NASHVILLE, TENN. – November 28, 2023 – Unlock Health, a unique healthcare technology and services growth platform serving healthcare providers, today announced the acquisition of SPM Group, the premier network of health and healthcare agencies including SPM, GLC, Dreamscape, and Centretek, from Corridor Capital, LLC, a Los Angeles-based lower middle-market private equity firm. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The acquisition of SPM Group brings an incredible depth of expertise and marketing capability to the Unlock platform – adding new in-house omnichannel media planning and buying capabilities and strengthening Unlock Health’s services across digital media, content strategy and production, analytics, and creative specialties to establish a unique, growth-focused solution for healthcare providers. 

Over the last several years, SPM Group has significantly expanded its full-service offering through the acquisitions of Centretek, GLC, and Dreamscape. This growth has solidified SPM Group’s commitment to fully meeting the marketing and growth demands of its clients, including the execution of Agency of Record engagements and integrated, multi-channel marketing campaigns intended to connect health brands with audiences nationwide.

With the acquisition of SPM Group, Unlock Health is now the largest health services growth marketing platform nationwide, with $100 million in revenue, and 343 professionals serving more than 350 clients across the healthcare provider, behavioral health, dental, and associated sectors. 

“Healthcare leaders need creative solutions to drive profitable growth and sustainable performance while navigating the uncertainties and economic pressures of today’s financial landscape,” said Brandon Edwards, Chief Executive Officer of Unlock Health. “The addition of SPM Group to our platform takes the guesswork out of growth and helps us to better support healthcare organizations in maintaining sustainable performance now and in the future.” 

“SPM Group has taken tremendous pride in the depth of our offering and the quality and creativity of the work we do for our clients. The Unlock Health team shares our commitment to being a best-in-class provider for our clients,” said Amanda Seaford, Chief Executive Officer of SPM Group. “By joining Unlock Health, our clients will benefit from increased scale and a broader range of market-leading services, managed care consulting offerings, and innovative technologies as they navigate and compete in a rapidly evolving industry.”

Unlock Health was formed in April 2023 through the acquisition of Eruptr, the largest healthcare-focused digital media and Health Risk Assessment (HRA) company in the industry, and DECODE, a national, full-service digital and creative agency focused on healthcare. Since entering the market, Unlock Health has executed its vision as a single source growth partner, combining Eruptr and DECODE with a team of experts in managed care consulting and ROI design. All offerings are now unified under the Unlock Health logo and the company’s new ‘Power of ONE’ tagline.

“The addition of SPM Group to Unlock Health solidifies our position as a full-service marketing platform, allowing us to serve any client no matter how large or how complex their needs,” said Shannon McIntyre Hooper, President of Unlock Health. “By combining SPM Group’s unmatched marketing talent and expertise with our technology and managed care capabilities, we will become the leading, single-source partner for our shared network of clients across the healthcare ecosystem.” 

Unlock Health is backed by Amulet Capital Partners, a middle-market private equity investment firm focused exclusively on the healthcare sector, and Athyrium Capital Management, a specialized asset management company focused on opportunities in the global healthcare sector. Canaccord Genuity served as the exclusive financial advisor to SPM Group on this transaction. 

“With SPM Group joining Unlock Health, we’re not just growing. We’re creating a new category and platform for healthcare growth, adding the services and scale to deliver on a value proposition never offered to the market before,” said Gabriel Luft, Partner at Amulet Capital Partners. Hondo Sen, Partner at Athyrium Capital Management, added, “This acquisition is another signal of our commitment to the Unlock Health vision. It’s about offering clients and prospects the most advanced growth solutions in healthcare by breaking down the barriers that restrict healthcare organizations from thriving.”

For more information about Unlock Health, visit www.unlockhealthnow.com or email [email protected].

About Unlock Health

Unlock Health is a tech and services growth platform that connects the dots across managed care, marketing, and technology to help healthcare providers solve today’s urgent growth needs while building sustainable performance for the future. Unlock Health provides its roster of healthcare providers with an unparalleled suite of products and technology capabilities underpinning a full-service agency and managed care consultancy. To learn more, please visit www.unlockhealthnow.com.

