Trending from G/L: Debating Like A True Marketer

Geile/Leon Marketing Communications

Trending from G/L: Debating Like A True Marketer

These days it seems like there is a debate about something new EVERY DAY.

Some of the topics can be a little, well, trivial in the grand scheme of things, but nonetheless are discussed in fervor on social media.

Are women’s pockets inferior to men’s? Yes, yes they are.
Is St. Louis the microbrew capital of America? Well, no…but we are near the top!
Are hit songs starting to sound a little similar? Yeahhhh.

These kinds of topics can generate some pretty strong opinions that inevitably circulate through our culture. But typically, there’s a decided shortage of facts to backup our claims. That is, of course, what makes these debates more of a matter of opinion. But now, The Pudding is here to shift the conversation from online shouting to in-depth sleuthing.

The site The Pudding has taken these entertaining cultural debates and put an actual answer to them. They conduct their own research and collect original data. Then they showcase their findings in a creative and super digestible way.

They use the “emerging form of journalism” called visual essays to tell their findings. Every essay on the site has interactive graphics to highlight the research and data in a way that is accessible to everybody.

Browsing through, you’ll see that the available essay topics are relevant and intriguing too.

The Pudding has tapped into something our culture didn’t even know we needed. Someone to help us FINALLY settle those debates you and your friends have over drinks on a Friday night.

How’s this relate to advertising? What The Pudding does and what those of us in the marketing world do are in essence one in the same: effectively communicate the truth about a particular topic. Getting to the bottom of what truly makes a brand or product unique and telling that truth in an engaging way is the key to good marketing and advertising. Imagine the latest debate is whether or not to purchase your brand or product. Is a shouting match of “buy” vs. “don’t buy” on social media going to be effective? Probably not. But how about a well-researched campaign that connects the essential truths about your brand to the people who will most likely value those truths? Now you’re talking. That’s what Making It Mean Something is all about, and it’s what we do every day here at G/L.

Great creative work is backed and inspired by great research. When you’re ready to discover the essential truths of your brand and make those truths mean something to your audiences, give us a call.

Trending from G/L: We are All Going To Die

Dave Geile
Creative Director Managing Partner

Trending from G/L: We are All Going To Die

If trending products like this one continue to be invented, we are all going to die of muscle atrophy. I present to you the Honda U3-X Personal Mobility device. Personally I would feel ridiculous riding around on this thing. But if someone doesn’t put their foot down (pun intended) and take a stand, this kind of lazy contraptions will become the norm – and life as we know it will be extinguished.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8IoQoprBXk

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for technology and I admire this technology a great deal. I suppose I’m more upset in how it is presented and how it’s major contribution to mankind is demonstrated. In this new product video, we see perfectly healthy, capable people mounting their personal mobility device to get together to go over some office information. They wave at each other as they pass in the hall or admire and discuss art in a gallery. Huh?! The video even touts the benefit of being hands free so you can carry stuff! Here’s a news flash: walking allows for the same benefit!!!

More info on the device:

Honda’s U3-X was cleverly developed by pursuing the concept of “harmony with people” and with its size and weight, it will clearly mix comfortably with pedestrian traffic, though Honda will be conducting extensive testing in a real-world environment to verify and refine the practicality of the device.

The design of the U3-X places the rider on the eye level zone of other pedestrians so that it as friendly and non-threatening to fellow footpath users as possible, while also making it easier for the rider to reach the ground from the footrest without stretching.

Like the Segway and Hands Free Transporter, the U3-X’s speed is adjusted by shifting body weight, though the U3-X adds a whole new dimension in that it doesn’t just go backwards and forwards – it goes sideways, thanks to an ingenious omni-directional wheel system which Honda has dubbed its “HOT Drive System” which is short for Honda Omni Traction Drive System.

Foot reconstruction, knee replacement, hip surgery…now ya got me. But the inability to get off your health butt and move across the room is not what Honda should be broadcasting. If this trending item is our future destiny, we are all going to look like the Wal-Mart people shopping from a mobile cart. Not because of their inability to walk, but because of their crushing weight!

Sorry to be so upset about this…I need to go sit down. I just wish I could go get a cup of coffee while doing so.

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Healthcare Marketing Blogs

Dan Diveley
VP of Business Development

Healthcare Marketing Blogs

At G/L, we’ve worked on a variety of healthcare marketing projects. Through our years of experience and research, we’ve become something of an expert on the subject, so we’ve compiled all of our relevant insights of the healthcare market in one convenient location. Just click on the headline to view the blog.

