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in the first two weeks.
+400%
Reading between the lines...
Sometimes the story is not found in the statistics, but within the relationship between the statistics - often so subtle and yet, when you look back on it, the insight seems so obvious!
One such story is Heart Imaging...
ULTRAFAST CT SCANNING
Through their brand new clinic in the Southwest, Heart Imaging specializes in ultrafast CT (UFCT) scanning - a process of taking rapid cat-scan pictures of the heart while it beats. UFCT technology is about 95% accurate in detecting coronary artery disease. Better still, it allows patients to avoid the hassle and discomfort of the traditional cardiac stress test, with its injections, blood dyes, wires, treadmills, and nausea. But UFCT is not yet covered by managed care at the time. So, in order to drive interim revenue, Heart Imaging launches a direct-to-consumer marketing campaign that targets men in their 50s - offering paid scans (usually between $200 and $400) as part of a cardiac health screening.
The result? The target audience just isn't buying it. With almost no response to Heart Imaging's advertising efforts, the company can scarcely fill their base appointments to keep the business afloat.
At the time, I am at the helm of Las Vegas ad agency Quillin & Co. We are called in to help.
To me, paid heart scans aren't an altogether crazy business idea. Baby Boomers are hitting their 50s in record numbers and executive physicals (often paid for out-of-pocket) are becoming popular. And the price? What's $250 for a heart scan? Heck, 50+ year-old affluent Boomers spend that much on dinners out each weekend.
4 million
men, age 50+, have a heart attack each year.
SELLING THE BOOGEYMAN
Heart Imaging's current advertising campaign relies only on that singular statistic, above - that 4 million men, age 50+, will have a heart attack this year. And you, the 50+ consumer, could be one of those 4 million! Then there are were the risk factors: Smoking. Drinking. Red meat. High cholesterol. High blood pressure.
And the #1 risk factor: Family history.
Your days could be numbered, the advertising contends, trying to frighten the target audience with their own hypothetical demise: Your heart could be a ticking time bomb!
The problem? This audience just doesn't see middle age as a time of decline.
On the contrary...
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They are peaking: The stock market, the economy, the housing market, and their bank accounts are all hitting record highs.
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They are enjoying it: Luxury SUVs. McMansions. Exotic vacations. Cosmetic surgery among middle-aged men is growing, too. They are active and healthy, and fully engaged in life. ​
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They refuse to feel vulnerable: They see themselves as captains of industry and lords of their own destiny - earning more and possessing more disposable income than they ever had in their lives. When they look in the mirror, they cannot see...they will not see...weakness or vulnerability.
I ultimately coin this 'The Adonis Complex' and assure the client that no "hypothetical, potential, mythical, ticking time bomb heart attack" message - based on their own vulnerability - will ever get through.
But that, too, is a conundrum. How do we get these guys to pay attention? How do we convince them of the seriousness of a hidden heart condition unless we scare the crap out of them?
It is a frustrating dead end.
Then one night...
...our brilliant ECD Glenn Larsen walks into my office carrying a printout of an EKG. "Ya know," he explains, holding up the strip of paper with its foreboding jagged lines, "This graphic is really scary, man!"
He is right! We talk at length about the EKG. We observe how - since the patient was usually unconscious - it's actually the family members who huddle around that machine, their greatest hopes and worst fears riding every peak and every valley of the readout.
In this situation, to those family members, every moment means life or death.
And that's when the question dawns on me...
What if the #1 risk factor for a heart attack
- "Family history" - isn't just about genetics,
but it's also about a shared human experience?
DOING THE MATH...
I spend the next half-hour flipping through the Statistical Abstract from the US Census Bureau, uncovering the pertinent information. Embedded in the data is a story that goes something like this:
4 million
men, age 50+, have a heart attack each year. Yes...we know that!
But if you increase the age to 70+, that number doubles. That is...
8 million
men, age 70+, have a heart attack each year.
According to the data: Each of these men aged 70+ had, an average of children each.
2
And what is the typical age of the adult children of 70-80 year-old heart attack victims?
50+
That's our target audience!
This meant that...
16 million
people in our target audience watched their fathers have a heart attack last year!!!
Are you kidding me??? That quadruples the accessible audience for our client. And that number exponentially grows when you include heart attacks over the past several years...and then add in uncles, grandfathers, older co-workers, etc.
This is a HUGE opportunity, I explain to the client and agency team: We can talk about the consumer's hypothetical/mythical heart attack all day long and it's just not going to scare them. However, if we force them to recall the sheer terror of their father's very REAL heart attack?
That will absolutely traumatize them!
"IT'S YOUR FATHER..."
1:30am: The phone rings. It's your mother. Your father's had a heart attack.
2:12am: You jump in the car and you race across town.
3:05am: You arrive at the hospital.
4:46am: They wheel him into surgery. You wait. And wait. For hours.
8:17am: They bring him out of surgery and you're at his bedside. You've never seen him like this. Tubes. Wires. Machines. Labored breathing. The monitor beeps out its peaks and valleys. You think of your own children and family. Will they ever have to go through this with you?
And as you sit there in silence, watching his heart beat...
...who's watching yours?
Heart Imaging is!
RESUSCITATING THE BUSINESS...
The above story is the opening in what will become a landmark radio and print campaign for both the client and the agency - a creative collaboration between myself, ECD Glenn Larsen, and agency owner Tim Quillin (who also happens to be a really good radio producer).
The results are immediate:
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Qualified call volume explodes by more than +400% in just the first two weeks.
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Booked appointments grows by over +325% within the first two weeks, as well.
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During the 4 months of the campaign, the work drives in excess of +450% growth in overall revenue for the clinic.​
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IN THE END, EVERYBODY WINS!
The Client Wins: Not only does our campaign deliver record revenue to Heart Imaging, but our success in those first several months actually speeds up the client's negotiations with managed care. The owner ultimately sells the Heart Imaging business for millions and retires with his family to live in the Caribbean.
The Creatives Win: The campaign garners several awards, from local and regional Addy's to the national One Show (Golden Pencil), as well as recognition from AdWeek, the AAAAs, and several others.
As for me? My reward is two-fold.
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Reward #1: Using only a bit of intuition and a commonly-available U.S. government report, we nail the insight! "Who does your advertising???" Every day, stunned patients walk into Heart Imaging and ask this question. "I mean, it's like they were reading my mind!!!" Even the agency owner's wife Sharry Quillin, unaware that we had produced this campaign, walks into the office one afternoon telling everyone about this brand new radio commercial that blew her away. "My God, it was so raw...and so real...and so scary! That's exactly what I went through when my father had his heart attack!"
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Reward #2: We are saving lives! "We're just making advertising here. It's not like we're curing cancer. We're not saving lives!" In the advertising business, we frequently say this to keep ourselves grounded. And most of the time, it's true. However, among the many new patients who respond to the 'It's your father' campaign, a solid number are found to have previously undiagnosed heart conditions. Thanks to our work, those patients receive the diagnosis and follow-on care they need.
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So: Making advertising? Saving lives? This time we are able to do both!
On a personal note: Advertising and marketing campaigns? For many of us, they are our babies. It's tough to 'pick a favorite,' because each one represents a different challenge, a different time in our careers, and a different part of ourselves. However, to this day, no other campaign - no other effort - has brought me as much satisfaction and pride as this one.
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