Healthcare Have you taken the pulse of your healthcare advertising lately? Is it dead? Maybe you should schedule an appointment with Dr. Ripley-Woodbury. Our approach to healthcare advertising is as simple as our approach to marketing communications in general: first, get the prospect to pay attention; second, persuade them why it's to their benefit to quit doing business with someone else and start doing business with you; third, tell them exactly what they need to do next. Our experience in healthcare goes back to the early 1980s, when we were involved in a protracted competition - which we eventually won - for the Los Angeles Orthopedic Hospital account. Over the next several years, we created fun, high-impact, memorable radio and newspaper advertising for all of Orthopedic's varied clinics: foot, spine, arthritis, osteoporosis, sports medicine and others, and got deeper and deeper into the business of marketing healthcare. In time, that experience led to continuing assignments and campaigns for general hospitals, urgent care centers, and drug and alcohol treatment facilities among other healthcare services. If your healthcare advertising needs a shot in the arm, call Dr. Ripley-Woodbury today. We've got a cure that will work for you. Downey Community Hospital Downey Community Hospital's new Heart Center had a marketing problem. In order to run it's new facility profitably, the respected but little-known DCH would be in direct competition for patients with some of the region's best known cardiac care units. And while addressing the community was one aspect, the critical issue was in gaining acceptance among Southern California cardiologists. Ripley-Woodbury identified raising awareness as the key issue. But there were other issues as well: building credibility among cardiologists to gain crucial patient referrals, recruiting OR and critical-care nurses and gaining support from the community. The centerpiece of the Heart Center's campaign was the theme, "State-of-the-heart care", showcased on a 16' x 12' billboard with a three-dimensional anatomically correct heart... a heart which actually appeared to beat. Recognizing the news value of the billboard as a vehicle to publicize the new facility, R-W planned a press conference around its public debut. Several of the area newspapers, radio and television stations covered the event. We also coordinated a direct mail campaign to area cardiologists, a trade ad campaign designed to recruit nurses, and a newspaper advertising and direct mail program to Downey residents. The campaign was extraordinarily successful. Within four weeks of the Heart Center's opening it was at 95% capacity with every prospect of continuing referrals.