By Tom DeSanto, Executive Vice President
Aloysius Butler & Clark, Wilmington, DE

All the hard work in research, strategy, and creativity paid off.  You’ve captured the voice of your brand in a new advertising concept.  But will it survive the approval process?

Depending on your organization’s dynamics, the voice of your brand can slip away or disappear entirely in the cacophony of input from stakeholders with separate agendas.  The broad thinking that goes into creating the brand message can be at odds with the specificity required for finalizing the advertising.

So how can healthcare strategists preserve the purity and expression of a brand from that breakthrough concept through final production of the marketing campaign?

It takes listening, legwork, and perseverance.  From starting the conversations that help define the brand to nailing down the details that validate it, a successful branding campaign hinges on effective communications with everyone who is directly involved.

At New York University Clinical Cancer Center in New York City, concentrating on communication helped marketing director Steven Gogel guide a branding initiative that produced a campaign across six different cancer types. “I truly believe we created and maintained a powerful voice and rhythm in our ads that is uniquely ours—and we did it initially in print, without the use of radio or television,” says Gogel.

Communication, and most importantly “listening,” was the key to the campaign’s message.  The process began with a creative team walking through the recently opened NYU Clinical Cancer Center (NYUCCC), a 13-level, 85,000-square-foot outpatient center in midtown Manhattan. Team members became aware of a distinct energy, empathy, and determination in the interactions between medical professionals, patient advocates, and people undergoing treatment.  Patients confronted their disease with confidence knowing that NYUCCC’s advanced treatment and technology was complemented by genuine concern, counseling, symptom management, and support groups.  NYUCCC demonstrated that treating cancer goes beyond the science to provide the support that each individual needs to go on in life.  This attitude inspired the advertising tagline:  “Understanding cancer.  And you.”

The branding ads express the mindset of cancer patients, balancing hope and confidence while never minimizing the impact of the disease.  In the ads, models portraying patients declare their resolve to live life to the fullest and describe what they look for in a cancer center—in capabilities and attitude.  The choice to use models rather than actual patients overcomes a variety of potential obstacles, including respect for privacy and comfort, as well as the selection process and its political ramifications.  It also allows the ads to articulate patient attitudes in aggregate with a tone and rhythm that helps break through advertising clutter.  The campaign’s use of models is noted with a disclaimer.

In focus groups, patients affirmed the approach and provided additional insight.  A little fine-tuning brought the voice in the ads to perfect pitch.

It’s no secret that selling a branding concept within a complex academic medical center is no easy task.  Gogel not only needed to sell the concept, he also had to validate the whole notion of branding to a variety of audiences.  Determined to promote NYUCCC’s unique character, Gogel systematically set out to open a dialogue at every level required.  The process included everyone from trustees and donors to physicians and administrators.

For each type of cancer, Gogel also spoke to people involved in direct cancer care, as well as those in basic and translational research.  That ensured success in balancing the required content and preferences for each group while staying squarely focused on the brand message. “We’re a multidisciplinary center,” observes Gogel.  “If we didn’t listen to and incorporate our many voices, the ads would not reflect who we really are.”

Working with the creative team, Gogel made sure that each ad relayed clinically relevant points within the brief copy block and in other details.  For example, the melanoma patient model photographed outdoors was required to wear a hat while in the mid-day sun.  Throughout subsequent ads, models were chosen specifically to reflect the audience—satisfying New York City’s ethnic diversity and the demographics of the patient base for each particular cancer.

Throughout the approval process, the patient point of view served as the ultimate guide for making decisions on content.  Once the voice and rhythm were established, it became easier to determine the specific message points.  Even when content was totally appropriate from a clinical standpoint, Gogel always asked whether it might seem confusing, scary, or unnecessary to the audience.  Ultimately, the final content had to sound believable coming from a patient while making the case for choosing NYUCCC.

Although quantitative data on the campaign are not yet available, reactions from patients indicate that the messages are indeed believable.  A particularly satisfying measure came when a 67-year-old patient asked the concierge at NYUCCC for a copy of the lung cancer ad that was on display in the lobby.  He pointed to the headline and exclaimed, “That’s exactly how I feel.”

Tom DeSanto can be reached at tdesanto@a-b-c.com

Powerful branding ideas can lose their authenticity and appeal when they fall victim to divergent agendas and excess content during the approval process.  Following are some tips for mastering the process:

• Most marketers start off right by gathering input throughout the organization, but they fail to sustain the effective dialogue needed to carry the process through to completion. It is essential to identify the key stakeholders from start to finish.  Then take the time to listen, explain, and guide these stakeholders through your brand strategy and concepts.
• Clearly define your message, audiences, and strategy and use these factors as criteria for deciding on content.  Each stakeholder has a unique agenda.  Make it clear that you are acting in their best interests and work with them to distill the most vital, persuasive points so that less essential information that detracts from the message is excluded.
• As the campaign continues over months or years, continually refocus on your core message.  Help others understand that every detail of the organization’s communications should serve to illuminate or validate the brand.  Through ongoing discussions with various stakeholders, you will learn a lot and also develop valuable relationships throughout the organization.
• Finally, talk it up.  Your own voice is the most important asset you have in your efforts to preserve the voice of your brand.