IMC:

Corporate Image and Brand Management

CASE STUDY (2)

A Healthy Image
Mary Wilson was both nervous and excited as she opened her first staff meeting
in the marketing department of St. Margaret’s general Hospital. Mary’s new role
was Director of Marketing and Communications. Her primary task was to
increase the visibility of St. Margaret’s Hospital in order to raise the image of the
institution in the eyes of the many publics served. The long-term goal was to
attract the best possible physicians while increasing use of the hospital’s facilities
and attracting more patients.

The world of health care has dramatically changed in the past decade.
Governmental regulations and support, concerns about lawsuits, evolving and
expensive technologies, and changes in health insurance provisions affect
hospitals of all sizes. In addition, St. Margaret’s faced strong competition. The
hospital’s primary location is in a major metropolitan area in Minnesota. Two
other large hospitals also offer comparable services in the same city. Each
seeks to signs physicians to exclusive contracts in which they will only provide
care with one organization.

The other significant challenge to St. Margaret’s is its proximity to the Mayo Clinic.
Clearly Mayo holds the highest level of prestige in the state and even in the region.
Most physicians are inclined to think of Mayo first when making referrals for patients
with difficult medical problems.
Mayo would be viewed by most publics as the“best” care possible.

The key issues in image of any health organization are developing trust and a
feeling of confidence in the quality of care that will be received. Beyond
technological advantages, other, more subtle elements of an image could
have an influence. Mary noted that to many patients the nurse plays a primary
role in determining how the hospital is viewed. An uncaring and inattentive
nurse is likely to drive away both the patient who encountered the nurse and all
of the patient’s family and friends. Negative word-of-mouth, Mary said, must be
held to an absolute minimum.

Many believed St. Margaret’s needed to overcome two problems. First, the
name ‘Margaret’ is not commonly used any more. Some publics may view it as
an ‘old fashioned’ name. Second, there was nothing distinctive about the
hospital’s image. The overlap in services provided (heart care, cancer
treatment) made it difficult to differentiate St. Margaret’s from other providers.

If there was any advantage, Mary believed it was that St. Margaret’s was
affiliated to with the Catholic Church. It was the only non-profit hospital of the
three major competitors. This attracted both Catholic patients and some
Catholic physicians. Also, the hospital was able to utilize the services of a wide
variety of volunteers.

As the marketing meeting opened, the agenda was to discuss all of the ways
St. Margaret’s could build its client base. The task would not be easy, but
everyone in the room believed the hospital offered high-quality services in a
caring atmosphere.
Questions and Answer

1. WHAT ARE THE IMAGE ISSUES IN THE CASE?

The image issues in this case are described as follows;
 Absence of marketing image. The hospital does not have a proper image due to fewer efforts made to
increase the visibility of the hospital, which results in making the hospital not well promoted to the public
eyes. Lack of adequate awareness regarding the quality and facilities that hospital offers has a great impact
of declining the image of the hospital. Advertising should be in sufficient enough to raise the image for the
public and to demonstrate the hospital singular distinction. The hospital should inform the public through
communication channel to enhance the image process building.

 A good and memorable hospital name will assist to build a good image in thepublic’s perception. Hence
as Mary expected, the name is old fashioned and as a result will not build a good image to the public.
Lack of visual andverbal actions have affected the image and resulted into unclear message about the
hospital’s value, as an example there is no distinctive tagline for hospital that concisely captures the
essence of the hospital.
 The overlapping in services provided within the hospital as well as being in distinguishable in these
services has resulted into making the image unable to break through, to capture the hearts and minds of
the public.

2. WHAT ARE THE BRAND-NAME ISSUES? SHOULD THE NAME BE CHANGED? IF SO, WHAT?
The brand name issues are:
 The brand name should not be old fashioned and should be relevant to the public.
 It should not be weak, that may neutralize or negate the efforts of building the image.
 It should be memorable, attractive, have emotional characteristic to deliver the value with
short words, other criteria that will help to memorize the brand name fast is how easy it is
to pronounce.
  It should stress on the benefits to be offered, and should stand out from the competition
by developing a new name, avoid repetition in creating the brand name otherwise public
will be confused.

3. WHAT TYPE OF ADVERTISMENTS SHOULD MARY DEVELOP FOR ST. MARGARET’S

GENERAL HOSPITAL?
Mary should adopt the mixed blend of rational and emotional advertising. Rational advertising
will play the role of justification and proving the emotional decision. Emotional will try to
create passion and desire. Rationality needs to support emotional appeals, however emotional
appeals should be with adequate level of transparency, otherwise thehospital credibility will
decline. Featuring the technical expertise, scientific evidence, and facilities. It should
containphysicians qualifications to impress the public, and awards to the hospital. In addition
emotional appeals shouldemphasize on safety, quality and hospitality. The emotional appeal
should be extended to create a relief as well ascompassion to the patients. The technological
advances are compatible within the hospitals, the human factors play asignificant role to promote
the hospital to public as an example: hospital with an excellent nursing crew and talentdoctors
will surely have a good reputation. Emotional advertising should also be plan to include the
nurse factorcharacteristic, Mary could target the advertising efforts towards the physicians who
may be interested in utilizing the hospital.

The possible means to do advertising for the hospital are as following;

 Using specialized publication magazine or journal, preferably health magazine that can
reach the segment.
 Billboard depicting the hospital image with proper tagline to create an image for the
hospital and remind the public of hospital.
 Hospital can use direct advertising and marketing with help of customer data base, to
increase hospital awareness and provide information to the hospital through word of
mouth circulation, or to inform the public with anyevents conducted at hospital, update
customers with health news and medical issues and provide advices if it is required. This
will help to create the image as hospital with full of concern to the public.
  The differences of services that Mary’s hospital offers necessitate a unique brochure. To carry the new hospital
namewith an elegant logo in colorful pages. Short but effective wordings and photos
should be available to supportthe listed facilities within the hospital. Vision statement ,
map of direction, hospital phone line, and the websitelink should be provided.

4. WHAT OTHER TYPES OF ACTIVITIES COULD ST.MARGARET’S PURSUE TO BUILD A

STRONG AND POSITIVE CORPORATE IMAGE?

To build strong positive image St. Margaret should:

 Get involved with community service activities, to make more than financial
commitment, also the hospital should find out where they can donate to generate some
media attention.
 Sponsor some of health programs on radio or TV, if it is appropriate make the doctors appear as guest
in these shows.
 Use clear and honest and persuasive testimonial regarding the hospital facilities and
experience and attribute them.
 Do public speaking to provide the information for word mouth advertising.
 Organize and promote newsworthy events these could include seminars,
paneldiscussions, health fairs.
 Provide more than treatment to patients, possibly guidance and help them toachieve the
expected result of treatment.
 Use the internet to promote the hospital via links and live conference and discussion
group