The Story
The enduring dilemma in healthcare marketing is, "how do you get healthy people to give a rip about a hospital — a place for people who aren't healthy?" The obvious answer (that still eludes most marketers) is to talk to healthy people about something they're interested in: staying healthy. Swedish Medical Center's take on this was to offer a series of online health risk assessments. Our job was to use advertising to drive people to take them.

 
The Solution
Since Swedish wasn't going to be the first hospital in the market to offer online health assessments — and because we don't believe that the sledgehammer approach of "take a free health assessment" would get very far — we created a campaign that celebrated the emotional rewards of being healthy. With a campaign line, "Isn't health great?" we told honest stories of lives made more treasured by a return to vitality.

The Results
Six months into the campaign, nearly 12,000 people had taken one of the free online health risk assessments. More than a quarter of the test-takers were found to be at risk and received follow-up contact to refer them to an appropriate specialist for a complete diagnosis.