About SPM Group

SPM Group is the premier independent network of health and healthcare agencies. SPM creates meaningful change through better, innovative connections and engaging holistic experiences between audiences and brands. The agency shares a vision to constantly evolve, grow, and improve talent and capabilities to keep its clients ahead of their competition.

SPM believes people deserve to know the differences in health and healthcare, and creates meaningful communications and experiences to help people improve their lives. From strategy and insights to creative, content, digital and media, SPM Group is all hands on deck, collaborating across disciplines and channels to deliver everything clients need today and tomorrow. Canaccord Genuity served as the exclusive financial advisor to SPM Group on this transaction. More information about SPM can be found at www.spmgroup.com.

About Amulet Capital Partners 

Amulet Capital Partners is a middle-market private equity investment firm based in Greenwich, CT, focused exclusively on the healthcare sector. Amulet seeks to achieve long-term capital appreciation through privately negotiated investments in healthcare companies. Amulet focuses on those segments it believes have the most attractive long-term fundamentals with a target investment size between $50 million to $150 million. For additional information, please visit www.amuletcapital.com.

About Athyrium Capital Management

Athyrium is a specialized asset management company formed in 2008 to focus on investment opportunities in the global healthcare sector. Athyrium advises funds with over $4.6 billion in committed capital. The Athyrium team has substantial investment experience across a wide range of asset classes including public equity, private equity, fixed income, royalties, and other structured securities. Athyrium invests across all healthcare verticals including biopharma, medical devices and products, healthcare focused services, and healthcare information technology. The team partners with management teams to implement creative financing solutions to companies’ capital needs. For more information, please visit www.athyrium.com.

Contacts:

Unlock Health

Samantha Pierce

[email protected]

Amulet Capital Partners 

Jonathan Keehner / Erik Carlson 

Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher

(212) 355-4449

Athyrium Capital Management

Courtney Paul

(212) 402 6925

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Facing mounting pressure to crack down on misinformation campaigns, Google implemented a new policy aimed at misleading healthcare ads, with revolutionary evidence-based treatments—like those provided by multiple SPM clients—unreasonably caught in the dragnet. Though the new policy posed an unexpected challenge for healthcare marketers, SPM’s media team had the expertise to confront and resolve the issue quickly and effectively.

What is the core challenge?

The sweeping policy aims “to prohibit advertising for unproven or experimental medical techniques,” applying across all ad serving platforms, with particular emphasis on “unproven or experimental medical techniques,” including stem cell therapy, cellular (non-stem) therapy, and gene therapy.

This wide-reaching policy has unreasonably targeted revolutionary treatments (some of which are FDA-approved, such as CAR T-Cell Therapy) and critical clinical trials in this sweeping judgement.

As a result of this policy change, advertisers across the healthcare industry, including SPM, have reported widespread ad disapprovals.

Is this part of a larger trend?

Google’s crackdown on misleading healthcare ads is part of a larger trend among tech giants facing mounting pressure to take more responsibility for the content that appears on their platforms–whether paid or organic.

In recent months, tech giants have staked out a wide spectrum of positions related to countering misinformation.

Earlier this month, Twitter announced a full ban on political advertising, responding to charges the social platform facilitated election interference by foreign governments. Meanwhile, Facebook steadfastly defended its position to allow politicians to lie in campaign ads, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg stating, “In a democracy, I don’t think it’s right for private companies to censor politicians or the news.”

Turning back to healthcare, it is widely acknowledged now that Facebook played a significant role in spreading misinformation that fueled the anti-vaccination movement that has been associated with a rise in measles cases, among others. Google had been the subject of intense criticism for allowing dubious medical practices to spread via organic search results.

For these reasons, it’s understandable tech platforms would seek a more active role in protecting consumers from deceptive or harmful medical treatments, just as Google did in this case.

Why is this controversial?

