Today, health insurer Aetna is launching a new campaign themed, “What’s Your Healthy?” Created by Arnold Worldwide and Digitas, the campaign seeks to do what so many health insurance providers are trying to accomplish: Engage their customers and get them to be “proactive” about their healthcare. Pushing healthy habits ultimately reduces healthcare costs, so it’s not shocking to see most insurers focusing their messages there.
There’s nothing overly remarkable about this campaign, except to add that it’s being launched with a $50 million budget. I suspect we’ve barely begun to see all the advertising and marketing efforts healthcare providers and health insurance companies are set to launch.
With the new Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare) gradually being rolled out, individual states being tasked with providing health exchange marketplaces so consumers can compare and purchase plans for themselves, and employers rethinking the coverage they provide to their workers, it’s going to be a mad rush for revenue. And it’s a huge opportunity for advertising agencies and other firms to get in on the spending.
Healthcare marketing is crowded field with a lot of similarity in the messaging and very little boldness. So who’s out there doing a great job of healthcare marketing? What’s the ultimate message insurers need to send? Will hospitals and health systems need to up their marketing game now, too? Will consumers simply be too confused and overwhelmed with marketing to make the best choices?
Wow, that site sucks. Why would Aetna—and more importantly, Arnold and Digitas—think anyone would want to scroll through that shit? Oh, wait a minute. It’s because all three of them are clueless about digital and and even more ignorant about compelling content. If I were an Aetna customer, I’d wonder how much of my premiums went toward financing such garbage.