In partnership with the Health Experience Project, GSW has expanded its fourth-annual trends report to include a broader look at the shifts that are changing healthcare marketing.

2014 TRENDS

Do you ever get the feeling that healthcare and people are just missing each other? Healthcare is full of “do this” and “take that” directives. And, people… well, people are full of good intentions, everyday missteps, and hope that it will get better. The kinds of experiences we need to build today – to get people off the sidelines, to change behavior, to earn commitment – aren’t healthcare-marketing-as-usual.Instead, they’re innovative approaches that engage people in new ways.

Overview

MarketingConsumer HealthcareDigital

Here’s the real challenge, though: We live in a world of rapidly changing expectations. But, our approval processes aren’t as fast. They’re long and rely more on insulating risk than innovating experience.

The opportunity is finding the smart risks, the ones that can truly change our marketplaces. To prepare for where the world is going – not just respond to where it’s been.

That’s where trends come in.

Leigh HouseholderChief Innovation OfficerGSW

Abigail Schmelzer Alex BraggAlex Brock Amanda Joly Bruce Rooke Eduardo MenendezJason SankeyJeffrey GiermekJoel GerberJoy HartKathryn Bernish-FisherMark Stinson

Core Contributors

Matt CashMichael DonahoeNick BartlettRupert DooleyRyan DeshazerShawn Mullings Tyler Durbin

We look at trends to understand our customers’ new expectations for brand interactions. The ones built on their day-to-day experiences with technology, culture, and media. This year, we’ve uncovered actionable trends infour key areas: consumer, digital, marketing and healthcare. We’ll use those trends to systematically point to new opportunities for healthcare marketers and spur innovation. 

We’ll ask, “What Could Be?” for healthcare brands and customers. And deliver bold new solutions that change that business-as-usual game.

In ShortBrands are using content marketing and data optimization in an arms race of personal recognition.

ONEFITSALLONE

1.

Nearly 3/4 of consumers get frustrated when presented with non-personalized online experiences.

Dear [insert name]. It looks so simple now, but that was the start of how marketers thought about personalization: simply calling a customer by name.

The promise - and power - of truly personalized marketing has been at the center of the conversation about marketing trends and theory for years.

Now, we’re in a period of rapid, widespread adoption of mass personalization that can be largely attributed to smarter segmentation strategies and more automation.

Hey YouThe majority of marketers are now customizing content based on online messaging exposure (if you liked this, you might like that).

Now, with real-time behavioral data on customers, many are determining each customer’s level of interest in the brand, their loyalty, and their potential forincremental cross selling.

By matching that first-party data with third-party data from other online and offline sources,marketers are delivering ever more personalized content offers andopportunities.

Rapid Scale

74 %

Nearly 3/4 of consumers get frustrated when presented with non-personalized online experiences.

Dear [insert name]. It looks so simple now, but that was the start of how marketers thought about personalization: simply calling a customer by name.

The promise - and power - of truly personalized marketing has been at the center of the conversation about marketing trends and theory for years.

Now, we’re in a period of rapid, widespread adoption of mass personalization that can be largely attributed to smarter segmentation strategies and more automation.

Hey YouThe majority of marketers are now customizing content based on online messaging exposure (if you liked this, you might like that).

Now, with real-time behavioral data on customers, many are determining each customer’s level of interest in the brand, their loyalty, and their potential forincremental cross selling.

By matching that first-party data with third-party data from other online and offline sources,marketers are delivering ever more personalized content offers, and opportunities.

Rapid Scale

74 %

Companies like Spotify, Pandora, and the newly launched iTunes Radio are all built upon a base of active user participation in the development of personalized content to keep you interested forthe long term.  The more you’re willing to participate, the better the service becomes for you, and the less willing you are to jump to a new service.

Personalized Media

In ShortCMO, meet the CCO. In 2014, marketing organizations will be expectedto be “content native.”

CONTENT IN THE C-SUITE

2.

