Healthcare’s New Model: Pandora, Digital Ads and Consumerism?
Can Targeted Hospital Advertising be Reason for Hope?
Listening to Pandora the other day I heard an advertisement for a local healthcare system. The next day another, and then another. After a week or two just about all the local healthcare brands found their way into my music stream.
Admittedly late to the party, I like to think of my recent music habit as a bit of cool. This may be a natural reaction to parenting, for as children age they tend to remind us cool is not an entitlement. Even still, the healthcare advertisements struck me as decidedly uncool. Why had they targeted me? Are healthcare marketing departments now using the same demographic info long a staple of consumer advertising campaigns? (See famous 2012 Forbes article on Target’s customer data mining success here). And why was one of them pitching the “convenience” of their 11 emergency rooms?
Being pitched ER convenience is a bit of a downer — I’m just sayin’.
Nevertheless, and as many know, the healthcare industry is in transition. Gone are the days where consumer health engagement peaked during an employer’s annual open enrollment season, and then largely defined by re-learning terms such as deductibles, co-pays and out of pocket maximums. Between the Affordable Care Act, health exchanges and the increasing costs of healthcare — for decades now well above a consumer price index (CPI) benchmark — the business of healthcare is in flux.
60 Minutes viewers might have caught this during a recent segment based on Steve Brill’s book, “America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System” (my review here). Doctors, health systems and the insurance carriers themselves are contesting the high ground of consumer attention and relationships. Showcasing non-profit University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, or UPMC, Brill highlights UPMC’s introduction of its own insurance plan as a means to capture consumers, as well as drive captive network utilization. Like other health networks, UPMC is also busy buying doctor groups and urgent care centers. Few MBA’s would disagree with this approach. Location and eyeballs matter even more in an increasingly customized world.
I have only to look around the Washington DC area to confirm. UnitedHealthcare Group, a very large health insurance provider, purchased DC-based health tracking app Audax Health (now Rally Health) last year for an undisclosed sum (estimates range from $100–400MM). Under Armor, a sports apparel manufacturer headquartered in Baltimore, purchased health app MyFitnessPal earlier this year for $475MM. Engagement counts. The more, the better.
So as I get on my WaterRower in the early morning hours and listen to terribly uncool 80’s medley music (I prefer the live tracks, if that is an excuse), I am reminded that change is coming. Individual consumer preferences are more distinct — and visible — than ever. Mobile carriers know this — see Verizon’s acquisition of AOL for their advertising platform. Pandora and the other music streaming services know this. And now, apparently, so do my local hospitals
Thanks for reading. Comments and suggestions for other topics welcome.
Below are two recent reviews of mobile health apps:
· Teladoc — “The Future of Healthcare is Now: My Teladoc Story”
· First Derm — “Mobile Health Apps: One Parent’s Maiden Voyage”
And also a story about a surgical near miss, “Why I Questioned My Surgeon’s Advice. And Glad I Did.”
I’ve also written about nutrition, money, technology, behavior and other (mostly) related topics. On LinkedIn and Medium.
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