Friday, October 06, 2023

How Entertainment Marketing Helps Reach Campaign Goals

In the health care sector, there are really only a handful of marketing strategies that organizations use to stand out from the crowd: accolades ("We're Number 1"), patient stories ("Here's a real-life example of how our health system saved this person's life"), location ("The best care in your back yard") and highlighting tech and innovation ("Here are the state-of-the-art tools we use").

Each of these channels rely on tried-and-true methods to reach a variety of marketing goals, including increasing brand awareness and building trust in the communities an organization serves. But it makes it increasingly difficult for a brand to stand out. Another tactic that is being used more often to fix that is the use of entertainment marketing. In these cases, a health organization becomes a name on the stage of a popular event or a character in a viral television or streaming series.

While the former is mostly associated with an older model of sponsorship deals, the latter requires a health organization to allow use of its facilities and staff to be part of recorded events. It means taking a risk and allowing a camera behind the doors of areas where people are experiencing the most stressful moments of their lives.

But with that risk comes a chance of major payoff. This sort of transparency allows for a heightened level of brand awareness and engagement while increasing industry authority. It shows the public how major health events (in some cases even life and death) are managed by health care professionals in real time, adding a layer of trust that is hard to accomplish in a polished advertising campaign. It humanizes the organization in ways that more traditional models are unable to fulfill.

All said, this is a space many organizations may want to consider if they are looking for new ways to break the mold.


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