The end of 2013 saw a big shift in the conversation around content. The question moved from, “why is content important to our brand?” to “how do we organize our business around content delivery?”

That new question is a big recognition that content can’t just be a lever of search engine optimization, it has to be how brands live in the digital world. How we connect with today’s enlightened buyer whose very non-linear “path to purchase”is socially influenced and brand inspired.

It’s Time

Creating these new content native organizations has led to the development of new leadership roles and team realignments. Today’s content engineers are part of integrated creative, social and search teams. They’re supported byphotographers, writers and analysts.

New Leadership

Real-time entertainment represents 67% of all peak internet traffic, and nearly 40% of all peak mobile web traffic.

The most usable brand content will be ready to use on the go: to be scanned while waiting in a line, browsed on a second screen, flipped through as mobile fidgeting. That means leaders will be focused on shorter, more actionable posts and shareworthy images. They’ll be thinking beyond static, too, as video becomes an essential component of mobile strategy.

Mobile Differentiator

Netflix

YouTube

iTunes Amazon Video Hulu

In ShortTo draw people in today, marketers are creating new kinds of brand experiences, ones powered by visual spectacle and a lot of clever creativity.

BLURRING THE LINESOF REALITY

3.

View >

1. 2.Three technologies are leading the way in changing our everyday surroundings, by adding layers of images, video, even interactivity.

Projection mapping can changethe face of buildings or create entirely new interactive installations that blur the line between the digital and physical world.

Projection Mapping2014 will see the consumer release of the head-mounted Oculus Rift, a 3D headset with sensors that track the user’s motions at incredible speeds with low-latency.

Virtual Reality

3.Augmented reality has been used todo everything from add another layer ofinformation to a printed page to immerse people in epic video games that take over their physical worlds.

Augmented RealityThese involving experiences reach further than the people who directly use them. Early AR case studies show that AR can not only prompt downloads and increase engagement, but also earn curiosity – significantly increasing other digital behavior, particularly key word searches.

3.Augmented reality has been used todo everything from add another layer ofinformation to a printed page to immerse people in epic video games that take over their physical worlds.

Augmented RealityThese involving experiences reach further than the people who directly use them. Early AR case studies show that AR can prompt downloads and increase engagement, but also earn curiosity – significantly increasing other digital behavior, particularly key word searches.

More and more brands are starting to integrate AR campaigns into their ad budgets.

AR Growth

In ShortForgiving brands do more than sell you a product – they can give you something to feel good about.

THE BRAND FORGIVES YOU

4.

It’s so easy to indulge. The BOGO shopping events, extra caramel and whipped cream on frappuccinos, a long shower that doesn’t end until the hot water runs out.

Life is full of temptation. And, that creeping sense of guilt that goes with it.

Everyday Indulgence

Many consumers are keeping count in their heads – debits and credits that add up tohow “good” they’ve been in a given day.

Rapid Scale

Chipotle was an early entrant in brand penance. It’s most recent “The Scarecrow” video tapped into to people’s uneasy feelings about factory farms and promised Chipotle as the planet-positive choice.

Brands are helping add to the credit column with promises of guilt-free, even guilt-reversing, purchasing. They’re dialing up parts of their message that give consumers permission to feel good about themselves (while still indulging). Their new, winning brand promise, “have a positive impact on yourself, society, or, heck, the whole word.”

Everyday Indulgence

View >

It’s so easy to indulge. The BOGO shopping events, extra caramel and whipped cream on frappuccinos, a long shower that doesn’t end until the hot water runs out.

Life is full of temptation. And, that creeping sense of guilt that goes with it.

Everyday Indulgence

Many consumers are keeping count in their heads – debits and credits that add up tohow “good” they’ve been in a given day.

Rapid Scale

Chipotle was an early entrant in brand penance. It’s most recent “The Scarecrow” video tapped into to people’s uneasy feelings about factory farms and promised Chipotle as the planet-positive choice.