Nevertheless, Google’s announcement was justifiably met with an outcry of criticism from established medical research institutions that provide life-saving treatments and the advertisers who work with them, including SPM.

“Google’s advertising platforms play a crucial role putting valuable and relevant information in front of consumers who have revealed intent to learn more about symptoms and treatment for serious and life-threatening medical conditions,” SPM VP Group Media Director Kara Rozek said. “If consumers can’t see that they have options for treatment beyond those that Google has approved, they won’t be able to make the most informed decision possible for their health and well-being.”

There is more at stake than helping healthcare consumers find relevant and reliable information about health conditions and potential treatments. A recent study observed how searches related to health increased in the weeks before a visit for emergency care, possibly providing an opportunity to use Google search behavior in predictive modeling.

Finding a resolution: SPM’s approach

There is reason to be hopeful this new policy will eliminate truly bad actors and leave room for legitimate medical research centers to share valuable information through Google’s ad platforms.

In the same blog post published to the Google Help page, Google Policy Advisor Adrienne Biddings acknowledged the importance of fostering pioneering research for life-saving medical treatment. “We know that there are good actors in this space as well, doing important research that may lead to major advances in medicine,” she said. “We’ll continue to allow advertising for research happening in this space for clinical trials and the ability for clinicians to promote their research findings to the public.”

In this latest attempt to eliminate ads for un-tested medical treatments, Google seems to have taken an approach that introduces a blanket ban while leaving the burden of proof on advertisers to appeal individually for special approval.

Agencies like SPM were in a good position to appeal these ad disapprovals thanks to the accumulation of specialized knowledge that comes from working across a full portfolio of clients.

Individual advertisers, such as single hospitals or even health systems, may have found themselves less-equipped and with less robust relationships to successfully navigate the complex support hierarchy of a tech giant of Google’s size.

At SPM, our goal to resolve these constraints for our clients required us to elevate our concerns within the Google support network. Google reps had initially advised advertisers to completely remove stem cell/gene therapy keywords from landing pages to be approved for serving ads. Aside from the tedious work required to update landing page copy, this would have had a detrimental impact for organic SEO activity as well. One SPM client, for example, would have lost up to 2,000 potential leads for a life-saving gene therapy treatment.

Once we had Google’s alignment, it still took three days to get our ads approved under the new policy.

“SPM’s media team was able to promptly resolve our clients’ disapprovals thanks to our deep experience and well-established relationships with Google reps. Our team knew who to contact, what to ask for, and, when appropriate, how to advocate for our clients,” said Digital Media Director Jorge Cordova.

Taking all of this into account, SPM recommends that advertisers and agency partners take the following steps to whitelist ads across all Google properties:

• Immediately contact Google reps or support and emphasize how these campaigns support evidence-based treatments that are conducted at well-respected medical research centers.
• Don’t necessarily accept the first resolution at face value. As we saw in this case, in the end it wasn’t necessary to change landing page copy after all.
• Be prepared to provide links to landing pages that confirm treatments are a) research-based, and b) research is being conducted on-site.

The post Google Changes Ads Policy as Healthcare Advertisers Scramble to Adapt appeared first on SPM Marketing & Communications.

In September, a record-setting 2,000+ healthcare marketers and strategists traveled from across the country to SHSMD Connections, the annual conference hosted by the Society for Health Care Strategy and Market Development. The four-day event – held in Nashville this year – is uniquely valuable for multiple reasons.

First, unlike strictly “digital” or “PR” conferences, the content presented at SHSMD covers a broad range of healthcare strategy professions: marketing, communications, planning, and business development. As a result, the concurrent sessions that occur each day are a treasure trove of “what’s working” in healthcare; they provide attendees ample opportunity to see an issue from multiple disciplines’ perspectives and give them exposure to the full continuum of leading marketing and communications practices.

Second, the content presented at the conference is also aimed at all skill levels, from those just beginning to learn about the field at the entry level, to insights at the most senior level. In all cases, the ability to make peer-to-peer and attendee-to-speaker connections is unbeatable.

