Monday, May 31, 2010

Branding of a Maternity Hospital



A maternity hospital as the word defines is a place that provides care for women during pregnancy and childbirth and for newborn infants. Maternity hospitals are usually run & managed by gynecologists.
A lady mostly consults when she first takes pregnancy urine test and it shows a positive result. The lady usually meets her gynecologist after a period of 30 days or less depending on the criticality of the pregnancy.
These nine months can be an important branding exercise for a brand manager of a pharma company or companies marketing products for children between one to two years.
Let’s analyze, how a brand manager can translate this opportunity.
  • The number of visits of the pregnant lady 12 and waiting time 15 min, which a/c's to 180 minutes to focused viewer ship for any brand. Most often the lady is accompanied by her husband of a relative, so double the viewer ship.
o These companies can distribute reading material, with co-branding
o A TV screen can be displayed in the waiting room, and visual education material can be shown, like yoga exercises during pregnancy, diet to be followed, interview of the gynecologist, etc
  • Maternity hospitals are usually branded on the lines of hospital, but most fail to understand that the lady is not suffering from any diseases, its just a new phase in there life, her transformation to motherhood. So the hospital set-up should change. The lady should feel at home, decorate it as a place where she is feels more at home
  • Give or suggest books to read, coz their are many things she wont know. The companies targeting would be mothers should publish informative books for these ladies.
  • Suggest some instrumental music she should hear which will help in the development of the foetus. There are studies to indicate that you can teach you child in the womb itself.
  • The first consultation is first impression; give her accessories with the maternity home branding e.g. "Admit me to Ankur hospital in case of emergency". This will be a good branding initiative for the maternity home. The accessories can be t-shirts, teddy bears, etc.
  • Conduct pregnancy classes for would be mothers as they are going through lot of changes like psychological, hormonal, diet, etc. These classes can address their queries and also teach them yoga & exercises, which are very important. Though we will find maternity hospitals in each and every corner, but hardly any gynecologist is interested to run such classes.
  • Post delivery have the room decorated with balloons, this will create a moment of joy, so she will forget the pain of delivery. Also a lot of relatives visit the family after delivery, have a small flower boutique next to the hospital as they can buy flowers for the lady.
  • Post delivery the clothes of mother and child, should be branded on the lines of the maternity home colours and logo. This will have a good brand recall.
These are some of the branding exercises which can be undertaken by a maternity home, one example which I can think of is about Cradle in Bangalore.
If Branding and PR strategy is done properly the maternity home will reap huge benefits.



Sunday, March 7, 2010

Why should doctors market themselves?


This is what we say most often as they get references through word-of-mouth publicity.

But only doctor understands the reason behind it. After completing specializing most of the doctors attach themselves to various different hospitals as consultants and start their own clinic. The doctors believe this is the only route they can reach out to patients and market themselves. Well I am afraid as this is just one route of strategy!

There are many other ways of marketing and promoting their own brand and services, here I have tried listing a few which could help:
  1. Peer-to-peer marketing: It is very important for a doctor to inform the GPs and hospitals about services offered. This is from where most recommendations will happen. A doctor’s recommendation is worth more than patients references.

  2. Patients follow-up: Most of the doctors hardly follow-up with their patients well being or enquiring about follow-up visits. Also the charges of follow-up visits should be revised, like doctor charging Rs. 200 on first visit should charge Rs. 20 for follow-up visit and these patients should have different appointment schedule. The doctor can also send a get well card to the patient.

  3. Delivery of medicines: The doctor should tie-up with nearest medical store for delivery of medicines. This will ensure that medicines reach the patients and a service the patients will cherish. This will also benefit the pharma store.

  4. Suggesting medicines: Lot of patients hate taking medicines, the doctor can discuss with the patients and recommend only those medicines which are required. This will also ensure that patients will take the dosage.
There are many ways which can help the medical practitioners to market themselves, but most important is they should be compassionate and humble towards their patients.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

ATTEMPT AT IDENTITY MANAGEMENT - TIGER WOODS

Accenture, as if Tiger Woods Were Never There
By BRIAN STELTER
How do you Tiger-proof an entire corporation? At Accenture, you start by telling employees to tear down all the posters that say, now somewhat awkwardly, that “we know what it takes to be a Tiger.”

For six years, Tiger Woods was the advertising face for Accenture, the big consulting firm. But now that Mr. Woods has confessed to infidelities amid an assault of media coverage, Accenture wants him to disappear.

