What makes you choose a good healthcare service or institution? How do you get to know about them? The answer is simple, marketing campaigns. A good marketing campaign should not only be informative to the audience but also appeal to their emotions and resonate with good values. Healthcare ads especially thrive on these qualities.
The aim here is to leave a lasting impression on the audience that urges them to introspect and think about why they may (or may not) need that particular service. This majorly includes educating them and raising awareness about various health issues, for example, the current pandemic and the hundreds of campaigns about vaccines.
Most Inspiring Healthcare Ads
Let’s take a look at some healthcare ads that have done a promising job of putting the message forward.
1. Fortis Healthcare: Live After You Leave
Fortis Healthcare created a deep and bittersweet ad campaign about an important issue: organ donation.
The commercial depicts a young couple visiting their family on Eid, giving the impression that a son is meeting his mother for the first time in a long time. The shown son, however, is a man who has been an organ recipient. The parents see the man and recall memories of their own son, who donated his organs.
The commercial emphasizes the need for and virtue of organ donation in a simple yet effective ad. The commercial appeals to human emotions by crossing barriers of social, communal, and ethical dilemmas revolving around organ donation.
The message conveyed is inspiring: we can keep the spirit of our loved ones alive by donating their organs to someone in need. And in a poetic sense, saving two lives at once. This film brought about a spike in organ donations from cadavers, and a lot of pledges have been made for the same.
2. UCSF Medical Centre: Redefining Possible
UCSF takes on a unique and bold approach to healthcare by challenging what is possible. They put on a daring image, one that challenges the audience. It makes them wonder about the limits of reality.
Through their ad campaign, UCSF bravely says that they are ready to discover what is new and what more can be done for the people—of course, maintaining quality healthcare. Some people may think of theirs as a medical mystery that is impossible to diagnose, but well, not for UCSF.
UCSF appeals to the public’s sense of mystery and exploration, igniting a heroic spark within people. Their heroic stance depicted through their healthcare ad can be observed when they ask questions like, “is it possible to eliminate diseases from the face of the earth?” Or “is it possible to ensure that such advances benefit all of us?”.
Healthcare is a challenge that UCSF is not afraid to explore and conquer.
3. Baylor Scott & White Health: So Much Better
This optimistic healthcare ad by Baylor Scott & White Health follows the conversation of a doctor and his patient and the patient’s wife. Here the doctor is trying to convince his patient to undergo a non-invasive, new technology-aided heart procedure, while simultaneously we see the patient in the present day, living a better and healthy, care-free life.
While most healthcare ads showcase the classic hospital setting, with doctors, patients, nurses and medicines: this one takes a unique perspective and focuses on life after treatment, a better life.
The ad is patient-centric, and that is what makes it so different from mainstream healthcare advertising. It mainly advertises Baylor Scott & White’s better solution to heart surgery and shows just how better life feels with better healthcare. It brings with it an inspirational and confident tone and might even act as a mood lifter for the audience.
4. Bupa Health Insurance: Is It Normal?
Mental health has always been stigmatized and has become a controversial topic to talk about. People feel blue or out of sorts, and they tend to hide or suppress it, feeling ashamed to talk to anyone about it. They fear being ‘abnormal’.
What is normal? This ad campaign by Bupa Health Insurance questions normality and emphasizes the subjectivity of what is considered to be a normal state of being. Seeking help is encouraged through this healthcare campaign and actively normalized as well.
Bupa beautifully captures the various turmoils everyone goes through on a daily basis and very simply normalizes it, portraying themselves as a safe space and people’s feelings, emotions, and mental well-being as completely valid. Be it anxiety, seeking validation, body dysmorphia, grief, etc.
There are 7 billion people on this earth, and each person has their own version of normal, and according to Bupa, each is completely valid.
5. Galderma Pharmaceuticals: End the cover-up
Rosacea is a skin condition that causes excessive blushing or redness on the face and visible blood vessels to show up. This ad raises awareness about rosacea and encourages people to not be ashamed of or cover it up but rather seek medical help for it.
The ad, run by Galderma, a dermatology company, very simplistically articulates a deeper message of accepting oneself as they are and not hiding behind makeup. The ad film shows a timelapse of a woman putting on makeup and making her face look as if she has rosacea.
The ad is short but sends a strong message. In a world where people are not accommodative or accepting of each other, accepting and supporting our own selves is important.
