FuelNet presents a case study on how a smart brand-building campaign helped a Chicago-area hospital attract more patients with private insurance.

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PROBLEM: Chicago’s Swedish Covenant Hospital was not doing well. The 80-year-old institution had long served a neighborhood of low-income residents, many of them uninsured. But with less government funding available for reimbursement for services, the hospital knew it needed to attract more patients with private insurance. The serious situation became critical when several nearby hospitals, including an academic medical center, announced aggressive expansion plans to compete for the same target demographic.

SOLUTION: Swedish Covenant’s CEO, Mark Newton, is a marketer who appreciates the difficulty of mounting a successful rebranding campaign in the face of serious competition, so for help he turned to Remedy, a Chicago-based communications agency that works exclusively with health and wellness brands. “We identified distinctive qualities that already existed within the hospital,” says Carol McCarthy, president of Remedy. “We found that Swedish is really focused on creating an environment where people heal better — they routinely incorporate comforts like music, art, and nature. That underlying factor in their culture became the foundation of our campaign.”

Using bright yellow as the signature color, the campaign invited consumers to think about what makes them feel better. Most of the dollars were spent in the hospital’s neighborhood, with a tactical mix that included bicycle billboards rigged to make bubbles, and newspaper stickers reminding readers about simple pleasures that make everyone feel better. Branded messaging transformed key first-impression areas of the facility, and a microsite that invited people to post pictures of what they find healing was flooded with shots of pets and vacations.

Research shows the ongoing campaign has had an influence with the target audience in building brand awareness for Swedish Covenant. More people are choosing the hospital, improving its payer mix and the bottom line. “To compete with other hospitals is not to be like other hospitals,” McCarthy says. “You need to identify what’s unique and great, or create it if you don’t have it.”

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