Finally, SHSMD Connections embraces the value outside consultants bring to organizations. No organization can do it alone, and visiting the Exhibition Hall and hearing consultants co-present with their clients is a great way to meet and hear from companies that support healthcare providers in their journeys.

Constant Growth is a Must

At this year’s SHSMD conference, among a broad range of content, experts, and insights, one topic particularly stood out to me: personal professional development. For instance, Lisa Henry (Mary Washington Healthcare) and Michael Joyce (Kaiser Permanente)’s session emphasized how important it is to build an expectation of rapid growth among team members – not just to master skills, but to stay ahead of the curve in the healthcare field. This is powerful advice, as the healthcare category demands a high degree of domain knowledge in addition to core job skills.

But the importance of growth doesn’t just apply to individuals – it’s also crucial to organizations on the whole. This was demonstrated in the Thought Leader Forum, where Maria Royce from WellSpan Health spoke about the challenge of maintaining market relevance in the face of disruption, and what tools, capabilities, and capacities are needed to stay relevant.

The link between these two sessions is the notion of constant improvement – there’s just no such thing as coasting in the healthcare field. Consultants are pushing health systems, and health systems are stretching their partners’ boundaries; if you’re continuously not expanding your capabilities or horizons, you’ll quickly get left behind.

But Growth Without Fulfillment is Meaningless

However, SHSMD 2019 also made it clear that constant improvement must also be balanced with personal fulfillment and a careful consideration of work’s role – a topic covered in two of the conference’s Keynote sessions. Each day, we’re all going 100 mph, running from project to project, meeting to meeting, email to text exchange to social media post. Work can eat us alive if we don’t slow down, stop, think, and prioritize what matters most to us.

SPM is passionate about helping our clients innovate – that’s why prioritizing growth and fulfillment is such a salient idea to us. To provide the greatest value, we need to make time to connect our work to both the agency and our clients’ personal and professional purpose. Walking in each other’s proverbial shoes is a key component to great ideas, great solutions, and great partnerships.

Overall, these insights fit perfectly with the advice Pulitzer Prize winning-author and historian Jon Meacham shared during his SHSMD 2019 Keynote presentation: “Be curious. Be humble. Be empathetic.”

Curiosity is all about having a restless mind and expanding upon what you already know – in other words, seeking constant growth, evolution, and improvement in the context of healthcare’s ever-changing landscape. Being humble goes hand in hand with curiosity; you must be honest about what you need to learn, as we all need to learn more. Empathy is crucial – as healthcare marketers, we are people working together to make the world better. If we’re going to really get anywhere, we need to understand why our partners, our clients, and our customers feel what they feel. These are simple yet powerful guidelines that we keep top of mind at SPM as we partner with clients to help them make an impact.

The post SHSMD 2019 Recap: Never Sit Still appeared first on SPM Marketing & Communications.

Safety is a concept that is often misunderstood by healthcare consumers. Broadly, it means, “the prevention of harm to patients while in the hospital.” This takes various forms, from averting falls and ensuring surgeries are safe, to preventing hospital-acquired infections, adverse events, and conditions.

However, outside of extreme stories, the average patient is generally unaware that hospitals are rigorously evaluated on what might broadly be called “mistakes,” and that some hospitals are better than others at preventing these mistakes. As the SPM mission states, there are differences in healthcare, differences that can save lives – and this is especially true in the case of patient safety.

Collectively, SPM and its clients can always do more to help consumers understand what sets one healthcare provider apart from another. Satisfaction ratings, like stars on Yelp or the hospital’s website, tell a very small part of the story. The challenge is engaging and educating patients about why safety measures are important to their care and recovery—why they should learn about them, and how to use the information they find. The good news is more people than ever are online, digging through information. SPM’s task as marketers is to make understanding these critical distinctions easy to find, understand, and act upon.