Be Disruptive In Everything You Do – Especially Your Healthcare Marketing

When your company brings something unique to the table, it can disrupt the status quo of an entire market. Discover how one of our clients, Metro Imaging, managed to do just that by offering a little extra transparency.

How Effective Healthcare Marketing Can Limit Patient Outmigration

It happens time and time again in the healthcare industry: patients are leaving local hospitals behind for what they (mis)perceive as greener pastures. We take a deeper look into why patients are migrating from their local hospitals and hone in on how hospitals can limit patient outmigration with the right message.

Marketing Accountable Care Organizations – A New Approach

As Accountable Care Organizations trend more towards the mainstream, patients now have a choice for more affordable healthcare solutions. But with a shift in organizational structure comes the need to re-optimize your marketing. If you’ve recently become an ACO or are considering making the jump, we offer you our insights for a clean transition.

Real Price Transparency in Healthcare – I’ve seen it! 

With high-deductible medical insurance on the rise and patient satisfaction falling due to unaddressed price concerns, there’s never been a better time to offer your patients transparency. We examine how much patients value price transparency in healthcare (hint: it’s a lot) and show you how offering true transparency can make your brand stand out.

7 Key Components to Developing a Strategic Healthcare Marketing Plan

Planning ahead for next year? You should be! Here are a few key components you should focus on to maximize your marketing efforts in 2017.

Consumer Engagement: Think Your Marketing is Tough? Try Selling Heart Attacks.

Anyone can make a burger and fries look appetizing or sell you a new sports car. But marketing heart attacks? That’s a whole different animal. Our very own Dave Geile gives his insight on how healthcare marketers can produce viable messaging, even with such serious subject matter.

Creating Effective Healthcare Messaging

Getting the right message out at the right time for the right audience is key for your brand’s success. But how does that translate to healthcare marketing? We take a closer look at what patients are looking for in healthcare and translate their needs into more effective messaging. 

Increasing Patient Volume Requires Thinking Like a Patient

You know the old phrase: “You can’t truly understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” Well, that’s true in healthcare marketing too. We explore what it means to think like a patient and translate that insight into optimized messaging.

Programmatic Buying: How Media Is Changing

The media landscape is ever changing. Are you keeping up? It’s okay; we’ll fill you in.

Healthcare Marketing Includes Understanding the Cares of Patients 

Tired of marketing that just keeps missing the mark? We break it down for you right here, with our own research and insights into healthcare marketing trends and unique solutions. Grab a snack and get comfortable. It’s a longer read, but well worth your time.

Inbound Marketing

Your Digital Budget: How Much Interactive Do I Need? – A G/L Executive Brief

Move over, traditional advertising! The digital world is expanding at an incredible rate, so how much should you spend on marketing in it? We have you covered.

Integrate Inbound Marketing into your next Website and Social Media campaign 

Inbound marketing helps keep the conversation going between you and your target audience, engaging them in a way that traditional advertising just can’t. It’s relatively inexpensive and any company can do it­—we’re doing it right now! Check out how inbound can work for your company’s website and social communications.

A Step-by-Step Guide to implementing an Inbound Marketing Program

So you’re thinking about implementing a little inbound, eh? Lucky for you, we have an easy, step-by-step guide on creating an effective inbound campaign. What are you waiting for? Let’s get the ball rolling!

Target Audience

Example Personas to Improve Messaging

Marketers deal in general target audiences all the time, but sometimes it helps drive the message home if we can put a name and face to that audience. That’s where personas come in. We humanize our target audience by showing them as real people with real dreams and aspirations. See for yourself how your messaging can improve with your own personas in mind!

Why Target Audiences Don’t Work

Your target audience is more than data and research; they’re real people. To get messages that resonate, you have to see them as more than a bunch of numbers.

5 Tips to Remember When Marketing to Moms

We love moms. Our moms, your mom, any moms. They’re all great in their own way! And they’re huge decision makers in their homes, according to our research. So here are 5 tips on how to show them some love in your marketing efforts.

Key Elements to Creating Personas

Personas help make your target audience feel a bit more personal than charts, graphs, and raw data. We feel that creating personas for our target audiences is an integral part of our creative process, and we give you the rundown on how you can incorporate them into your marketing efforts as well.

The Importance Of Personas in Shaping Targeted Messaging

You know what sucks? Getting treated like a number. You know what rocks? When advertisers see you for who you really are! Try using personas to create messaging that hits home with your target audience as a person, not a dataset. [snark: It’s so important to us, we wrote four whole blogs on it!]

