Advertising An Evolving Cancer Center:

Research, Strategy And Creative Solutions

Background

KGB's ongoing strategy for Southern Ohio Medical Center's Cancer Center has been to introduce the new ground-up Center and its associated technologies, staff and new physicians. Once completed we continually bring to light what's new for the consumer be it technology or services. Once the initial "We're Open" campaign ran we shifted our concentration to telling success stories in the form of patient testimonials. We've even included physicians in some of these as our ongoing research shows their patients truly believe not only in the great care they received - but they also believe in their caregivers. We've now created and produced five versions of testimonial advertising. Each one an evolution of the previous set.

Research

We have found that focus group research is an ideal method to gather information about SOMC's target audience. It's crucial to know what consumers think and to learn what's important to them. Discovering what they know and, more importantly, hearing from them in their own words helps us craft messages that resonate within the community.

Strategy

Testimonial advertising has proven to be a highly successful creative strategy in our previous SOMC Cancer campaigns. In this geographic and demographic environment, testimonials are a powerful and emotional way to connect person to person and spark important word-of-mouth advertising. By listening to our audience, we learned that SOMC's consumers are typical healthcare consumers - they feel they deserve more information. They understand SOMC is adding services and they want clarification as to what services are currently available, as well as more information about doctors and technology. And they want these messages delivered in a meaningful way.

Creative Solutions

This latest phase of the SOMC Cancer series continues to give consumers precisely what they want: more information about the growing service line, including doctors and technology, as well as success stories from grateful patients.