GeigerBevolo Inc. 

On June 20, Foote Health System of Jackson, Mich., became Allegiance Health. Behind the scenes, GeigerBevolo worked extensively with the organization to develop this new brand identity.

GeigerBevolo began name exploration and logo development more than a year ago, in anticipation of the organization’s 90th anniversary. GeigerBevolo also helped develop a brand hierarchy and nomenclature system that emphasized simplicity and a patient-perspective across the system’s many facility sites, clinics and services.

A locally owned and locally governed health system, Allegiance Health serves the south central Michigan region near Lansing. Its 411-bed system features a full range of inpatient and outpatient services, state-of-the-art surgery facilities, a 20-bed Heart Center, an outpatient surgery center for same-day procedures, a new hospice residence and recently renovated Emergency Department.

To ensure consist application of the organization’s new name and identity, GeigerBevolo helped create an online guide for brand standards. The healthcare branding firm also designed many of Allegiance Health’s communications elements such as stationery, brochures, newsletters, vehicle graphics, building signage and a new Web site.

Special care was given to announcing the new brand identity to the community. A teaser and reveal campaign was used to help build excitement for both internal and external audiences, followed by a public campaign paying tribute to the heritage of the organization. Campaign components included television, print and radio advertising, a video program, a community benefit report, and more. To view the new Web site and video, please visit www.allegiancehealth.org.

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A bold new advertising campaign from HealthPartners, a Twin Cities based healthcare system, is causing a buzz in this market. The campaign features a number of creative aspects, including upside-down billboards, videos posted on YouTube and a six-foot tall urine sample cup called “Petey P. Cup.” (see photo below).  (more…)

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How much would you pay for eye surgery? $10,000? $18,000? $24,000? That’s the premise behind a recent StarTribune article, “Health care: You better shop around.” The story’s primary point is that patients are beginning to shop around for better pricing on healthcare procedures, and that providers are responding in numerous ways, from publishing prices on their web site to reducing prices across the board for their services. But let’s consider that starting question in another frame. How much, for example, would you pay for a car? (more…)

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A new book by healthcare marketing consultant David Marlowe should be required reading for anyone with any connection to marketing in healthcare provider organizations. The book, A Marketer’s Guide to Measuring ROI, does a fantastic job of outlining how and when to measure return on investment for marketing efforts, specific to hospitals, health systems and other providers. Perhaps more importantly, (more…)

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In a fascinating cover story in the January 26, 2007 issue of BusinessWeek, “Get Healthy – Or Else,�? a new threat – and opportunity – for healthcare providers is highlighted. The article tells the story of Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., the $2.7 billion lawn-care company based in Marysville, Ohio, that has become fairly aggressive in managing the health of its employees. (more…)

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For more than a year, we have been pushing innovation as a key to competitive differentiation for healthcare providers, focusing on the creation of unique and compelling experiences. (See “Defining Market Moving Innovation” for the latest installment). And from what we hear at conferences, client meetings and in other conversations, the idea of innovation is a compelling one to all of you fighting the healthcare marketing fight. The problem comes in moving from the place of idea to one of action. And unfortunately, experience innovation (or service innovation, put another way) still isn’t a primary driver of marketing strategies. The reasons we hear are many. But perhaps the most consistent reason we hear sounds something like this: “Look, we can’t even get our service delivery to a satisfactory level. How can we try to create unique or compelling experiences when we can’t get the basic stuff down right?” (more…)

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HealthPartners, a health system based in the Twin Cities, recently announced the designation of a new “change” clinic in January. According to an October 30 article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, the clinic (named the Δ Clinic, or “delta” clinic, after the mathematical symbol for change) will used as an experimentation site to test ideas for quality improvement. The article goes on to say that HealthPartners already conducts pilot studies at its more than 30 clinics around the Twin Cities for ideas it plans to implement, but the Δ Clinic will have a different goal. (more…)

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An article in the October 30 issue of BusinessWeek looks at a recent effort by Ford Motors to create marketing messages around honesty. And they mean honest. The effort includes video snippets shot by Ford, and posted on their web site www.fordboldmoves.com, that are painfully honest about the struggling automaker. One video features an analyst explaining why he’s rated Ford stock as a “sell.” Another features a Ford critic from the Rainforest Action Network saying, “Ford has the worst fuel efficiency record of any automaker in America.” Again, these aren’t independent web sites or blogs railing on Ford, this is Ford railing on Ford. (more…)

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The cover story of the October 2 issue of Fortune magazine covers one of our favorite topics, chaos in business. Recently, we sent the book Surfing the Edge of Chaos to friends and clients, extolling its philosophy of embracing chaos and the opportunities it often affords. And it’s not much of a stretch to look at the business of providing healthcare and see at least a little chaos – shrinking reimbursement, competitors entering the market with new business models, empowered consumers. Rather than deny or avoid this chaos, we think hospitals and health systems should try moving closer to the chaos in considering how they serve their customers. (more…)

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