Healthcare was nowhere to be found between Budweiser and Clint Eastwood Super Bowl commercials. Instead, healthcare systems chose the local route for their 2012 Super Bowl advertising. If you were in California, Minnesota, Ohio, Virginia or other markets you saw local hospitals and healthcare Super Bowl ads.
The Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. ran a Super Bowl ad in the pregame show promoting the Parents Letter Project. Sheltering Arms, a rehabilitation center in Virginia, also ran a 30-second Super Bowl ad, and Park Nicollet in Minnesota and Cleveland Clinic ran Super Bowl ads as well.
Local ads are nowhere near the cost of the $3.5 million for 30 seconds the major national Super Bowl advertisers pay. But the cost of local Super Bowl commercials went up, too. In Rochester, New York, for example, a 30-second local Super Bowl ad was up from $15,000 to $20,000.
National campaigns make sense for the Cleveland Clinics and Mayo Clinics of the world, though perhaps not for $3.5 million a spot. But the lower cost for the amount of audience locally is a no brainer for many health systems, who thrive off grabbing a larger share of local patients.
Know of any other local Super Bowl ads from healthcare besides the ones I have listed? Post links in the comments section below.
By Chris Seper MedCity News
Chris Seper is the CEO at MedCity Media, which publishes MedCityNews.com. He is also a senior writer at MedCity News. Reach him at chris@medcitynews.com.More posts by Author
Sheltering Arms is very proud of our local ad Super Bowl spot. We worked very hard on it. Thank you for the article! What a great surprise! http://youtu.be/SC97Th2t75k
The Children's Medical Center of Dayton in Ohio also bought some local commercial spots. We had three spots that rotated throughout the day including during the Superbowl. These promoted critical care, cancer care and the NICU. They can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qqxO3KpPmU&feature=relmfu
It was refreshing to see the ad promoting NFL Play 60 - the National Football League's campaign to encourage kids to be active for 60 minutes a day in order to help reverse the trend of childhood obesity. Imagine how much deeper the reach could be if the NBA were to join the fun? Mark Cuban, are you listening?!