What drives Hospital Brands?
“Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room.”- Jeff Bezos
We often see that some hospitals have made a name for themselves while others have not. What might be the reason for it? Well, the answer to this question often turns out to be “branding” and its importance in healthcare sector.
What’s in a brand? Branding in general, represents a process of promotion and marketing for the new as well as existing players who concoct a strategy to capture a larger share of the market. For instance, if we consider the branding promotion of Fortis healthcare, then we will see that it promotes the ideology of “all for hope” where the advertisements they use, depict a story of a young kid who underwent a complex heart transplant and how the doctors of Fortis gave him a new lease of life bringing hope for the kids suffering from end stage heart failure. Thus, we witness that how Fortis Healthcare is connecting to the audience on a humanitarian and regulatory objective in order to promote the services it offers. Well, let us now take another example: the vision of Apollo “to touch a billion lives.” This particular phrase shows how Apollo is creating a reliance with its customers based on the quality of care it provides along with patient delight it offers.
The Foolproof Mantra
In this day and age, successful branding and marketing are a function of “empathy and sensitivity” and it is all about “communicating care.” Even recent research findings show that the hospitals that respond to their customers with personalized care, high quality care and service excellence are poised to thrive in the era of healthcare consumerism. In essence they differentiate themselves by building a brand identity around a patient-centered approach of care that proactively addresses the customers’ increasing high expectations.
“Brand of hospital survives on the consistency of quality of services and clinical outcome” says Dr. Feroz Ikbal, Professor of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. “Branding of hospital has two components— brand name and hospital name. For example, Tata Memorial Hospital is famous for oncology, Sankara Nethralaya and LV Prasad for ophthalmology. These hospitals have become a brand by itself after providing good clinical outcomes. While some hospitals depend on the brand name of doctors; for instance, Asian Heart Institute depends heavily on the image of Dr Ramakant Panda.” Does Branding helps in terms of growth? The professor, “Definitely branding helps in growth. But it depends on the way hospitals understand the context of branding from the nature of hospital as an organization and how it differs from other service industries.”
Hospital Branding is One-of-a-kind
For a hospital to have a positive brand image, certain components need to be considered. Though at times an eye-popping logo or a tagline might help but a true brand needs to have a purpose and an understanding to what it wants to cater to the people. For example, Arvind Eye care developed its brand image by catering to the bottom of the pyramid while Apollo largely focusses on the upper middle class. Again, knowing your consumer plays an important role in order to build the pillar of your brand. Consumer in this context not necessarily means the external consumers but also the internal stakeholders. “This is probably the hardest area to implement," said Justin Wartell, Managing Director of Monigle, "It's not just how we look from a logo standpoint. Our behavior should influence how we train our folks, and how we evaluate the impact of our people. It should impact our digital experiences and our physical experiences.”
Where hospitals go wrong?
Due to the dynamic nature of the hospital sector, they often face multiple challenges to pace up or reinvent their brand identity. Building a strong identity in hospital domain comes up with many challenges. A successful branding strategy must always address how to transmute the views that the patients perceive by modeling future-oriented approach keeping in pace with the values of the organization intact and thus reinforcing “living the brand.” Today the hospitals focus on a branding process that goes beyond the corporate identity and emphasizes on the brand equity with healthcare consumers. Hospitals build strong brands consistently by delivering quality products, nurturing consumer relationships and re-ensuring the promise behind the brand. But in doing so they face lots of difficulty. For instance, if a long-standing hospital franchise wants to make some changes in their brand identity, a caution has to be generated prior to the changes made, otherwise it might hamper the brand image of the hospital. Mr. Viabhav Yadav, Deputy Manager sales and Marketing, Apollo Health and Lifestyle Limited, quotes Seth Godin and says, “People buy brands, they don’t buy goods and services. So, marketing is no longer stuffs that you make but about the stories you tell.
“Besides, due to the increasing competition and flourishing digital space, consumers are aware about their demands, finding novel ways to access, consume and experience healthcare services. Since, hospital services are not commodity and could appreciably vary in quality across different service providers. Therefore, strong brand associations are vital where the consumers can recall the hospital through their brand knowledge as it creates the differential effect that drives brand equity.” We often see in order to express the insight to the consumer, some organizations often use a convoluted message which makes it difficult for the people to connect to those organizations, thus simplicity is the key to connect to your consumers. The organizations should build a clarity around what they stand for and this will be able to drive more meaningful choice in the marketplace.” So says Mr. Yadav, “The healthcare organizations need to keep its brand vibrant through investments in brand-building and brand-varianting”
Branding in new age
Nearly 40 years ago, Angelica Thieriot was left traumatised by her hospital experience. It was not that she wasn’t cured of her clinical ailments. But the “treatment” made her newly sick; “the hospital gave her limited information on what was happening, barred her family and friends from visits, and paid no attention to her privacy or comfort.” She decided to do something about it and conceived the Planetree healthcare model designed that not only treats patients, but also comforts, engages, and empowers them. The model has statistically shown to improve bottom-lines of hospitals.
Many findings presume that satisfaction results in positive word of mouth and in this context brand consideration, brand image, brand loyalty, brand trust play an important role. Branding and marketing in new age should act as a resonance between the target audience and the organization in order to meet the consumer driven demands.