Why Brand Initiatives Fail
Most hospitals today realize the importance and competitive advantages of having a strong brand and many commit significant dollars and resources to initiatives to develop one. However, a look at the results one year later often reveals that the initial enthusiasm waned and the hopes for brandbuilding were not realized.
Following are some of the main reasons why branding efforts often fall short.
1. Misunderstanding the branding concept.
Unfortunately, many clients come equipped with money and high hopes, but only a slight understanding of what brandbuilding is. When they say "we want to build our brand," what many really mean is, "we want to increase our name awareness." And name awareness is very different than brand development, both in the strategy to achieve it and in the results. Generating name awareness involves heavy ad spending, logo designs, sponsorships and other expensive undertakings. Certainly, all of these things may be part of a brand strategy, but they are not branding. Name awareness just means people have heard of you; it doesn't mean they will go out of their way to do business with you or stay loyal over the years. That is what brand appreciation does.
Simply stated, branding is the promise of an experience consistently delivered. Every enterprise is basically in the same business: the experience-delivery business. Because of the inherently unpredictable nature of the hospital experience, it becomes even more important to manage the parts of the interaction that are possible to control. Knowing what that experience should be, knowing what your employee culture is capable of delivering and ensuring that it is consistently and perfectly delivered are necessary steps in any successful brand development, yet they are frequently overlooked.
2. Lack of commitment from the top.
Without the commitment of the CEO, branding will fail. Every company takes its cue from the person at the top. The designation of branding as a priority must come from there. The companies that are most successful with their branding programs have CEOs who are tireless and persistent champions of branding. Rallying the troops and generating and maintaining enthusiasm are much easier when everyone sees the passion of the commander-in-chief. Look at Bill Gates at Microsoft or Carly Fiorina at Hewlett Packard. They understand what makes their brand different and they "tell the story" every chance they get. The vision for the company, where it is headed and how it will get there originates with the CEO, not committees or consultants. That is why any brand research that precedes development of a strategy must include an in-depth interview with him or her. And that is why the CEO is the person to carry it forward.
3. Not using advertising and marketing to create the expectations of the brand experience.
Advertising pre-sells people on the experience they will encounter. When you go to Disney, you expect fun. When you go to Tiffany, you expect elegance. When you drive a Lexus, you expect luxury. Unless these companies grossly underperform, these are the feelings you will come away with because you have been predisposed to look for them. These are not healthcare brands, but the principle is the same: manage expectations, then deliver.
The advertising and marketing a hospital does manages people's perceptions. Then, it is up to the hospital to deliver. If the system even delivers moderately as promised, it will be perceived as it was advertised because that is what people are cued to look for. On the other hand, if the experience is not as promised (for example, the "we care" slogan is belied by a cold receptionist), the brand has lied and it will lose trust, the mainstay of any long-lived brand. Your advertising should prepare people for the unique experience that your hospital will deliver. Then, you must be sure that everyone in the organization knows what has been promised and that they have the training and tools to deliver it.
4. Not involving employees.
Most often, brand is viewed as a marketing project when in fact it is a companywide initiative. To be successfully carried out, it must be understood and practiced by every single person in the organization. I think the reason it becomes viewed as a marketing function is that the person responsible for steering the brand undertaking is often a marketing person.
To succeed, the importance of branding in general must be understood by everyone in the hospital system from the receptionists to the doctors to the administrators. Once the importance of a brand to the hospital's success is appreciated by all, then the unique traits of your hospital's brand must be explained. Everyone should know how the brand development was approached. They should understand that the brand strategy originated out of research that included studying the competition as well as interviewing patients, top management and employees. The more that employees are involved in the research phase of brand development, the more likely they are to embrace the findings. The more they embrace the findings, the greater chance the brand has to gain credibility.
Finally, each person should be required to think about what he or she can contribute on a daily basis to delivering the brand experience. Employees' success within the organization should be tied to how well they do this. When supporting the brand becomes a metric for individual success, people take it seriously. Medtronic, a medical technology company with 26,000 employees, has had the same mission statement for 42 years and the CEO always refers to it when talking to employees. A four-hour program including a video keeps the brand alive with all employees. Medtronic makes commitment to the brand a requirement for employment.
5. Viewing the launch of the brand as an end, rather than a beginning.
Many companies feel that once the brand is launched, they are finished with branding. The launch of a brand is like the launch of a ship: the beginning of a journey. The only difference is that the journey is never-ending. Branding is always happening in that impressions are always being formed. The difference between having a brand strategy and not having one is that without one, branding is unmanaged and unmonitored, and therefore of no use to the organization. But branding never ends. It must always be top of mind to everyone in the organization. And in the hospital universe, with its many mergers and acquisitions, it becomes even more critical to help align the cultures with the brand vision.
6. Still thinking of monologues rather than dialogues.
Strong brands encourage a dialogue: they listen as much as they talk, sometimes more. And they listen first, then talk. The Internet has enhanced the ability of organizations to receive feedback from their customers, yet it is still being used primarily to present the current brochure rather than to learn. Patients know a lot about the experience at your hospital. To consistently monitor the success of the current brand delivery and to be fine-tuning it on an ongoing basis, you must incorporate a way to obtain and use patient and employee feedback. Patients and employees will be impressed that you not only asked, but listened and acted.
There is nothing fast or easy about building a strong brand, but properly handled, it can be one of your hospital's most important and valuable assets.
