“Ripped from Today’s Headlines!” Can Fat Be a Strategy for Healthcare Marketing?

I always wanted to use that famously trite RfTH screamer. Now’s my chance, because if you read Sunday’s Houston Chronicle you may have noted the sub-head in the Charles B Parks Business-section article:

Area hospitals are expanding their services to meet the needs of an older and increasingly obese population.

This article’s whip-round of some Texas Medical Center talking heads reveals how some hospitals are focusing their marketing on their targets – which would be us.

Thankfully the American Marketing Association is on the job! Come to the Houston chapter’s Healthcare SIG event this coming Friday and you could learn if diet is your marketing destiny. Maybe it’s genetics or economics. Or policies coming out of Washington and Austin.

The event panel’s brief: to discuss and present actionable insights into marketing strategy-setting and execution. The panelists come from hospitals, medical technologies companies and healthcare informatics, to help attendees explore “which audiences to target” and what “business segments are ripe for marketing.”

As attendees of previous Healthcare SIG events know, bariatrics (the study and treatment of obesity) can be one very effective marketing strategy. Managing diabetes is another. It does seem as though more flexibility is required today.

Be driven by opportunity – the chance to hear from Jackie Dryden, Jean van Soelen, Bruce Blausen and Kristeen Jones. The chance to participate with other healthcare marketing colleagues. Even the chance to ask why Signalwriter can’t take a decent photo with his first-ever iPhone, since I will be moderating the morning’s panel.

I’ll have a copy of the Parks article with me at Houston Baptist University on Friday. I’m big enough to say thanks to the Chron for providing me with this timely crib. I hope you will join us (because otherwise it’ll be lonely in the Dillon Room…with just five of us). Sign up right here, right now.

Mr Wentland, Against Advertising, Says, “Matter Settled.”

I can identify two possibilities when it comes to advancing maturity – either you broaden your range of acceptable opinions or you focus them more narrowly. Stephen H Wentland of Houston wrote a concise example that appears in the “Letters” section (page B6) of this morning’s Houston Chronicle:

Since the Supreme Court ruled that big business and other large groups can have unlimited access to TV and the Internet, some may think that crowding out the little guy will make it more difficult to decide on issues or select candidates. Not for me. Anything that massive advertising promotes, I’m against. Matter settled.

Those are Wentland’s 54 words as they ran in the paper today.

I imagine Wentland does not drive a car or truck. A man of such firm conviction would never be in favor of using such a heavily advertised product. Perhaps he takes public transportation to do his shopping since Houston Metro spends relatively little to advertise its bus service.

What does Wentland do when he gets to the grocery store (presuming he actually uses one)? Does he put only unadvertised second-tier brands or store labels in his cart? Maybe he eats a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables since he’d rarely see big marcomm budgets promoting bananas and onions.

After a nourishing all-natural dinner, Wentland won’t be watching TV. Advertising-supported broadcast channels would be anathema to him; and cable – well, Comcast is a big spender so Wentland would be against that too.

Before bed, he may brush his teeth using store-brand toothpaste rather than Crest or Colgate. And toilet paper?

Let’s draw a veil over the subject. Wentland has a right to his opinion, especially since it has appeared in the city newspaper. But since the Chronicle itself is supported by advertisers’ dollars..?