How to Get the Most from Mobile Marketing in Pharma

Click on the image to visit Med Ad News and read the full article.

Our interactive director, Joe Doyle, weighs in on the criteria needed for successful pharmaceutical DTC smartphone apps. The full article in Med Ad News from PharmaLive includes a full view assessment on digital, social, and experiential marketing strategies from leading healthcare marketing strategists.

Read the full article here.

Striking a Balance: Emotive Websites that are Usable

During an internal creative review meeting for a hospice website this week, I heard something that I never thought I would hear: “That call-to-action is too strong.” You could almost hear the wheels start spinning in everyone’s mind.

After discussing the call-to-action further, we realized that the problem wasn’t the CTA itself, but an unbalanced execution.

Half of the room thought that the website was not emotionally branded enough and the CTA was too much, too soon. They believed it needed to be about the connection first and foremost. The other half of the room agreed that the emotional branding was very important, but that the usability of the site needed to come first.

They’re both right. We just needed to strike a better balance. Continue reading »

Brand Research Debate: To Validate or Not to Validate?

A client recently approached us seeking advice on validation research for his brand and the importance of testing. He wanted our opinion on the following:

How important is testing the positioning/messaging and eventual creative concepts among my key targets? What are the risks if I decide not to validate?

As a Senior Account Executive at HCB Health, this is a question I hear fairly often from clients. Some of our clients won’t make a move without testing, while others see it as a luxury if they have the time and budget. This specific client request really got my wheels spinning. Not necessarily about the risks of not testing, but more about the considerations to keep in mind when deciding if validation research is right for your brand. Continue reading »

Ringing in the Holidays at HCB Health

Santa is the tyrannical head honcho in HCB Health's Occupy the North Pole holiday game.

HCB Health has had a busy 2011 holiday season, but an exciting one. We thought we’d take this chance to re-cap where we are as 2011 comes to a close, and what we have been working on for next year.

For our clients

We’ve been hosting post-mortems on work that ended in 2011 and gearing up for big projects in 2012. The current year featured a number of large launches — including major campaigns for California Pacific Medical Center and Scott & White Health Plan. We’ve spent the past several weeks capturing results to optimize those campaigns for 2012.

Both our in-house and clients’ teams are hard at work planning and ramping up for 2012. Many clients are looking at their 2012 budgets with an eye toward 2011 “wish list” projects that didn’t make the cut. Meanwhile, the HCB media team is charting media trends and creating projections for the new year. Continue reading »

The Art of Campaign Teasers: More Bang for Your Budget

Last week, we blogged about rebranding California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) without using clichéd images. In this blog post, we’ll tell you how we launched CPMC’s rebranding campaign with an outdoor reveal.

When California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) approached HCB about positioning and rebranding the San Francisco-based hospital group, all parties agreed that the approach would need to be special. The brand positioning we created revealed and elevated what CPMC does best — medical care delivered on a truly personal level.

San Francisco is a dynamic, vibrant city. It’s an attractive market for advertising, but many organizations, marketers and media planners find it difficult to deliver powerful product messages through all the clutter. Companies that had succeeded there in the past usually sported more recognizable products and bigger ad budgets. Continue reading »

A Name Without a Face: How We Rebranded a Hospital Without Clichéd Images

Many times in healthcare advertising, we see images of smiling people walking along the beach, dancing through fields of daisies or playing with grandchildren. It’s understandable that these images are used so often; after all, the end benefit of any healthcare product or service is that you get to experience life with health and happiness.

But we all know that the market has become saturated with the same imagery. Recently, HCB Health decided to find a way to show personal care — without showing the face of a person.

The image of two hands in the shape of a heart became an icon of the campaign.

California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco asked HCB Health to create a new branding campaign to help them compete against aggressive academic hospitals, where several students may perform various parts of a procedure. CPMC, however, has renowned physicians who want to be hands-on with each patient. The Hands-on Healing theme line was born from this brand differentiation and sums up the brand’s promise in a warm and memorable phrase. Continue reading »

Announcing Our Official Holiday Game – Occupy The North Pole

Click the image above to play our holiday game – Occupy The North Pole! The elves could use your help.

Santa has outsourced the elves’ jobs to lower production costs. In response, the elves have decided to Occupy The North Pole! But they need your help — take a break from the holiday humdrum and show Santa who’s boss!

Rise up and share our game with your coworkers, friends and family. Let them all know that you won’t stand for anything less than fun during the holidays.

HCB Health has had a wonderful 2011, and we couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks, and Happy Holidays.

Announcing the Official Relaunch of HCBHealth.com

Our clients receive transformative results. Our new online home shows how.

Over the last year, HCB Health has been evolving. We’ve refreshed our brand identity and moved our office into a new space.

We’ve transformed. With all of the change, our virtual home also needed a refresh. We turned to our own interactive team to develop a whole new experience that provides a fresh new take on what we do.

We’re proud to announce the launch of the new HCB Health website. From its bold design to its fluid navigation, it better reflects who we are and how we revolutionize our clients’ campaigns. Continue reading »