Internal Branding/Communications

Minimize Medicare Penalties with Internal Communications

Show of hands: who likes paying Medicare sanctions? Anyone? Yeah, that’s what we thought. So what if we told you that your hospital could reduce their risk of having to pay Medicare sanctions with the brand messaging, both internally and externally? Read on and save!

6 Steps to Building a Brand from the Inside Out

Putting your brand on display for the entire world to see is great, but it means nothing if you ignore one vital ingredient: your people. As we discuss here, a great brand is backed by people who truly believe in the brand they represent on a daily basis. Make it a full team effort!

Healthcare Case Studies

Hannibal Regional Healthcare System – “Guiding You to Better”

We talk a big game about our expertise in healthcare marketing. Fortunately, we have the results to back it up. Check out the work we’ve done with Hannibal Regional Hospital. 

Metro Imaging – The Clear Choice 

Our client, Metro Imaging, has a few innovations up their sleeves that could disrupt the healthcare market, and they wanted us to help show them off. We were happy to oblige.

Have any questions? Contact me (Dan) at [email protected] or fill out the form below.

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Trending from G/L: Time Travel Maps

Ben Schwab
Creative Director

Trending from G/L: Time Travel Maps

How bored are you right this second? Do you currently find yourself tossing pencils upward in an attempt to harpoon the office ceiling? Maybe you’re on the couch binging this year’s Yule Log on Netflix for the second time while scrambling to complete last minute online gift shopping. In the midst of these activities you may begin to wish you had the ability to time travel and control time and space at your will. I’m happy to announce that this holiday season the power described has now been granted to you…sort of.

Since 1984 there have been annual mosaics painstakingly stitched together from satellite imagery of our earth’s surface. The public now has full, interactive access to these maps thanks to the work of Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab and their Time Machine Library, along with the dedicated effort put forth by the team at Google. Together they have managed to painstakingly transform this immense, static archive of imagery into a user-friendly and navigable tool for exploring the face of our dynamic earth. The resulting images are visually striking and breathtaking in their intricate detail and scope.

It took the folks at Google to upgrade these choppy visual sequences from crude flip-book quality to true video footage. With the help of massive amounts of computer muscle, they have scrubbed away cloud cover, filled in missing pixels, digitally stitched puzzle-piece pictures together, until the growing, thriving, sometimes dying planet is revealed in all its dynamic churn. The images are striking not just because of their vast sweep of geography and time but also because of their staggering detail. Consider: a standard TV image uses about one-third of a million pixels per frame, while a high-definition image uses 2 million. The Landsat images, by contrast, weigh in at 1.8 trillion pixels per frame, the equivalent of 900,000 high-def TVs assembled into a single mosaic.

Along with the obvious novelty inherent in watching your hometown expand outwards over the course of three decades in less than three seconds, this tool also gifts us an opportunity to reflect on how we have and continue to impact our planet.

See anything cool recently? Have you figured out other ways to time travel? Send us a note using the form below:

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Trending from G/L: New TV Tracking Opens New Doors for Brands

Mary Sawyer
Vice President of Public Relations

Trending from G/L: New TV Tracking Opens New Doors for Brands

You should know when your brand’s paid advertising is supposed to run on TV. But it has been somewhat difficult to thoroughly monitor unpaid news or other programming brand coverage on TV through true TV tracking.

That situation appears to be changing, though, thanks to new media platforms and monitoring capabilities – just think about the benefits of being able to search for your brand’s appearance or mention on TV anytime.

According to a recent story in AdWeek, iQMedia has technology that can provide those capabilities. Marketers can now track every time their brands are mentioned and when their logos are shown. And they can monitor their competitor’s coverage.

The iQMedia platform includes spoken-word and logo recognition technology, and provides demographics, geographic and other statistics that a brand can use with its own internal metrics. The data is available within a couple of hours of its appearance on TV. Brands can also access six years of historical TV tracking and programming.

iQ Media’s platform includes spoken-word detection technology and, in what the company said is an industry first, logo recognition technology to identify when a brand is seen or heard on TV. It also provides demographic, geographic and time-of-day stats, and lets marketers correlate the raw data with their own internal metrics.

“Our systems are designed to be able to listen and hear for the content, and to be able to distinguish whether it’s in paid or earned,” said John Derham, iQ Media’s chief technology officer. “We get depth and breadth of content and resources in an unprecedented time frame.”

