Challenge: In an effort to motivate patients to consider Emerson, and attract the best physicians, Emerson wanted to understand how to elevate its image beyond a traditional community hospital.

Objective: Develop a positioning platform that builds a unified brand and serves as the cornerstone of Emerson’s marketing and communications efforts.

Solution: Qualitative Exploratory work was conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of internal (physicians, nurses, technicians, administrators) and external target audiences’ attitudes toward the health care category and toward hospitals including Emerson and key local and tertiary competitors in particular specialties (ER, OB/GYN, Cancer, Cardiology, and outpatient services).

Result: Insights were instrumental over time in the development of umbrella brand communications that also allowed for core specialties to be highlighted. As a follow-up, Plan-it conducted multiple waves of Quantitative tracking, to help Emerson and its advertising agency measure the impact of the hospital’s branding efforts on key target audiences’ attitudes toward Emerson over time.