Emory Healthcare has recently undergone a marketing re-branding that seeks to create a conversation with consumers about the important issues in healthcare today.
The re-branding includes a new logo, tag line and ad campaign. The purpose of the re-branding, according to president and CEO of Emory Healthcare John Fox, is to unify all of the various branches connected to Emory Healthcare under one brand so that consumers are clear as to what entities are under Emory Healthcare.
“We were becoming a pretty complicated organism in terms of brand identity,” Fox said. “Emory is now connected to every element of the brand.”
The Emory Healthcare website describes the re-branding as an effort to “reinvent health care for the 21st century.”
The slogan for the new brand is “We’re All In This Together,” and the new logo is similar to the old one minus a yellow band underneath the words – it now just reads “Emory Healthcare” in a plain serif font. The ad campaign features television, print and digital ads addressing different aspects of the brand.
Emory Healthcare is a part of the Emory Healthcare Network, which is Georgia’s largest health care provider and employs around 16,000 people at six hospitals and 200 provider locations around Atlanta including the Emory Clinic, Emory University Hospital and the Winship Cancer Institute.
In addition to being ranked among the top five largest employers in the state of Georgia, according to a Metro Atlanta Chamber study, Emory Healthcare is also the only academic health system in the state, which means it includes not only patient care, but also clinical research, teaching hospitals and training in the medical and clinical professions.
This is one of the factors that differentiates Emory Healthcare from other providers in the state, according to Fox.
The new brand features three, one-minute advertisements called “big city health care,” “family” and “fixing health care.”
The “big city” advertisement emphasizes the extensive network of medical centers and clinics not just in Atlanta but in rural areas as well, stressing that Emory Healthcare reaches beyond just “the big city.”
It also describes the increasing convenience that technology brings to the health care industry.
“All electronic medical records enable us to see the patient’s record wherever the patient was taken care of in the Emory network,” Fox said.
This means patient records can be accessed by any Emory Healthcare physician from anywhere, whether it is Emory Hospital, Johns Creek Hospital or a physician’s office in Duluth, Fox added.
The “family” advertisement explains Emory Healthcare’s approach to battling illness on a personal level.
“We’ve brought families into the healing process,” the commercial says. “They help us understand the patient, so we can create a plan that works, and we’re getting measurable results.”
The commercial stresses that if one member of the family has a serious illness, Emory Healthcare will treat the situation as if the whole family is struggling.
Fox said that the family commercial has been well-received and helps to differentiate Emory Healthcare from other providers.
The last advertisement, “fixing health care,” admits that American health care is “the single biggest drag on the economy today,” outlining its increasing costs and inefficiencies. The advertisement goes on to say that the government will not fix health care, but rather leading medical centers in the country (like Emory Healthcare) will lead the charge.
According to Fox, the new brand is not in direct response to Affordable Care Act and the government’s attempt at health care reform. He added that health care costs have been increasing for many years.
“I think reform started before Obamacare was passed,” he said. “We’ve got to be a part of the solution; we can’t complain about it.”
One of the ways Emory Healthcare will be a part of the solution is to eliminate “unnecessary bureaucracy” that occurs in health care to relieve the burden on consumers, Fox said.
According to him about a third of health care costs are avoidable. “Our job is to find those avoidable costs and squeeze them out of the system,” he said.
Fox said that he believes Emory Healthcare is one of the only providers to admit to the pitfalls of American health care, and it will be a national leader in fixing the problems.
– By Rupsha Basu
Photo by James Crissman
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
Believe me, I hate to even acknowledge their existence, but you seem to have forgotten about GRU in Augusta, Ga., which also is “academic health system …, which means it includes not only patient care, but also clinical research, teaching hospitals and training in the medical and clinical professions.”