Domino’s Pizza, Energizer, the NHL, Red Bull and Sonic Drive-In will all be using the new platform, which makes data available to clients within a couple of hours of its appearance on TV. (Nielsen and comScore’s brand-mention services take 30 days.) Marketers can enter keywords, brand names or logos for the platform to track, much like a Google alert, and use the data to measure the ROI of theirs or their competitors’ major media investments.

These types of TV tracking tools give media planning and PR professionals’ insights that help to make better marketing decisions. The more that we know about who, what when, why and how people are brands; the better we are able to counsel our clients.

As measurement of success becomes more important to our clients, we’re putting data at the heart of everything we do. If you’d like to learn more about our approach, contact us using the form below:

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Trending from G/L: Thanks Canada for telling us we’re great!

Mary Sawyer
Vice President of Public Relations

Trending from G/L: Thanks Canada for telling us we’re great!

A couple of weeks ago, Ken Bone, a debate audience member, emerged as an unlikely hero to Americans weary of political negativity. Someone referred to Mr. Bone as a “human version of a hug.” With a week to go until Election Day now, we keep looking for positive moments to keep us sane.

Now, our neighbors to the North in Canada are sending us virtual “hugs” and positive affirmations via a social media campaign called “Tell America It’s Great,” complete with a hashtag, a Twitter account and a series of YouTube videos.

Seems America could use some cheering up right about now. As their closest friends and neighbours, we thought we should take a minute to help remind them that no matter how bad things might seem at the moment, there are lots of reasons why we think they’re still pretty great.To paraphrase the Stuart Smalley character from Saturday Night Live, the campaign tells we Americans that, “We’re Good Enough, We’re Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Us.”

Designed by workers at a Toronto creative agency to make positive statements as a response to the depressing American political setting, the campaign is not selling anything. Its motivation is to be remind us that the world sees us as great.

The Canada campaign comes at a time when most Americans are desperately looking forward to the end of the election cycle with all of the sniping and accusations. We do need to take a breath and think about our national parks, our contributions to music and the countless other American innovations and characteristics that are admired by people throughout the world.

Many Americans are showing their appreciation to this campaign through a reciprocating “TellCanadaThankYou” campaign.

It is nice to receive a group hug from our kind Canadian neighbors. Maybe their goodwill and civility will inspire us to feel better about ourselves, as well as acting nicer to one another. Eh?

Have you seen any politically-focused messaging that stood out for its lack of, um, toxicity? Please share it with us using the form below.

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Top G/L Tips: Tim Leon on Brand Refresh benefits

Tim Leon
President/Brand Strategist

Top G/L Tips: Tim Leon on Brand Refresh benefits

How is your company’s brand perceived by your target audience? Is it full of life or is time to re-energize it?

In this video, Tim Leon, president of Geile/Leon, shares his 25+ years of experience in helping companies refresh their biggest asset: the brand. He’ll walk you through the key questions that need to be asked, including:

· Why do a brand refresh?
· When does it make the most sense for your brand?
· What are the steps needed to execute it effectively?

Watch the video here:

Have any further questions? Tim is passionate about branding and would be happy to have a conversation. Contact him by phone at 314-727-5850, ext 117, email at [email protected] or use the form below.

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Top G/L Tips: Randy Micheletti on New Product Launches

Randy Micheletti
VP, Director of Brand Strategy

Top G/L Tips: Randy Micheletti on New Product Launches

New products launches are so exciting. But as the saying goes, you only have one chance to get it right!

Here are 6 key steps for successful product launches. Randy Micheletti, VP at Geile/Leon, shares his process to ensure every launch is successful:

Are you working on a product launch? Randy is happy to discuss your goals and make a few recommendations. Contact him by phone at 314-727-5850, ext 110, email at [email protected] or use the form below.

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Trending from G/L: Modern Family gets smart with REALTORS brand integration

Geile/Leon Marketing Communications

Trending from G/L: Modern Family gets smart with REALTORS brand integration

With the value of paid advertising on traditional platforms continuing to decrease, opportunities for brands to find new ways to reach their target are becoming commonplace. One of the big trends over the past year has been the rise of sponsored content and native advertising. Integrating your brand into the content of a media form as the role of digital media has evolved will most certainly continue to rise.

In both news and entertainment programming, brand-crafted messaging is now commonplace. But doing it well isn’t as simple as just creating an ad. It requires the brand itself and the content vehicle working together towards seamless integration. It requires the brand to relinquish control and allow a different set of decision-makers to take the reigns.