SPM is proud to work with clients who are ranked among the highest in the industry in patient safety. However, when it comes to effectively communicating healthcare providers’ commitment to providing the highest quality and safest care for patients, it’s not enough to simply say, “We care about safety,” or “We’re ranked #1 in patient safety by So-and-So.” Marketers have to continue to promote the importance of safety indicators and helping patients understand them, while strategically presenting them at the right point of the patient’s journey when they will be most receptive to, and looking for, this kind of vital information.

How does SPM use insights and research surrounding patient safety to strategically target key healthcare consumers? Consumers don’t identify themselves as being more, or less, interested in safety. What they do is provide us with clues from their daily lives. Do they consider themselves savvy shoppers? Do they do a lot of product comparisons before making a purchase? Do they go online to research hospital success rates? Would they follow their doctor’s recommendation without doing any research on their own?

From cues like these, we can get a sense of who is intrinsically more interested in the kind of data behind patient safety—and who isn’t. It’s always easier to connect a brand’s attributes to people who are inclined to be interested in them first instead of trying to convert those who are not. So, SPM starts there, and then, from our SPM^SM Consumer Healthcare Decision Journey research, we time and place the safety message to align with the moment when they will have the greatest aperture for that message. This ensures we are being as strategic as possible with the people who will be interested in a health system’s safety story and are as effective in marketing to that group as we can be—because consumers deserve the peace of mind that comes with knowing their healthcare provider values and tirelessly pursues patient safety.

The post The Insighter: Patient Safety appeared first on SPM Marketing & Communications.

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) announced last month that it is teaming up with Amazon to deliver health advice through the tech giant’s Alexa devices. Amazon’s algorithm will pull information from the NHS website to answer questions such as “How do I treat a migraine?” or “What are the symptoms of flu?”

The partnership comes at a time in which telemedicine has already become widely available through insurance providers, and 76% of U.S. hospitals reported using a telehealth system in 2017. SPM’s health insurance plan includes access to Teledoc, which allows employees to speak with a doctor by phone or video call. This feature saves our employees a trip to the doctor’s office with remote appointments accessible on-demand.

Alexa might be joining the telehealth space, but it does not offer a complete alternative to services like Teladoc. Voice assistants are likely already fielding medical questions, so this partnership can ensure that users in the UK will receive information verified by the NHS. These results would direct consumers to a more reliable source of information than they might find if they searched the internet on their own. However, healthcare is full of nuance, and an algorithm cannot yet replace a doctor’s ability to make a diagnosis, prescribe medicine, and consider a patient’s private medical history.

Privacy is a major concern that may make consumers wary of seeking health advice from their voice assistant. Amazon has drawn criticism with reports that its devices record conversations without users’ knowledge, though officials have said the new feature will not store any health data to share with advertisers or build customer profiles. Even if Amazon handles the data responsibly, what happens if Alexa gives an incorrect answer? This need to protect privacy may hinder the ability to test the quality of Alexa’s responses and make sure that any advice given is safe. In contrast, telemedicine services put users in contact with a doctor from their insurance provider, so any conversations are protected by HIPAA the same way they are for an in-person appointment.

Alexa can offer a free access to valuable information, but there is a risk that the convenience may encourage individuals to postpone or avoid seeing a doctor. Patients are warming up to the use of telehealth to save time and money, but an algorithm in this space is best reserved as a tool for researching simple questions rather than acting as a doctor.

Would I ask Alexa to list me “what are some symptoms of a migraine?” Sure, but I will also see a doctor, because I am more comfortable taking medical advice from a human.

The post Fresh Takes: Alexa M.D vs Teledoc appeared first on SPM Marketing & Communications.

As healthcare becomes increasingly competitive, more and more hospitals and health networks are seeking to obtain, and then capitalize on, their awards, rankings or designations. These recognitions are a tremendous source or pride to an organization’s employees and can act as motivators for continual operation and improvement.

Awards, rankings, and designations have also been marketed heavily as a way to win over prospective patients and to keep current patients loyal. And those marketing efforts are gaining traction.

Since 2010, awareness of 11 major awards, rankings and designations investigated in the SPM^SM American Health & Life Study are up by an average of 7.5 percentage points.

