Breaking News: Healthcare Advertising Changing for the Better

You don’t often see the topic of healthcare marketing covered by the popular media, so this Orlando Sentinel article about hospital advertising caught my attention. Basically, the premise of the piece is that smarter consumers (thanks to the Internet) aren’t buying doctors in white lab coats – they’re looking for the right information to support consideration, selection and use of healthcare services.  I trust that’s not a surprise to most marketers.

You don’t often see the topic of healthcare marketing covered by the popular media, so this Orlando Sentinel article about hospital advertising caught my attention. Basically, the premise of the piece is that smarter consumers (thanks to the Internet) aren’t buying doctors in white lab coats – they’re looking for the right information to support consideration, selection and use of healthcare services.  I trust that’s not a surprise to most marketers.

What I do hope is that we’ll stop seeing the stereotypical images of three doctors in white lab coats pasted on billboards and other advertising vehicles, and start applying smart thinking to the art and science of brand building.

As Orlando Sentinel reporter Marni Jameson put it:  “These are not your typical hospital ads, but they soon may be. What distinguishes the two 15-second TV spots featuring Nemours Children’s Hospital is not what they show, but what they don’t.  Gone are the white lab coats, the cliché stethoscopes and the high-tech imaging machines with their colorful jagged lines — images that are going the way of the mercury thermometer.”

Read the article:  Hospital ads take off the white coat