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- Nothing New about Old Spice
- Mobile Surveys: More Trouble Than They’re Worth?
- The Great Healthcare Reset – How You Can Make Change Stick
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- Social Filtering – why some ideas get shared and others fail
Vanguard's Markets
Uniting and localizing varied hospital and hospital system brands
Challenge
GDC is the agency of record for Vanguard Health Systems, a Nashville-based healthcare company with separate hospitals and hospital systems in Phoenix, Chicago, San Antonio and Boston. Before GDC took control of communications, marketing and outreach for Vanguard’s hospitals, they were operating independently of one another. GDC’s team was tasked with reining all the hospitals under one umbrella brand strategy while developing unique plans for each market.
Action
GDC began with a cohesive internal communications strategy that spread across Vanguard’s portfolio of hospitals. Next, GDC created individual market strategies for branding and marketing backed by market-specific public relations outreach and media relations.
- Conducted local-market research to determine what messages, images and names would resonate with specific communities
- Used grassroots efforts to reach out to the different communities, including meetings, presentations and correspondence with opinion leaders, reporters and editors, business/community organizations, elected city officials and hospital leaders
- Pitched newspapers and business journals in each market and provided Spanish-language media materials
- Developed unique campaigns for service lines, physicians and other needs as they arose in each market, and reinforced the impact through grassroots strategies, media relations and public outreach
- Created collateral materials, including banners, business cards, internal and external letters, talking points, Q&As and scripts for each facility
- Organized market rollouts with kick-off events and launch activities
Result
Today, all the hospital systems under the Vanguard brand operate synergistically by sharing best practices across markets. GDC annually delivers 6-to-1 ROI through earned media value for Vanguard Health Systems, and each hospital or hospital system has increased market share as the result of GDC’s work.
