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Do Your Patient Stories Celebrate Life?

Healthcare marketing is addicted to the testimonial. It's easy to see why. People love hearing stories about other people.  A well done testimonial that feels genuine can cut through the clutter and reach consumers on a purely emotional level. That's why marketers love them. That's why we still recommend them for our clients from time to time. But testimonials aren't the only way to tell a story. Or to make an emotional connection.

Imagine if Levi's relied on testimonials to sell their jeans. "I love the way my jeans treat me like an individual! Have I told you how much state-of-the-art technology was used to manufacture them?

Instead, Levi's "Go Forth" campaign dug up an old wax recording of poet Walt Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers" and matched it to breathtaking cinematography of beautiful people who go forth, living their lives with infectious abandon. It's an inspiring approach that tells us more about the people who wear Levi's than the company that sells them.  (All too often, testimonials do the exact opposite: Featuring real people who spend absolutely no time talking about themselves.)

Look around and you'll see that most products have abandoned the testimonial for fear of looking insincere. Services, on the other hand, can still get away with such personal stories. But that doesn't always mean they should. Consumers make decisions about the products they buy and the services they use based on ideantical criteria: How does this make me feel about myself? How does it make me feel about life?

We rarely see healthcare marketing that celebrates life the way Levi's "Go Forth" campaign does. But isn't that what healthcare is all about? Life. As healthcare marketers, that's our territory. We should claim it.