hippos like giving back, so it’s no surprise that many of us are involved in a variety of organizations. For Gina Littlejohn, hippo account coordinator, the one near and dear to her heart is Susan G. Komen Greater Kansas City, where she volunteers on their marketing task force committee.

Gina didn’t waste any time volunteering hippo to help design posters to commemorate the group’s 20th anniversary.

We took them two ideas initially. They liked both, so we ended up turning one into an ad series and the other into a poster. The ad series celebrates local survivors with portraits and personal quotes, while showing that the organization has raised more than $10 million for local communities over the past 20 years. The poster celebrates the local Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure by highlighting the t-shirt designs from the past two decades.

So far, they’ve been a huge hit. Since debuting them in April, the group has plans to do 14 more portrait posters. 20 local survivors to celebrate 20 years of local giving.

Check out the first series here. 1 2 3 4 5 6

And be sure to visit their website to see how you can get involved.

Although National Doctors’ Day has been an officially recognized day since 1990, it seems that, lately, more and more providers are starting to call attention to it. Typically, that’s been through a print ad or two, posters and maybe a direct mail piece.

But hippo got to thinking: is there a better way to engage the public … to help them express their appreciation for their doctors?

That thinking led to the creation of “High-Fives for Healing Hands” – a templated microsite that hospitals can brand. The site allows viewers to give “virtual high-fives” to the physicians they appreciate, and then share their “high-fives” with others. It’s also designed as a “responsive” site, meaning it’s optimized for viewing on multiple devices, including iPads and smartphones.

We rolled out our first one this past March for OSF HealthCare, a 9-hospital system in Illinois. Within 11 days, they logged almost 7,000 online visits. What’s more, the average viewer spent more than 3.5 minutes on the site submitting and viewing “high-fives.”

If your healthcare organization is looking for a better way to promote National Doctors’ Day – and digitally engage your patients – give us a call. We’ll show you a creative alternative that’s already proving to work.

See more here. 1 2 3 4 5

That’s what we wanted to know when we took a quick look around the mobile health scene in our latest hippowatch email.

Not surprisingly, we found that people love their smartphones. Half of America owns them. And despite the sore eyes and finger cramps that sometimes come with them, smartphones are increasingly supporting a wide variety of healthcare apps.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported more than 17,200 health and fitness apps and at least 14,500 medical apps on the market in mid-2012. And it’s not just consumers using them. 50 percent of physicians use apps on the job. And 40 percent believe mobile health can reduce patient visits to physicians.

From our perspective, that’s a signal that mobile health can – and probably will – have significant effects on the future of patient caregiver interactions.

You can check out other interesting stats here in the hippowatch.

While you’re at it, check out the latest responsive project we did for OSF HealthCare. It’s a responsive microsite that allowed patients to express virtual high-fives to doctors they appreciate.

That’s what hippo set out to learn last quarter in Peoria, Illinois, when our friends at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center asked us for some help. Every fall, many of Peoria’s largest employers enter into open enrollment periods, during which employees choose their annual health insurance plans. These plans sometimes include OSF Saint Francis as the provider of choice, while others offer a choice of providers.

While they didn’t want an overt advertising effort, OSF did want to do something under the radar that kept them top of mind during the two-month enrollment period. So we helped them create a “surprise and delight” plan. Over an eight-week span, OSF teams popped up in popular coffee shops and lunch spots around Peoria’s larger employers. When they noticed people buying healthy menu items, they picked up the tab and gave them an OSF branded tin of mints and a card that thanked them for making a healthy choice.

Within days, social chatter started spreading. Tweets and Facebook posts popped up with comments like “Tell OSF Thank You!” … “Love how OSF’s giving back to the community!” … and “OSF made my day!”

These kinds of grassroots community interactions are can be tricky to measure, but OSF reported an outstanding success. In fact, there were so many positive vibes coming out of the effort, other OSF facilities in the system have been asking for our help in implementing similar programs in their markets. What’s cool for us is that OSF is willing to think differently in finding new ways to connect with their community. It’s a fresh way to live out their Mission to “serve with the greatest care and love.”