A lot of people suffer from various skin maladies such as rosacea and continue to hide it; however, with the right guidance and medicines, these conditions can be managed.
6. Unison: No Going Back To Normal
The pandemic has forced most of human society’s functioning to take place online or with limited offline access. This has negatively affected almost all of the population socially, educationally, and economically, and becoming jobless; for some, this has been a bane.
For workers of the public services, going back to their jobs means going back to a life of putting in more than they are getting; longer hours, higher stress levels, more effort. At the same time, they are receiving the same amount of salary.
Healthcare, municipal government, and education are all severely underfunded as a result of a decade of government expenditure. UNISON’s open letter, ‘No Going Back To Normal,’ serves as a huge demand for help for members of the public to sign and demand aid for workers and the reconstruction of public services.
7. United Way Organization: I Happen To Like New York
The COVID-19 pandemic is a grave situation stabilized only thanks to the frontline workers who put themselves out there at risk every day to get things done. This campaign, with very real and heartwarming clips, showcases New York City’s tribute to its frontline workers.
Short clips of various people throughout the city are combined in the ad, which showcases them giving thanks to the frontline workers in their own ways: some clap, some bang their utensils together.
This is a wonderful depiction of the virtue of gratitude and appeals to the audience through the real clips. It leaves one surrounded with the feeling of being grateful.
8. Colgate: Made For Greatness
Colgate targets a very specific audience through this ad: brave, adventure-seeking people. It calls to all the overachievers, those wanting out or something different from the monotony of a nine-to-five, corporate, and cushioned work culture.
It shows a famous climber climbing to the top summit of a mountain and not giving up, reaching for total greatness. It puts the message of not giving up and doing your best, forward. It is certainly a creative way of advertising toothpaste and acts as an inspiration to the masses.
9. Dettol: Social Distancing Prayer Mat
The threat of the coronavirus is always looming around, and in populated countries such as Pakistan, the importance of social distancing is omnipresent.
To deal with this and raise awareness about the same, Dettol came up with a social distancing prayer mat – a useful product for the Islamic masses who gather in large numbers for their daily prayers.
Traditional prayer mats, known as the jaanemaz, are around 70cm broad and are used in mosques where Muslims pray side by side with their shoulders almost brushing. This freshly designed prayer mat is 180cm broad and features a phrase engraved within its theme that encourages worshipers to keep a safe distance.
The ad appeals to the public to not take the virus lightly while being socially and religiously conscious. This has become a successful product in the country and is used in many large mosques.
10. Lifebridge Health: Care Bravely
This ad has a dramatic but sweet take on the classic monsters-under-my-bed phenomenon in children. This commercial portrays a little girl travelling through a dark and dangerous forest, narrating her reality that “monsters” truly exist for her as she is shown almost drowning in a river and then finding her way through the dark woods.
She comes to a halt in the middle of her stroll when she notices a golden crown sparkling brilliantly among the tree branches. It’s discovered that she’s a cancer patient within a LifeBridge Health Hospital as her background fades away.
She is taken into a warm embrace by the nurse as she realises that there will always be someone there to support her even if she has to face monsters. As long as she is supported, she can brave it all.
This ad creatively depicts the importance of love, care, and support for cancer patients, especially children.
11. Voltaren: The Joy of Movement
Voltaren, a pharmaceutical drug for easing back and joint pains, is successfully getting people to move again through its healthcare ad. This funny ad shows the Voltaren mascot being sedimentary and turning into a sofa due to long hours of sitting and how by dancing, he’s able to break free.
Sedimentary lifestyles are becoming a major health concern, affecting people of all ages. Children watching TV all day, young and old people with their sitting jobs, especially now that everything is online, it all affects their health and causes problems in the long run.
Voltaren emphasises the importance of movement in a quick and funny manner. The message might be dull, but it’s all about how it is presented, of which Voltaren has done a wonderful job. A short, simple and funny healthcare ad, sending the message across.
Verdict
The secret to a successful healthcare ad has a deeper meaning and purpose behind it. Your ad will not be impactful if it does not speak to the audience and somehow connect with them. Through the above examples, one can take inspiration on how to build a creative and impactful healthcare ad.
Build your ad so that it resonates emotionally with people, inspires them, makes them aware, and strikes a chord that even they might have been unaware of. These are the key tricks to truly engaging an audience and really making your ad strong, impactful, and driven.
Let your ad be fun, do not let it be meaningless and dull.
