Living proof that our cardiac care campaigned worked.

Banner Health, the largest hospital system in metro Phoenix with locations throughout the community, offers some of the best heart care in the area, including two facilities that provide nationally ranked cardiac services (Top 100 and U.S. News and World Report). Other local competitors also advertise top heart care, so it was important to share with consumers Banner Health’s many facilities and outstanding capabilities in the cardiac arena. The Phoenix healthcare market is highly competitive and local media is cluttered with competing messages. It was necessary to find an attention-getting, emotionally compelling, believable way to get noticed by our target audience.

The campaign objective was to increase preference for Banner Health’s cardiac services. Research showed that although Banner Health offered the region’s premier heart care, consumers still viewed the competition as the “best” place to receive cardiac care. The campaign strategy was to use actual heart patients’ stories to tell consumers about the exceptional heart care at Banner Health. The goal was to show the benefit of using Banner Health’s cardiac services to consumers by sharing true, emotionally compelling stories with positive outcomes. After exposure to the campaign, the thought “if they helped the featured patient so well, they could certainly help me if I needed it” would resonate with the target. Third-party research was conducted prior to the launch of the campaign and scheduled post-campaign for evaluation of the results.

The creative idea behind the campaign was to utilize actual patient testimonials that involved life-saving experiences due to Banner Health’s cardiac care. The key message was “I am living proof” and was illustrated through multiple patients’ stories of amazing outcomes after being treated at Banner Health. The patients were artistically photographed in settings doing things they love that they were able to return to after recovery. The featured patients included diverse demographics and widely varied lifestyle passions. The campaign focused on the patients and empowered them to be “heart heroes” due to the outstanding care they received at Banner facilities as opposed to focusing on the hospitals themselves. By conveying the quality of the care, this approach made the campaign very focused on the benefit to the patients. Ultimately, Banner Health helped them get back to their active and fulfilling lives.

The campaign produced exceptional results. Preference increased from 24% in a survey prior to the campaign to 33% in the post-campaign survey. Additionally, 44% of consumers who recalled the campaign perceived Banner Health as the “best” in cardiac services in comparison to only 21% of those that did not recall seeing the campaign. Likely future use was 13% higher among consumers who recalled seeing the campaign.