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"Groundhog Day" In Health Care

THE TAKEAWAY: Don't try to create strategic separation by informing your marketplace that you’re JUST NOW offering something that’s been commonplace for decades in the rest of the world.

So...I was driving to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport yesterday evening, when I hear a radio ad for a local hospital, one I competed with for two decades (at least when we weren’t doing joint ventures together. But I digress...) Said ad spent 60 breezy, breathless seconds praising the facility’s “new” wireless IT infrastructure.

Wow! Think about it! Wireless ANYWHERE! So visitors can GET ONLINE! And doctors and nurses can COMMUNICATE WIRELESSLY!

A fairly expensive campaign, I’m assuming, given Chicago’s media costs and the drive time placement on the biggest, baddest station of ‘em all.

And a great campaign...for 1995. And for the exactly three people on the planet who’ve never been to Starbuck’s.

Maybe the campaign’s next ad will tell me all about how they’re connected to the electrical power grid. Hey! We’ve got LIGHTS! And AIR CONDITIONING and everything!

Just when I think health care marketing and branding MIGHT be moving into a new age, something like this jolts me back to the sad reality that there's a lot of 1981-ish thinking out there.


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