GSW's grassroots approach to research wins it 'Agency of the Year' award

Talking about healthcare—whether it's the benefits of an innovative drug, a new device or product, or the care provided at a community hospital—can be difficult.

Too often outreach efforts are overrun with jargon that the targeted audiences may not understand. That's not an insurmountable problem for the Agency of the Year in the 2018 Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards. Agency GSW uses the mantra: “Speak people.”

“ 'Speaking people' is about listening to whomever our audience is—whether it's patients, providers, payers or specialty pharmacists—and really hearing what it is that they're coming up against and teeing things up in a way that's truly understandable,” said Sonja Foster-Storch, president of GSW North America.

St. Elizabeth Healthcare, a system based in northern Kentucky, hired GSW to help engage its community. Although St. Elizabeth is more than 150 years old and a long-standing fixture in the community, patients were going elsewhere, in part for that very reason.

Nearby hospital networks were expanding and building shiny new satellite locations, making it increasingly hard for St. Elizabeth to attract and retain patients. Because of its age, locals viewed the hospital as not being cutting-edge or equipped with the latest and greatest doctors and technology.

However, that wasn't the case. In recent years, it had added orthopedic and neurological clinics, a mental health facility and a cancer center.

When working with a hospital or system dealing with declining patient retention, GSW starts the same way: It hits the streets to figure out where patients are going for care and why. “It's all about conversations, and it's amazing when you sit and listen, the information you get,” Foster-Storch said.

“We find out where the gaps are and then we launch an effort that talks at a level that's understandable and going to have an impact,” she said.

The team at St. Elizabeth was impressed with GSW for doing some field research before even being formally invited to launch a campaign, according to Matthew Hollenkamp, vice president of marketing/communications and public relations at the system.

“One of the early highlights when we first engaged with them was how invested they were in our community,” Hollenkamp said.

In February, St. Elizabeth launched the “I'm Right Here” campaign, which included a commercial that played during the Super Bowl. The goal of the effort was to convey that Kentucky residents could get the care they needed without going elsewhere for treatment.

St. Elizabeth's website traffic hit a new high this year, with over 3 million visits so far.

Other healthcare clients are impressed with GSW. Brian Luedtke, vice president and global marketing officer at medical supplies company Hollister, also praised GSW for going above and beyond in its campaign work.

Hollister hired the firm to promote a new line of ostomy products. The target audience was nurses who oversaw the purchasing of such products at their practices or facilities. GSW not only had staffers with prior experience promoting medical products, it retained nurses as well to help the agency truly understand the products. Luedtke hadn't seen other companies do that.

“My experience with other agencies is that they'll talk to their own team and they think they understand an issue but not take the critical step of getting a true clinician who works in the space to review their materials,” Luedtke said. “We have had tremendously positive experiences with GSW and getting the communications right.”

GSW's campaign used pictures of actual ostomy pouches attached to bird and butterfly wings. The goal being that patients wouldn't only be getting an elevated product but they'd also be able to live an autonomous, free life.

The campaign helped the company regain market share that it had lost to a competitor with a cheaper product. Hollister fast-tracked the product line through development in 14 months.

“Since Hollister was going to offer a high-quality product at an accessible price, we realized the human potential in the line and what it could really mean to clinicians and ostomates in these countries,” Elizabeth Stelzer, vice president of marketing and public relations at GSW, said in the award entry form.

“Clinicians would not have to compromise care for price.”