Of particular importance, the likelihood to use an award, ranking or designation a person has heard of has jumped an average of 10-20 percentage points over the last eight years.

However, amidst the rise of awards, rankings and designations in marketing, a sobering truth remains: nearly half the respondents in both 2010 and in information-rich 2018 feel “there is no easy way to find a good hospital” and “there is no easy way to find a good doctor.”

So, when marketing your award, ranking or designation, making things easier—and ultimately more useful—for consumers requires specificity. It is not sufficient to simply inform consumers that you are a recipient of an award, ranking or designation. You need to convey to consumers why you have earned that recognition and make sure the consumer knows “what’s in it for me.” Otherwise, your eyes may be the only ones on that prize you worked so hard for.

The post The Insighter: Keeping the Eyes on Your Prize appeared first on SPM Marketing & Communications.

While hypothesized for some time, the recent announcement that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase are teaming up to form an independent healthcare company aimed at cutting costs and improving quality shook every corner of the industry. While details are still scarce—and the alliance is currently only confirmed to benefit its roughly one million combined employees—healthcare strategists should start contemplating the potential of a new breed of direct-to-consumer health companies (like Amazon) with an appealing value proposition.

Together, these three firms have sufficient assets to create scalable impact. A beloved shopping, quality and transparency platform in Amazon Prime. Data analytics and an artificial intelligence engine to crunch enrollee data and then recommend products and services. A captive claims processing and enrollment system in Berkshire’s GEICO. More access to cash than seemingly anyone. And a brand (i.e., Amazon) synonymous with great experiences and successful customer-facing innovation.

It’s no secret that the rising cost for quality care has ripened the industry for disruption. And if Amazon’s track record in retail has anything to say, this move isn’t something healthcare strategists should take lightly. This won’t just be a big online pharmacy or hospital purchasing play.

Keeping this in mind, here are three simple lessons you can learn from Amazon.

1. Develop a strategy for achieving true market differentiation
2. Invest in designing great products consistent with that strategy.
3. Spend money to promote your brand and its great products.

I had an English professor in college who used to say, “I refuse to participate in my own diminishment.” If hospitals and health systems don’t embrace meaningful brand differentiation strategy, product development and strategic marketing, they’ll be left to be price-, regulation- and scrap-takers by the market, and, de facto, complicit in their own diminishment and marginalization.

The post Quick Pick: News of the Amazon alliance sent waves through the industry—here’s one perspective appeared first on SPM Marketing & Communications.

Recently SPM published a blog piece about integration and collaboration within a single agency, and what to keep in mind when choosing a partner who will help you achieve your goals. Given my past experiences at large and small agencies, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. Some of it is clearly visible and some of it lingers in the shadows of an agency’s day-to-day workings that clients don’t often see.

In the end, while it can be difficult, approaching a client challenge with an intent to collaborate across multiple disciplines is what delivers the best results for clients time and time again. But not everybody is so quick to agree—in fact, much of the industry seems to have disagreed and thus built out siloed shops around a single channel focus. At SPM, we’ve always taken a holistic, collaborative approach to marketing. This includes full in-house media planning and buying for both offline and online, all while collaborating closely with our creative to synergistically deliver a better combination than either could do separately.

Interestingly enough, a recent Digiday article suggests this structure is returning as more than just a trend. Some of the biggest, well-known creative shops, such as Droga5 and Wieden+Kennedy, are now offering media buying and planning services. In addition, WPP’s Martin Sorrell shared his latest comments from their senior leadership meeting, pointing to a new era of agencies consolidating and simplifying their offerings.

What many of today’s clients want is simple: a single relationship that gives them access to creative, technology and media expertise without having to pay for overlapping services. While many will find this difficult, we know it’s the right thing to do. That’s why we’ve always done it.

Of course we’ve expanded our offering to lean heavily into data and the digital landscape. We’ve created our own in-house relationship with the Trade Desk, brought on digital content strategists and creators, and are constantly looking to optimize both our media and messaging to the right person at the right time. Creative is important, but creative that actually reaches its target and aperture is both highly efficient and highly effective.