On Sunday, hours after Accenture ended its sponsorship deal, the golfer’s face was replaced by an anonymous skier on the company’s home page. His name was scrubbed almost completely from the rest of the Web site. The company’s advertising campaign is about “high performance,” and Mr. Woods “just wasn’t a metaphor for high performance anymore,” a
spokesman for Accenture, Fred Hawrysh, said.

By Monday afternoon, Accenture staffers had swept through the company’s New York office and removed any visible Tiger posters. The next day, marketing and communications employees around the world were asked to turn in any remaining Tiger-emblazoned posters and other materials. Accenture marketing employees did not respond to requests for comment about the Tiger purge on Wednesday.

Accenture said it did not tell all of its 177,000 worldwide employees to toss their Tiger T-shirts, caps and tchotchkes away. But when asked about branded merchandise, Mr. Hawrysh said, “Our intention is to ensure we are no longer using it internally or externally.”

But it takes time to erase the golfer’s identity completely. Accenture spent $50 million on advertising in the United States last year, and Mr. Woods appeared in 83 percent of the company’s ads — far more than for any of his other major sponsors — according to TNS Media Intelligence.

The remaining billboards and ads, now outdated, inspire smirks and jokes. In ads at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, Tiger is seen crouching on the green, studying a golf ball’s trajectory and endorsing outsourcing. In Atlanta, he is posed as The Thinker, adorned with a Nike hat, promoting management consulting. At Dulles International outside Washington, he is peering into the distance, dark clouds on the horizon. That ad, forebodingly, says it is “tougher than ever to be a Tiger.”

“The Accenture ads with Tiger finally make sense,” Quentin George, the chief digital officer for Interpublic Mediabrands, an advertising holding company, remarked on Twitter Wednesday.

Mr. Woods provided a big boost to Accenture when he became the company’s worldwide public face in 2003. At the time, the Accenture name was less than three years old, and was still regularly called by its old name, Andersen Consulting. The campaign’s initial theme was “Go on. Be a Tiger.”

Mr. Woods “was a powerful device for our advertising, there’s no doubt about it,” Mr. Hawrysh said. But as allegations of Mr. Woods’s extramarital affairs spread in recent weeks, the titan of golf was transformed into a distraction. In the early days of the media frenzy, Mr. Woods still greeted visitors to Accenture’s Web site next to the words, “It’s What You Do Next That Counts.” Then on Sunday, the company proclaimed that Mr. Woods was “no longer the right representative” for its advertising and began scrubbing his name and face away.

On Tuesday, that meant telling staff members in an e-mail message to review their sales pitches and slide shows to ensure that they “no longer include Tiger Woods.” In New York, employees were asked to bring posters and other physical assets to the company’s front desk for disposal. The company would not comment on exactly how they would be disposed of.

They may be trying to avoid having the materials recast as collectors’ items. Already, some Accenture magazine ads and memorabilia, including an Accenture Match Play Tiger Woods Caddy Bib, are on eBay (Asking price for the bib: $175.)

Mr. Woods’s private life remains a daily topic on TV talk shows and Web sites, but some of his sponsors, including Nike, have stayed by his side. Nike’s chairman, Phil Knight, told The Sports Business Journal last week that when Mr. Woods’s career “is over, you’ll look back on these indiscretions as a minor blip.”

Accenture, however, is already preparing a new ad campaign. Jon Swallen, a senior vice president for research for TNS Media Intelligence, said it seemed notable that the consulting firm chose not to hide under a no-comment cloak or hire a new celebrity spokesman; instead, it separated from Mr. Woods publicly and swiftly.
“It struck me that they were taking him to the woodshed,” Mr. Swallen said.
With due courtesy - The New York Times

Monday, November 23, 2009

Relevance of social media for Doctors in India


It is important for doctors to market their service through all available tools/mediums and social media is one of the tools.
Here I have tried to list down various types of marketing tools used by healthcare professionals in the order of there importance:
  1. Word-of-mouth
  2. Public lectures or seminars
  3. Being a visiting consultant with more hospitals
  4. Featuring in media stories
  5. Websites
  6. Participating in free check-up camps
  7. Giving lectures at CMEs
  8. Social Media

The above comprehensive list gives a good amount of publicity for the doctors to portray their services to their customers (patients, media, doctors, etc). With the advent of new technology and informed patients it has become prerogative for doctors to address using new mediums and be connected with there patients.

