It’s not often you hear about a health system that wants to position the word “death” by its name. After less than a week a North Carolina hospital system has ended its edgy marketing campaign, inspiring a microburst of headline puns after its “Cheat Death” tagline created a storm of controversy, according to Fierce Healthcare. Its previous tagline had been “In Love with Life.”
Last week CaroMont Health tried to defend the move by saying the tagline was taken out of context:
“We are not saying we can stop death. What we are saying is that if you take an active part in your own health — being more active, making better nutritional choices, stop smoking — you can live a longer, healthier and ultimately happier life.”
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A subsequent statement published today seemed to indicate that the hospital system got as much publicity about the chronic care issues facing the community as it was seeking:
“Right now Gaston County is facing the highest levels of type 1 and 2 diabetes, heart disease, drug and alcohol abuse and obesity we’ve ever seen…Whether you liked the tagline or not, for more than 5 days we have received more commentary and discussion than any other campaign in the hospital’s history. We needed all of our participants and members to wake up and pay attention to the challenge that we face – as a hospital and a community. We have successfully accomplished that goal.”
It doesn’t sound like an apology so far, does it? And it’s not until you reach the end that CaroMont Health CEO Randy Kelley said: “Our intent was never to offend or incite. …We will continue to move forward with the job of realizing our goal to make Gaston County the healthiest in the state.”
While hospitals may want to be known for cutting edge medical procedures, there probably aren’t too many cutting edge marketing campaigns for health systems out there. CaroMont’s plight to address it’s county’s 81 out of 100 national health ranking echoes that of many health systems. How do you convey a sense of urgency and spur a community to action without creating fear and without using fear-inducing words? It’s not an easy balance.
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I was struck by how obviously torn the hospital system was about apologizing for a message it felt the community needed to confront but wasn’t ready to hear. It will be interesting to see how its message evolves from here. I’m no marketer, but I’d just drop the tagline and focus on the message behind the hospital system.