Sure it gives us a leg up over our agency competition, but more importantly, it gives our clients a leg up over their competition. So whether you’re looking to explore new media horizons or a new partner to guide you through the process…give us a call. We’d love to be by your side.

The post More Than Just a Trend: The Power of the Single-Agency Relationship Model appeared first on SPM Marketing & Communications.

At SPM, a large part of what helps keep our work fresh is getting out of the office and immersing ourselves in the latest trends of the industry. It turns out Social Media Week Chicago (#SMWChicago) is the perfect chance to do just that: talk face-to-face with some of the leading minds in marketing and advertising, and discuss how we as an agency—and a community—can grow together to keep doing what we do best.

So a few of us packed up and headed downtown to Venue SIX10 for a busy three days of speeches, strategy, and plenty of social. In our own words, check out some of our favorite sessions—and how we hit the ground running by infusing what we learned into our clients’ goals since then.

Paid Media for the Socially Awkward: Planning, Producing and Executing with Confidence – Linda Johnson, President, SOCIALDEVIANT

“There are so many elements involved in paid social that we often get overwhelmed in the immense possibility and constant updates. What we need to do is focus on the true elements of the campaign that we believe will drive success, and let the other parts run their course…. we’ll ultimately make our paid social more efficient and effective.”

-Morgan Lees, Assistant Digital Project Manager

“While we were in this session, we couldn’t help but notice the similarities between this and SPM’s American Health and Life Study. We take the target in each of our different client markets into consideration as a whole in regards to their psychographic characteristics and their healthcare decisions. This allows us to get to know them both as healthcare decision makers AND as people. Better understanding them as consumers can help us to reach them in even more relevant ways – ultimately serving our respective clients in the most optimal fashion.”

–Corine Deutsch, Business Development Manager

The Golden Age of On-Demand Audio – Nazanin Rafsanjani, Creative Director, Gimlet Creative

“I enjoyed hearing the ways they’re using advertising to interact and engage with their listeners. They’re taking online audio advertising to the next level by serving fresh ads delivered by the hosts of their shows in ways that don’t interrupt the listener’s experience.”

–Mary Fisher, Assistant Account Manager

No BS Brands: How to Use Authenticity to Build Loyalty & Drive the Bottom Line – Toby Daniels, Founder & Executive Director, Social Media Week; Greg Auer, Executive Creative Director, Wunderman; Charlie Hart, Director of Digital Marketing, RXBAR

“The ease of Airbnb clearly disrupted the category with a unique and valuable experience. But when the experience isn’t perfect (like not the cleanest sheets), there is an opportunity for a trusted brand (like The Ritz-Carlton) to offer a seal of approval and combine the power of experience and brand.”

–Bill Tourlas, SVP, Innovation & Engagement

Your Social Sucks (Probably) – Jason M Peterson, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, Havas

“The point is that “social media isn’t advertising, it’s social.” We need to be talking with the audience and not talking at the audience. Often there is too much emphasis on what to tell the crowd rather than considering what the crowd will want to hear and engage with – if we hit that nail on the head, it’ll in turn play into the client needs.”

–Lauren Hummel, Account Manager

Straight from the CMOs: Evolving Your Brand in the Content Era – Marta Cyhan, Head of Marketing, Catalina; Marc Landsberg, CEO/Founder, SOCIALDEVIANT; John Rood, SVP, Marketing, Disney Channels Worldwide; Dave Schneider, VP/CMO, Red Wing Shoe Company

“I enjoyed how the panel spoke about how consumer loyalty is more than just a momentary rating—it’s continuous engagement over time, engagement that will ideally develop into a strong relationship, but only if it’s nurtured by the brand. Establishing that relationship can certainly start through social content, but one positive interaction is just a piece of the puzzle.”

