Here's a very cool and captivating crowd-sourced video from Nike that captures the worldwide craziness that is cricket.
Agency JWT invited 108 photographers to snap pre-determined shots on "playgrounds" in cricket-crazy locales around India. The result was a pool of 225,001 images, of which 1,440 images were used in the final piece.
Makes you maybe even want to go watch a test match.
Source: John Nack blog.
"I forgot my phone."
Simple. A message we should all heed.
Source: 37Signals
In health care, your brand voice is your people — your patients, their families and your staff.
Your brand is what each of these groups say about your organization.
It's what patients tell others about how they were treated. It's what they whisper, good or bad, about what they witnessed your staff doing in their idle time.
And it's what your staff — doctors, nurses, caregivers and non-caregivers — say about the what it's like to work for you.
When you have built a strong organizational culture — one of inclusion, listening, transparency and compassion — then you have a strong brand story to tell.
An out-of-industry example comes from the Danish shipping company Maersk, which sheds light on how focusing on the voices of an organization can bring life and attention to a brand. Writing for AdPulp, David Burn notes:
It is safe to say, “brand voice” is no longer something best whipped up in an ad agency brainstorm. Rather, a real living brand voice — one with resonance and power — is an amalgamation of the human voices who work at the company.
In health care, those voices must include the patients and their families. They already tell stories about their experience — you want those stories to always be positive and enlightening.
Source: AdPulp
Is it scripting — or coincidence?
I was at two Whole Foods Markets in the past week — in Hingham, Mass., and Cranston, R.I. — and had two similar, friendly exchanges with the check out clerks.
As the clerk scanned a particular item, he (men in both cases) asked me a casual question. It went something like this:
Clerk: "Have you tried that before?"
Me: "No, first time."
Clerk (enthusiastically, but very genuine): "It's amazing. You're going to love it. And it's so tasty, especially for being something so quick and easy to make."
Me (now eagerly awaiting to try it): "Sounds great!"
That was it. Some seemingly benign banter. But it was all about setting my expectations.
Health care struggles with setting expectations and it is reflected in patient satisfaction scores. An easy fix — and one that every patient and their family would welcome — is a little more frequent communication from caregivers, especially setting expectations for what is about to occur.
And when you don't set expectations, you don't have an opportunity to exceed them!
Jim Rattray is an award-winning creative professional who has worked extensively in health care, education, corporations and journalism and speaks to marketing and PR audiences on using new tools for public relations, marketing, branding and patient engagement.
The banner photo is of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park in California. It was taken at sunset from Glacier Point on October 1, 2012.
Follow my writing and that of others in the Patient Engagement arena on EngagingPatients.org.
