The Observatory took over the HSS account in 2013. HSS has been consistently ranked the #1 orthopedic hospital in the U.S.  But a look at their in-house research showed that patients were coming there from around the country and, in fact, around the world. The client said they wanted to speak to patients who were willing to travel for the best, breakthrough treatment. (That led to our heavy use of airport dioramas, and TV that did not require an announcer… so language changes could be dealt with in titles.)

Although they work on a lot of well-known athletes, they did not want to become known as a sports hospital. They did, however, want to reach amateur athletes who get injured or have chronic conditions. We didn’t want to rely on U.S. News medallions everywhere that said “#1”. Everybody uses those medallions, so they have become somewhat meaningless in advertising and lead to the sameness of advertising in the category.

But the fact that people come to HSS from around the world says far more than any medallion could. Once again we wrote a simple line… in people-speak. “Where the world comes to get back in the game.”

The advertising fueled the thought that nothing should keep you from doing what you love or living a full life.

The campaign got noticed and talked about, and was written about in the New York Times. HSS was creating a big buzz. Unfortunately a new marketing director came in who wanted to do things cheap and direct them himself, so we parted ways.

TV

PRINT & AIRPORT DIORAMAS

As already noted, with HSS we felt large airport dioramas were a way to dramatically reach prospects willing to travel for exceptional care, and hold their attention for a bit. An Observatory team member who was traveling actually watched and got pictures of travelers stopping to look at the ads for an extended period of time.

ONLINE

Marketers today tend to think of the plethora of media opportunities as separate silos.  They approach each one separately.  We try to create campaigns where the message can “cascade” from one to the next. 

While creating the TV commercials for HSS, we took the featured patient aside and conducted a long interview which cut beautifully with all of the action scenes we shot for the commercials. We then created extended length interviews through which you really get to know these people and see how meaningful it was for them to get their lives back, and to lose as few precious days of their lives as possible.  These interviews became valuable online assets.

MORE

We call it “Art directing the real estate.” Hospitals have numerous locations where they can reach people, increase their exposure to the campaign and build the brand. It’s free media. It’s crazy not to find ways to use it.

With HSS, when you come in the main door, there are elevators straight ahead of you. They go to the physicians’ offices, various departments and surgery. The elevators are slow and you usually have a bit of a wait. In this case that’s a good thing, because you have a captive audience for the messaging.

Also, the hospital’s two main buildings are connected by a skyway. Everyone getting off the FDR Drive at 71st Street, as well as everyone walking down toward the hospital, sees it. Another opportunity.

As we said, every place you have a “touchpoint” with the consumer, you need to take advantage of the opportunity to further the brand, so we like to handle everything right down to in-house publications. At the end of the year, HSS uses their publication “Horizon” to release their annual report. It was a perfect place to introduce the campaign to donors and supporters, so we put together the entire issue, connected the new messaging with the content, and even handled the printing.

CAMPAIGN REVIEW

As the campaign initially broke, the New York Times did a very  positive review of it, citing its innovation and attention-getting  approach in the hospital category.

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