and young(ish).

As health care marketers, before we even write copy or shoot photos, we can start with a better fundamental promise.

Right now, we're stuck in a preachy, "apple-a-day" mentality. Thinking top-down, we start from a position of expertise held over the heads of all of you, unhealthy slobs that you are. The fundamental promise of health care is a "should"...

...Exercise more because you should. Eat better because you should.

It's also, often, a negative. Take this and you won't get dandruff, heartburn, or worse.

Product advertisers not only start with a better fundamental promise, they express it far better. They use words, colors, sounds, and images that evoke and invite.

Us health care marketers, on the other hand, have gotten lazy! We dip again and again into the same pool of words and images. Clichés like the friendly, silver-haired doctor, the earnest and dedicated researcher, or even the happy seaside jogger are falling flat with consumers.

We're also far too technical, and scary. More than once recently I've seen the names of complex and unpleasant medical procedures used in headlines and lead copy.

We're allegedly in a downturn (I'm an optimist) and need to spend our money carefully. So let's start with something cheap, or free:

WHAT I SUGGEST:

Write Your Own Revolutionary Memo.

Before beginning, I suggest you listen to this,* for mood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OTHnXwr_s

And read this, for tone: http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/commonsense/text.html

I also wanted to include "watch this," but it has a bad word in it, so be warned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UeR0CqI4iw)

Now you should be suitably juiced up to open your email program, or better, the case on your college typewriter, and send an urgent note to leadership in your organization about radically rethinking the fundamental assumptions we make in:

1. Forming an underlying health care brand, and
2. Expressing that brand through marketing and advertising.

Tell your people to start watching commercials for pharmaceuticals very carefully (those guys really get it) as well as reading, watching and listening more closely to product advertising for soap, toothpaste and shampoo, as well as cars, turkeys, Wendy's, Mighty Putty, anything.

Tell them to get excited, because you're excited. And then get excited...

...Most of us not-so-secretly desire to be part of something big, and good. We feel guilty about the failure of our working lives to line up with the urgency of widespread, unmitigated suffering in this confusing world.

Those of us working within or as a partner to health care organizations have an opportunity to get creative, which is fun, about delivering a message that saves lives, which is inspiring. And also has some huge dollar signs attached to it too, by the way.

WHAT'S NEXT:

I am working hard to develop more thoughts like these, mapped to practical actions and outcomes. I put a lot of them on my blog (gdahaus.blogspot.com). You can read it.

Way more important, I want to form a loose coalition of like-minded people excited by the creative and socially relevant opportunity of transforming health care marketing. Want to join me? Write eric@grossmandesign.com.

BEST OF LUCK AND HEALTH TO ALL OF YOU IN 2009.

Eric

Creative Accounts Director
Grossman Design Associates
M:(612) 986-9412
O:(952) 922-4343
http://grossmandesign.com/
http://gdahaus.blogspot.com/

*There could conceivably be a spoken lyric in this song that offends somebody. It it's you, tune the words out (for shame) and just listen to the bass line. It's hot.