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If healthcare becomes a commodity, why brand?
Were Cadillac's brand managers asleep at the wheel?
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Will health reform be the death of healthcare marketing?
 
Bill Carlos
If health reform legislation is passed into law, will it send brand promotion to the sick bay? 
 
What impact will it have on brand communications if health delivery is redefined as a commodity?
 
If there continues to be a need for marketing, advertising and communicating healthcare services, how might it be different? 
 
And just when did a Cadillac become a health plan?  Who is to blame for maligning this once-proud brand, allowing it to be turned into a symbol of excess, deserving of punitive taxation?
 
These are the topics of this month's e-letter from Avow Communications.  We hope you'll send any comment to me by clicking here.  And feel free to suggest topics for future newsletters.
 
Have a nice Thanksgiving!
 
Bill Carlos
President
If healthcare becomes a commodity, why brand?
 
As politicians bicker over the public option, whether to tax "Cadillac" plans and just how we're going to pay for it, we are wondering how all this will change the need for healthcare brand building and communications.
 
Our primary focus is in helping healthcare companies establish distinct identities that highlight and promote their core advantages.  The political debate suggests that healthcare is a commodity -- specified services and products for specified fees.  One size fits all.
 
Even if healthcare reform were to establish uniform pricing in certain fields, the benefits of building and communicating strong brands remains compelling.  Branding is not only about being able to establish a price premium.  Branding is about establishing trust. 
 
Customers still want to know who they are doing business with and what the company stands for.  They want to be treated with respect and they want to be pleased with the outcome. Trust establishes strong customer relationships.  These relationships lead to repeat business, word-of-mouth endorsements, the ability to attract certain types of customers, and even the ability to attract more committed employees.
 
Companies that neglect their brand will in fact be viewed as a commodity and will always lag behind strong and established brands.
 
It is likely that healthcare reform will continue to put the squeeze on marketing budgets, which means an ongoing search for alternative, more efficient methods of delivering messages to existing customers and prospects. The days of inefficient media buying are over.  Fortunately, thanks to new opportunities made possible by Web-based communications, we can offer a better ability to reach desired audiences, with greater frequency and at less cost than traditional media.
 
Even if reform becomes law, people will still have choices to make.  How healthcare companies present their personnel, services and their messages in advertising, brochures, public relations activities and on the Web will be more important than ever.
 
This is not something that we should shrink from or pull back to "wait and see what happens."  The strongest brands are the ones that will remain determined, resilient and they will always be among the first to bounce back after a downturn.
Who drove Cadillac into a pejorative?
 
 So just when did Cadillac become a health plan?
 
When I grew up a Cadillac was a car.  You drove one, you didn't tax it.  The Cadillac was respected.  Its brand promised quality, prestige and symbolized success.  Elvis collected them. 
 
The brand remained proud and strong through the early-60s, until the world seemed to change before our eyes.  The Beatles replaced Elvis and drove Bentleys.  The counter-culture turned values upside down.  Symbols were challenged.  Art was redefined as a Campbell's soup can.
 
Cadillac brand managers went to sleep at the wheel.  Quality declined in the seventies and eighties while luxury imports like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, followed by Lexus, all began to make inroads.  Over time, the brand lost its luster and became associated with caricatures of "fatcats," like mobsters and unsavory types.  Cadillac was driven into obscurity as General Motors itself became increasingly amorphous.
 
Did anyone defend the brand?  No.  It became an easy target.  It was just perfect for politicians to use to disparage higher-priced health plans.  The Cadillac brand has been repositioned to suggest frivolous spending in exchange for privilege that is somehow unfair to others who either can't afford it or don't choose to buy it.
 
I have yet to see anyone from Cadillac or General Motors complain about this brand malignment.  Maybe the bailout of GM gives politicians the right to use their brands as pejoratives. No one has suggested we tax BMW health plans or Lexus health plans.
 
If this doesn't teach us to how language is used to manipulate sentiment, it should at least remind all of the critical importance of active brand management to keep our brands strong and healthy.
Avow Communications is a brand-building communications agency with more than 20 years in healthcare communications.  If you have a question about branding, email us here and we'll answer your question in an upcoming newsletter.
 
Avow Communications is a member of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce and the New Jersey Advertising Club.
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