Brands are helping add to the credit column with promises of guilt-free, even guilt-reversing, purchasing. They’re dialing up parts of their message that give consumers permission to feel good about themselves (while still indulging). Their new, winning brand promise, “have a positive impact on yourself, society, or, heck, the whole word.”

Everyday Indulgence

View >

When asked about their own diet and levels of physical activity, and to assign themselves a grade from ‘A’ to ‘F’, US consumers gave themselves an average grade of ‘C+’ for their level of physical ac-tivity, and their personal diets an average grade of‘B-’. Only 12% gave themselves an ‘A’ or ‘A-’.

Grade

In ShortBrands are taking a page out of the Beltway’s playbook to get fans “on message” in every medium.

GUARANTEED TO REPEAT

5.

If you’ve ever watched the Sunday morning news shows, you know what “talking points” are. They’re the short list of memorable catchphrases that politicians develop and repeat over and over and over again in interviews until they solidify into fact.

Talking Points

Listen to Apple’s next launch. You’ll hear each exec repeat the desired headline at least twice, sometimes three times.

The first brands to pick up the practice were technology companies. At launch events and in all the interviews that follow, they use short, repeatable phrases to frame the topic the way they want the public to talk about it. The #1 hallmark of this ready-to-pass on language is brevity. The phrases people remember and repeat are about half as long as your average tweet.

Launch Language

These clever headlines aren’t slogans, they’re hooks that change the context people wrap around the product. It works because the brain looks for the big picture before details. Once we have that big picture filter, it changes the long-tail of search, the comparative criteria for similar products, and certainlythe expectations for the experience.

Beyond Social

If you’ve ever watched the Sunday morning news shows, you know what “talking points” are. They’re the short list of memorable catchphrases that politicians develop and repeat over and over and over again in interviews until they solidify into fact.

Talking Points

Listen to Apple’s next launch. You’ll hear each exec repeat the desired headline at least twice, sometimes three times.

The first brands to pick up the practice were technology companies. At launch events and in all the interviews that follow, they use short, repeatable phrases to frame the topic the way they want the public to talk about it. The #1 hallmark of this ready-to-pass on language is brevity. The phrases people remember and repeat are about half as long as your average tweet.

Launch Language

These clever headlines aren’t slogans, they’re hooks that change the context people wrap around the product. It works because the brain looks for the big picture before details. Once we have that big picture filter, it changes the long-tail of search, the comparative criteria for similar products, and certainlythe expectations for the experience.

Beyond Social

“Most forward-thinking smartphone in the world.”

Easily Repeatable

In ShortAfter years of answer algorithms and recommendation engines, the human touch is once again the new gold standard.

THE HUMAN IN THE MACHINE

6.

Welcome back, curators. It turns out that data alone can’t create the perfect brand experience. The human touch is what sets apart something we think you’d like from something we can’t wait to tell you about.

People Powered

Brands are borrowing from the hyper-personalized approaches of luxury goods to give their customers a sense of exclusivity powered by access and accuracy.

Access: to collections designed by the love/it hate it whim of celebrity or the savvy preferences of the almost-just-like-me athlete role model.

Accuracy: through questions that sound like a personality quiz but give curators just the right insight to recommend everything from the right snack to the perfect blue jeans.

Luxury Inspired

These interactions are delivered on big come-one-come-all websites and events, but they quickly move people to a very personal 1:1 experience in the form of pop-up concierges, celebrity curators, even real-live personal shoppers. This very-human point of view is changing the website experience, even leading people to expect - of all things - an actual phone call to follow up.

Hyper Personalized

Welcome back, curators. It turns out that data alone can’t create the perfect brand experience. The human touch is what sets apart something we think you’d like from something we can’t wait to tell you about.

People Powered

Brands are borrowing from the hyper-personalized approaches of luxury goods to give their customers a sense of exclusivity powered by access and accuracy.

Access: to collections designed by the love/it hate it whim of celebrity or the savvy preferences of the almost-just-like-me athlete role model.