–Annie Lambesis, Assistant Communications & Content Manager

As healthcare marketing professionals, we have the privilege of attending these conferences through a special lens. Working to create meaningful relationships for our clients is something we do everyday. Human connection is the very essence of healthcare – and in a time when consumers are craving a deeper relationship with these brands, our jobs are as important as ever.

Curiosity peaked? Check out some of the brand experiences we’ve brought to life, or follow us on Twitter for some more takes from the week!

The post Social Media Week Chicago: Let’s Talk About It! appeared first on SPM Marketing & Communications.

Marketing today is as complex as ever. The more tools and resources that exist for agencies, the more difficult it has become to figure out how to piece together the best solution for clients.

Most agencies’ solutions come in the form of the holding company that offers different solutions in the forms of separate (but related) agencies that “work together” to deliver a complete solution. The problem is, like the variety of cogs in a wheel, the total solution is only as good as each individual solution. And more importantly, the total solution is only as good as how the individual solutions fit together.

At one point in time, the very nature of an “agency” was to bring together the best people and best solution and serve as the single “agent” for the client. The right strategic, creative, media and production solution. It worked for decades. And it was the core of what many would consider the hey-day of advertising.

But something went wrong.

Agencies became caught up in business complexities and strived to create ad hoc solutions that clients could buy by the piece – with the goal of creating separate revenue streams that could compete with one another and deliver greater revenue. It wasn’t completely the agencies’ fault, though. Client procurement departments that could buy on an as-needed basis could seemingly reduce short-term costs.

The rise of digital silos or CRM agency-like vendors provided a temporary solution to a specific client issue. But that solution was myopic and so short-sighted that even those specific agency-like vendors have now found the need to try and expand their offerings into areas (like media buying) where they just don’t have the experience or expertise.

The good news? Some of us never left the traditional agency model.

In SPM’s 30-plus years of partnering with some of the leading health systems and medical centers in the country, we’ve maintained the commitment of solving our clients’ most complex issues. This requires a multi-faceted approach that integrates all of our capabilities – digital, media, creative, insights, and more – working together to deliver a solution that works. When you walk into our office, you won’t find mismatched departments hacking away at problems separately behind closed doors. You’ll find a collaborative culture that’s earned itself a reputation for outstanding work.

So when it comes to choosing a partner who will help you achieve your goals, what exactly should you look for? Here’s a few places to start:

Find someone who speaks multiple marketing languages.

Start with great people who bring together top-notch experience and diverse points of view. In advertising, the old adage “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” is actually true. A creative agency might only solve the problem with creative, a media agency might only solve the problem with media strategy….so on and so forth. As a single agency team, we integrate strategy, research, digital, creative, media and production all from consistent management to help simplify and manage all the pieces. It makes our clients’ jobs easier, reduces the need for multiple agency leads, increases efficiency…and it just makes sense.

From there, let them do what they do best and drive toward a common goal: client success. At SPM, we have a clear and singular vision: to be What’s Next in healthcare marketing. This common purpose is part of what has earned us Modern Healthcare’s Best Places To Work Award the last two years running. Happy people do great things together.

Choose a partner with a passion for your space.

While other holding companies out there are re-engineering, renaming and rethinking how to position themselves, we spend our time engineering, naming and thinking about our clients’ marketing and business challenges. We know the healthcare industry inside out – which allows us a laser-like focus on your brand, and your brand only. Over the past 30 years, we’ve grown and blossomed into a partner who’s well-versed in any and every challenge that could come your way.

Look for creative people, not a creative department.

The idea of creativity manifests itself in more than just the pictures and words that come out of our creative department. We promote the idea that anyone is creative in their own way. From marketing strategies to media plans, and even reporting solutions, creativity lies in every opportunity. It drives us forward, stimulating us to constantly be better. Account people can be creative, media people can be creative, analytics people can be creative – that’s SPM’s vision. That’s What’s Next thinking.

So whether you’re looking for a new agency partner or just curious if anyone out there has figured out the best agency model, you don’t really have to look into the future – just stop by SPM, we’d be glad to show you around.

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