THE CLIENT:
Crozer-Keystone Health System:
Springfield Hospital
Crozer-Keystone Health System is a not-for-profit health system comprised of five hospitals, several outpatient centers, a world-class sports club and a comprehensive physician network of primary-care and specialty practices. At 33 beds, Springfield Hospital is the smallest of the five hospitals.
The Situation:
Springfield Hospital, long part of the Crozer-Keystone (CK) network, resides in the upscale part of Delaware County. Though Springfield Hospital offered comprehensive ortho services, all knee and hip surgeries were performed at another CK Hospital, miles away, in a bad part of town. Consequently, local Springfield patients were switching to a competitor for knee and hip surgeries so they could stay close to home. To combat this problem, CK renovated Springfield Hospital with a state-of-the-art surgical suite for knee and hip surgeries, plus the latest patient amenities – in hopes that a refreshed Springfield Hospital would reverse downward trends.
The Goal:
Spread the news about a "new & improved" Springfield Hospital to keep patients from going elsewhere.
The Strategy:
In advertising, we saw no reason to say, "Now there's ortho surgery at Springfield," because most prospects assumed it was there all along. Instead, we opted to play up the amenities as our draw, playing to the upscale image that is Springfield. Given knee and hip surgery prospects are generally older, we opted to use TV as our primary medium. Though our message was simple, our :15 spots – played as bookends during commercial breaks – departed from typical healthcare advertising as a way to 1) stand out and 2) stick.
The Solution:
Healthcare advertising dominates TV, and almost all of it has a certain sameness to it. (Everything – from music and VOs, to actors and contrived scenarios, even production levels, seem to come from the same place.) As such, many viewers are cued early in the spot, within 1-2 seconds of the opening, to do subconscious math that = "this is a healthcare spot and that means there's little to no entertainment value – no smile – no need to watch." To get our message heard, we flipped the formula 180 degrees and produced fun spots that were genuinely funny, and teed up our new positioning line for Springfield Hospital: "The hospitable hospital."
THE RESULTS:
Our campaign, coupled with the product/service CK delivered, resulted in a 60-day backlog for surgeries and plans to convert an additional 4 rooms for orthopedic surgical patients. In addition, system management started to actively explore other opportunities to open specialty surgical practices at Springfield.