Accuracy: through questions that sound like a personality quiz but give curators just the right insight to recommend everything from the right snack to the perfect blue jeans.

Luxury Inspired

These interactions are delivered on big come-one-come-all websites and events, but they quickly move people to a very personal 1:1 experience in the form of pop-up concierges, celebrity curators, even real-live personal shoppers. This very-human point of view is changing the website experience, even leading people to expect - of all things - an actual phone call to follow up.

Hyper Personalized

Companies like Trunk Club and Indinchino offer apersonal stylist  who handpicks a trunk of high-end clothes and ships it to you for free.

The service is way more hands-on than first time users expect. After completing an online form, they receive a phone call from their stylist and answer questions about their real lives - not just their messy closets.

Handpicked

In ShortIn big data lies the potential for revolutionizing, well, everything. But this year marketers are thinking much smaller.

THEBIG DATAREVOLT

7..

Data visualization to make data instantly meaningful

VisualizationSmall data to find numbers that are instantly actionable

Small DataReplace big data with instincts and category experience

Revolt

Remember how data was supposed to be the new creative? The new competitive advantage? Even the new oil? In 2014, we’ll still be trying to crack that code, leading many marketers to ask: Is it really worth it?

The Unfulfilled Promise

We expect to see three main strategy shifts:

During this lull in the dream of data, automation will continue to improve, creating more sophisticated systems that can cull through the sea of data to deliver greater insight against specific business objectives and more seamless activation / personalization in key marketing channels.

Behind the Scenes

74% of marketers say they need to be better at analyzing data.

53% of marketers say they have more data than they know what to with.

Only 8% of marketers say it’s been easy to convert data into intelligence.

74 % 53 % 8 %

During this lull in the dream of data, automation will continue to improve, creating more sophisticated systems that can cull through the sea of data to deliver greater insight against specific business objectives and more seamless activation / personalization in key marketing channels.

Behind the Scenes

74% of marketers say they need to be better at analyzing data.

53% of marketers say they have more data than they know what to with.

Only 8% of marketers say it’s been easy to convert data into intelligence.

74 % 53 % 8 %

Our ability to generate data far outstrips our abilityto analyze it. So, some brands and even scientists are crowdsourcing the investigation.

The New York Times and Washington Post have posted the text files of major legislation, asking readers to quickly uncover questions and hidden sweetheart deals.

Crowdsourcing

In ShortToday, our favorite stories are told in pictures.

AGE OF VISUAL CULTURE

7..

The old saying “a picture is wortha thousand words” may need to be updated in 2014 to “a picture replaces a thousand words.”

The communications we value most today are images that tell stories more quickly and succinctly than words or headlines ever could.

1,000 Words

Technology is a big driver of thevisual shift. More people are engaging with social media via their smartphones and they’ve discovered that typing out a blog post on a two-inch keyboard is just short of impossible.

But more than hardware, pictures have tapped into a core human need to make sense of the vast amount of information we’re exposed to every day. They’re easy to sort, scan, and feel in control of.

Technology + Volume

The visual web is driving the rise of Pinterest & Tumblr with growth rates of 88% and 74% respectively over the last 12 months.

In 2013, several image-heavy networks were sold for $1 billion or more. Aging web companies - like Facebook (bought Instagram) and Yahoo (bought Tumblr) - believed these new social destinations would be their own fountain of youth.

This visual content and the visual surge is prompting marketers to communicate differently, too. They’re telling stories in pictures and video, earning gestures (likes and forwards), and creating share-worthy illustrations and graphics.

Mobile Differentiator

Tumblr

Pinterest

Twitter LinkedIn

SourcesJanrain & Harris Interactive, 2013, eMarketer, CompTIA, 2013, ABI Research, 2013, International Food Information Council Foundation, May 2013, Sandvine, 2H 2013

To discuss this report live, request another module, or schedule a presentation of trends, please contact Leigh Householder at 614-543-6496 or leigh.householder@gsw-w.com