CASE STUDY: Strong Health/Highland Breast Care Center

The Strong Health Breast Care Center at Highland Hospital was the original name of the facility. It's capabilities were expanded and the facility remodeled in the winter of 2002. Today, it is a bright, clean, friendly environment that not only specializes in breast care but also offers a full complement of services should they be required.

Given their new capabilities, Strong Health was ready to market the Center to increase mammograms and surgical referrals but had several unanswered questions:

Which target audience(s) represents the best opportunity for the Center?
Which organizations are its primary competitors (IDE/BORG or Wende Logan)?
What should the key messages be, given the competitive environment?
How do we motivate nurses and doctors to recommend the Center to their patients?
Which services should be promoted, routine mammograms or cancer-related services?

THE IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
Cognitive Marketing began with its Market Voicing process to not only answer these questions, but to develop the appropriate positioning for the Center-what it's best at, for whom, and why-and to begin building consensus within Strong Health on the naming and positioning of the Center. We began with individual interviews with Dr. Cullinan; Dr. Ahrendt; Laurie Ernest, Chief Administrator; and referring physicians. In addition, we did focus groups with referring nurses and prospective patients to identify the opportunities and key messages required to be successful.

From the focus groups we learned that prospective patients associated hospitals with "sick people" and were reluctant to go there. On the other hand, Highland Hospital was strongly associated with women's health issues. We also learned that a convenient location and free parking were two other key motivators. We got feedback that the name (Strong Health Breast Care Center at Highland Hospital) was too confusing. Therefore, we recommended the name be changed to the Highland Breast Care Center to emphasize its location as well as its specialization.
We discovered that the Center had very low awareness among physicians and nurses, and because both these referral sources had their set patterns, they needed motivation to change their habits.

From all these conversations, we developed the following positioning statement:

The Highland Breast Care Center is for women and their doctors who want mammograms performed by professionals dedicated only to breast care. The Center is the best at providing efficient and convenient services and, when needed, access to a full array of diagnostic and treatment options led by a dedicated multi-specialty team focused on individualized care. The Center brings together Highland Hospital's expertise and experience in the care of
women and Strong's state-of-the-art clinical and research expertise.

We also recommended the positioning line Peace of mind for every woman, which is the closing thought on all communications materials.

Our recommendation was to target women 35 to 50 years of age, specifically those needing a baseline (a first mammogram) or who do not have a set pattern or allegiance to a mammography center. And, as the positioning statement says, we specifically targeted women who currently see a "generalist" (IDE and Borg) but may appreciate the value of a specialty mammography center when they become aware of it. We determined that women who go to Wende Logan have a strong allegiance, and it would be harder to change their patterns.

To reach this target audience of select women, we created a consumer brochure, print ads, and a radio spot focusing on the Center's unique approach.

Given the importance of the referring nurses and physicians, we recommended that Dr. Ahrendt visit as many of them as possible, hopefully during their staff meetings, to show a video and to discuss the value of the Highland Breast Care Center. Physicians revealed in our interviews that the personal connection with a doctor is critical to making a surgical referral. Meeting Dr. Ahredt would build their confidence and expedite the referral process.

In addition, we sent direct mail to each physician. The package included a personalized letter, a comprehensive brochure targeted specifically to their issues, and a referral pad to make it easier to send patients to the facility.

EVIDENCE OF RESULTS
One of the outcomes of the process was building consensus within the Strong Health organization on how best to position the Highland Breast Care Center and the best naming strategy. The research phase allowed us to gain insight from all the target audiences (consumers, physicians, nurses, and administration) in order to create a targeted program based on consumer needs and insight. Evidence of this is in the results of the spring communications program. It yielded a 33% increase in mammograms during the three months of the campaign. A fall campaign is also planned.