A recent integration on the ABC smash hit Modern Family was relatively subtle, but in a good way. The National Association of REALTORS® partnered with the show’s writers to craft the episode’s messaging, and did so without compromising the show’s entertainment value. You can view a clip from the episode here.

While the clip is a minute long, the REALTORS brand doesn’t get mentioned until the very end, and even in doing so, it’s essentially mocked by Sofia Vergara’s Modern Family character. Those are the kind of moments that internal marketing managers have traditionally been horrified of, but it works due to the connection with one of the show’s main protagonists:

With Dunphy, portrayed by actor Ty Burrell, the group sensed an opportunity: a main character on one of television’s most popular comedies who sells real estate.

“He’s now one of America’s best-loved Realtors,” said Elizabeth Mendenhall, incoming president of the association.

As Adweek points out, brand integrations aren’t a new thing, but since this one didn’t focus on a consumer product in particular and more on an organization, it definitely stood out:

“Phil Dunphy is a Realtor—he was written that way by the show’s creators,” which makes the integration seem natural, said Sean McBride, executive vice president, executive creative director at Arnold. “And the amazing character they’ve developed already embodies many of the attributes that are important in a Realtor: He’s honest, he’s helpful, he’s sincere.”

The Modern Family actor himself had this to add:

“I’ve always admired a company that allows themselves to be seen in an imperfect light or allows themselves to be poked fun at,” he said. “That’s the strongest play.”

Overall, well done. One of the big fears about sponsored content is that it will interfere with the programming and it seems like that was avoided here.

Have any questions about helping your brand stand out? Drop us a line and we’ll be happy to chat.

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How Effective Healthcare Marketing can limit Patient Outmigration

Dan Diveley
VP of Business Development

How Effective Healthcare Marketing can limit Patient Outmigration

How often do you, as a rural hospital marketer, think this about lost patients?

“Come back!  This is where you need to be!”

I still remember these words by Sister Eilleen. I was 16 and waiting for an evening teen religion school class at my church to begin. Out of the window I saw Jeff, a friend, being dropped off by his mother. Jeff got out of the car and proceeded to walk towards the church. But as soon as his mother drove away, he quickly changed directions and headed towards the foosball arcade. When the nun saw this, she quickly opened the window and yelled,

“Come back. This is where you need to be!”

How often do you hear yourself, like Sister Eilleen, nearly screaming this to lost patients? Outlying hospitals seem to face an all too similar problem: local residents leaving their city to visit a hospital in a larger community.

Patient Outmigration is a big concern for rural hospitals. The National Research Corporation surveyed 200 U. S. hospitals and published some of the results in their article, The Case of the Impatient Patient. According to the research, 37% of those that travel to a distant hospital report doing so because of the reputation of the provider outside of their locale. These people travel an average of 66 to 90 miles for a variety of services including Heart Care (13.9 percent), Orthopedic Treatment and Surgery (13 percent), Neurology (11.5 percent), and Cancer Treatment (9.5 percent).

And another interesting outcome from the research was the household income level of these outmigrators. Conventional wisdom may lead to thinking those with high household income are more likely traveling to other cities. However, the opposite seems to be true – the lower the HHI, the higher rate of percentage of patient outmigration. As the report notes, the poorest households had the highest outmigration rate, while those earning over $100k had the lowest outmigration rate of all.

We here at Geile/Leon speak with many outlying hospitals. What we hear is that often the local hospital offers the same level of care, outcomes and amenities as a big city hospital, all located within a very short drive, yet some patients insist on going further for their care. So if it’s not better care that attracts patients to larger hospitals, maybe it’s a perception problem (This is one of the many issues facing the healthcare industry as you can read more in our Healthcare Marketing Whitepaper).

Are your local residents making the long drive to other cities when they could receive the help they need close by at your hospital?  Do you have a good story to tell but not getting the results you hoped for?

If patient outmigration is a concern, give us a call at 314-727-5850 and ask for Tim Leon. We would love to hear about the issues you are facing and maybe show you a few relevant examples of how we helped our clients with similar challenges. At Geile/Leon, we enjoy working with rural hospitals ranging from 80-200 beds. We’ve helped them refine their brands, improve their messaging, and increase patient visits.

Maybe with a few adjustments to your MarCom will keep you from yelling:

“Come back! This is where you need to be!”

We are looking forward to meeting you. And if you’re not ready to meet right at this moment, that’s totally fine. But we’d definitely recommend checking out our Special Report for Healthcare Marketers in the meantime by filling out the form below:

Healthcare Trends

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