Stay tuned for other cool new outreaches as hippo keeps thinking about creative alternatives to healthcare marketing.

At hippo, there’s nothing we love doing more than telling a story. Which is why we’re so pleased to announce the arrival of Edward Schroer — our new in-house Videographer. With Edward on board, we’ll have more ways to help our clients talk about their brand … and give you a glimpse into our culture and daily life.

With the ability to now write, shoot and edit videos in-house — including sound production, music and motion graphics — hippo is opening up new possibilities for our clients to help them reach out across the constantly evolving consumer touch points in today’s advertising world. Whether it’s on-location shoots, or in the studio, with Edward on our team we can fulfill a number of your needs ranging from in-house videos, presentations and product demos, to social media applications and viral videos. And between all of this, Edward will be documenting a little bit about our life here at the agency … so keep your eyes on our Facebook page or website for the occasional glimpse into agency life.

If you want to get a quick idea of some of the capabilities and styles Edward brings to the table, check out his reel here.

As one of only two downstate hospitals for kids, Children’s Hospital of Illinois never turns a child away for care, no matter what their financial situation. They’ve been a godsend for countless parents.

Problem was, they were so focused on caring for kids, their website had grown outdated and clunky. They asked hippo to help them reimagine it.

Because they’re part of the OSF HealthCare system, the website had to work within a templated structure that all OSF facilities subscribe to. What it didn’t have to do, though, was look like other OSF facilities.

So, borrowing from brand standards we established for their ad campaign, we gave the new site a fresh look – one to reflect the positive energy and happy outcomes for which they’ve become known. And, working with OSF’s internal development team, we retooled the user experience, adding new dropdown “mega-menus” and reorganizing content around the way patients wanted to access information for their child.

The result has been spectacularly received. More importantly, it’s helping families find the care they need while expanding OSF’s vision to truly transform health care.

See more here. 1 2 3 4 5 Check out the site here.

Health care reform continues to evolve, and hippo is helping Heartland Health evolve with it. Most recently, we launched a new health care model called Mosaic. Mosaic clinics not only treat traditional health issues, they offer untraditional support for a variety of lifestyle issues. From eating right, to financial stress to family issues, Mosaic is helping people proactively deal with life changes that can affect their health.

Along with naming the new brand, we designed the logo, signage and other branded materials. We also shot a new TV spot to introduce the brand. The spot follows, frame-by-frame, a changing family, and positions Mosaic as the health care partner that is changing with them.

Check it out here. 1 2 3

hippo is pleased to announce that OSF Healthcare System Web Specialist Scott Lungwitz has been nominated to participate on the Board of Directors for the Illinois Society for Healthcare Marketing and Public Relations. Scott will begin his 2-year term of office as an at-large board member in November after announcement and introduction of the new Board of Directors is made at ISHMPR’s Annual Meeting on November 1-2, 2012 in Chicago.

Scott is also presenting at this year’s ISHMPR Annual Meeting, along with colleagues Vickie Parry and Brian Moloney of Imaginary Landscape regarding the successful implementation of the online First Appointment Request module for the Illinois Neurological Institute. Way to go, Scott! And best of luck to Scott, Vickie and Brian with their presentation!

Here’s a local interpretation of a system-wide branding campaign we just finished for OSF Saint Anthony in Rockford, Illinois.

While “seamlessly” dovetailing into the system-wide campaign we created last year, this new “localized” effort highlighted area providers, technologies and initiatives exclusive to OSF Saint Anthony.

Print, radio and online ads added additional support. And “OSF Street Teams” took the message directly into local communities, handing out promotional items like water bottles and sunscreen at area public events.

Check it out here. 1 2 3

When it comes to stroke, time matters. That’s the point Heartland Health wanted to make in talking about their TeleMedicine Video technology, which helps stroke specialists turn back the clock … by allowing them to make a fast diagnosis, even when physical miles separate them from their patient. So hippo came up with an animated spot that graphically showed the precious functions of our brain that could be saved by getting timely diagnosis and treatment.