Case Study: Ad Campaign
DeKalb Medical Center

Situation

In a very competitive hospital environment, DeKalb Medical Center was perceived as a community hospital. As such, a majority of consumers had a low awareness of the quality of the medical staff and the level of advanced technology available. In addition, overall awareness for the hospital had declined from 31% to 27%. Max2o was hired to raise awareness of the hospital and to improve consumer perception of the quality of its medical staff and advanced technology.

Objectives

• Increase consumer awareness of DMC.
• Improve DMC's image for physician quality and advanced technology.
• Increase volume in OB and Oncology services.

Strategy

• Max2o identified target markets and developed positioning statements and key messages.
• Max2o conducted internal and external focus groups and identified an opportunity to educate the consumer in a testimonial, fact-based campaign.
• The campaign was developed utilizing television, radio and direct mail to promote DMC's overall image, as well as OB and Oncology.
• Three distinct communities were targeted – N. Central DeKalb, S. DeKalb, and S. Gwinnett.
• Additional media outlets were selected to reach key minority populations in these communities.

Results

• During the initial eight-week campaign, both the Cancer Center and the OB department experienced an increase in consumer inquiries.
• A follow-up research study determined that the level of consumer awareness rose from 27% to 37% after the two-month run of the campaign, the highest level of awareness for the hospital in ten years.