Now looking this scenario from Indian context the doctors are quite bearish accepting these new mediums. They still think and believe in the traditional form of marketing i.e. Word-of-mouth. The new generation of doctors are to a large extent aware about new ways to market themselves.

Doctors now are aware about treating their patients, keeping a stock of disease awareness brochures in d clinic, are available on mobile and email, don’t mind debating with patients and updated with latest developments in d medical science field.

Social media through freely available there is investment of time and this will be managed by trained Social Media Optimisation (SMO) consultants.


The SMO creates and helps to design various templates like account on twitter, facebook, wordpress, linkedin, plaxo, connect doctors , etc. Also creating the doctors website and aligning with these different social networking platforms. All these platforms will then be used by doctor to inform his patients about his knowledge, case studies, booking of appointments, etc.

Below is a small eg to showcase how social media can become a boon for healthcare professionals and doctors, check out on - mashable.com

Doctors do not know how to market themselves - Jagdeep Kapoor

Jagdeep Kapoor, Chairman and Managing Director, Samsika Marketing Consultants Pvt Limited On how doctors should market themselves

How can a doctor market himself, when advertising is prohibited for the medical community?
So what if doctors are not allowed to advertise themselves? Advertising is just a minor part of marketing, and there are various ways a doctor can market himself. I want to debunk the myth that marketing is unethical. Ethical marketing is permissible. Doctors can market themselves within the purview of the existing prohibition.

What brand mantras do you propagate, keeping in mind the restrictions?
We advocate simple and practical tips to doctors for improving their marketing skills. Firstly, we stress on relationship building with the patient, which we call relationship marketing. ‘Sambandh’ is better than ‘sab-bandh’. A doctor needs to build a personal relationship with the patient by making minor efforts like remembering the name of the patients, writing the name correctly and being polite to them.
Most doctors get irritated when simple piece of information is asked. They behave as if the patient is wasting his time, by asking him that question. A doctor must not treat the patient as an imbecile. These days most of the urban and educated patients before going to a doctor are aware of the nature of the disease, by dint of the internet. The patient should go back not with scare but with care.
Secondly, to build a big brand name use a small brand name. Research has shown that small brand names do better than interminably long names. If a doctor has a long name, which the patient cannot even pronounce, then the doctor needs to shorten his name. Same holds true for hospital and clinic name. Thirdly, the doctor needs to make himself visible. We hear of doctors who are good at work and practicing for decades, with not too many people knowing about him. This is because the doctor has not made a conscious effort to make himself known through word of mouth. This hurdle can be overcome by getting involved in social work. If a doctor participates in honorary work, then people come to know him and that is how he becomes more popular.
Lastly, intangible is as important as tangible. Show the patient that you care for him, by uttering encouraging words, and even patting him. Be sensitive and sympathetic while informing a patient about serious illness and when breaking the death news to relatives.

Can you give us an overview of Samsika Marketing Consultants?
The first strategic marketing consultancy in India, Samsika is the catalyst that helps corporations grow and make their mark in the market. The complexities of the marketplace are Samsika’s greatest challenges and to meet them, Samsika offers its exclusive service. Being the only specialist marketing strategy consultancy in the country, Samsika is fully equipped on all aspects of brand building, whether it is advertising or public relations, market or media research. The Samsika team works closely with clients, steering, guiding, advising and pushing the brand’s graph to an upward incline. Our brand mantras have been penned in three books- "24 Brand Mantras" and "Brand Serve-31 Customer Service Prescriptions" and "Brand Naamkaran".

Are Indian doctors more insensitive and curt, in comparison with their western counterpart?
We cannot generalise about Indian doctors. Even if Indian doctors are revered and given the status of demi-gods, they definitely do not know how to market themselves. At the reception, when patients enquire about the report, it is common practice that receptionists reply curtly. Some even say "What do you want the report immediately. How is that possible? You just gave your sample now." Why cannot the patient be replied politely? Why would the patient be made to feel undeserving, when he is paying such a hefty sum? Indian doctors need to come down from the pedestal that they seat, segregating themselves from the patient.

Has there been a change in the attitude of doctors over the years?
Yes, in the last two-three years there has been a positive change. A research conducted by Samsika which involved 1900 service providers from seven different industry in 2001-2002 reflects the change. It shows that customers are looking for care, world class treatment and sensitivity of the service provider. In healthcare, the change can be attributed to the emphasis shifting from cure to care.

Sourced from # expresshealthcaremgmt