Full episode transcript.
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[00:00:00]
Desiree Duncan: Welcome everyone to the No Normal show brought to you by BPD. This is where we leave all things status quo, traditional old school, and boring in the dust, and celebrate the new, the powerful, the innovative, the bold, while delivering the future to healthcare’s leading brands. I’m Desiree Duncan, vice President of Health Equity and Inclusion, and today I’m joined by, of course, Stephanie Werewell, EVP of Engagement.
Hi, Steph.
Stephanie Wierwille: Hi de.
Desiree Duncan: Hi. And then we have of course, a very special guest, longtime friend of BPD Nicole Baxter, chief Brand Officer of HHA Healthcare. Welcome to the po Nicole. Excited to have you.
nicole: So excited to be here. Des and hello Stephanie.
Stephanie Wierwille: Hello. This is gonna be a fun chat. I am so excited to hear everything you have to say about all things brand and culture and everything going on in your world.
nicole: It’s gonna be fun. I always have fun talking to the two of you, so I’m excited to see where the discussion goes. You never know.
Desiree Duncan: Exactly. But before we get into all that, I know we’re gonna, because of your role [00:01:00] brand officer, we’re gonna talk about all things brand. You know, some of, I know Stephanie’s favorite conversations and mine as well. I love to just kind of go down all of the tangents and, and throw things at folks on this.
But, but before we jump into that what are you kinda getting into? I know you, you’ve been talking about the Stanley Cup. What’s been exciting for you during this playoff season?
nicole: Yeah, my son Grayson, who’s 12 recently took up hockey and so I have become a. Expert in all things Stanley Cup and and stats and all the things that he talks about. Like it’s just second nature to him. And I’ve been entertaining myself through the Stanley Cup process that he is loving going through is by really engaging with a lot of the and, you know, looking at how that brand is representing itself.
Not a brand I would organ, you know, usually go deep into, but in terms of just being a very traditional longstanding brand in, in all of North [00:02:00] America, really looking at how are they establishing themselves with the next generation and how are they staying relevant? So I think it’s very interesting for anyone who’s interested to look at how they really invoke emotion into. This very, you know, special but high pressure time of their sport. So it’s been interesting to, to look, take a look at that.
Desiree Duncan: Would you say it feels a bit different from N-F-L-N-B-A in that regard?
nicole: You know, Des no one will ever accuse me of being a, a sports expert. I’ll tell you that for sure. I get laughed at often when I try to make, you know, two yard play examples or hit it out of the ballpark examples. I’m constantly being told that’s the wrong sport or that’s the wrong reference. So I do think the NFL from. And admittedly I got into the NFL when Taylor Swift got involved in the NFL, but I do think it’s interesting how they’ve capitalized on, on that sort of social currency of [00:03:00] Taylor Swift and how they’ve, they’ve leveraged. I don’t wanna get any negative comments for affiliating Taylor Swift to the NFL, but I do think it is, you know, for, for an audience that’s been untapped for generations, has really started to take a new look at, at the game.
Stephanie Wierwille: Well, you’re in good company here because both Des and I joke sometimes about sports ball and our lack of understanding. So yes, I’m with you on like Taylor Swift got me into football a little bit. More recently the show Running Point with Kate Hudson got me into basketball. So anything that gets me into hockey or basketball and hockey’s been having its moment for the last decade or so.
So I, I, I love the way you’re coming at this ’cause I actually think, you know, your point about broadening to new audiences is, is really interesting.
Desiree Duncan: Speaking of which, it, it’s funny, something came up around this is when I was at Shushed and Snoop Dogg actually talked. About wanting to get into NHL by a team so that he can help push the brand forward. He saw what was going on, of course, with NBA and NFL, [00:04:00] which is why I brought him up. But that he feels like there’s really this great opportunity, especially what we’ve been seeing with the WNBA.
Like I will always be pushing that ’cause I’ve been obsessed with watching that brand thrive, but.
nicole: yeah, I think Des he was, and I stand to be corrected, but I think he, if I recall correctly, he was one of the coaches for one of the games they did out in la that one of the NHL to benefit the firefighters. And I just have to say, so I’m a huge Snoop fan. I think he’s amazing and I think two of the best brand. Examples in the world are Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, the
Stephanie Wierwille: Yes.
nicole: been able to, like I remember listening to, you know, Snoop Dogg when I was in high school and he was cool then, and that was a long time ago. And he has reinvented himself and reinvented himself and stayed relevant. I mean, people just. He has built brand equity for himself in a way that is [00:05:00] just to be admired. Whether, regardless of what you think of him, he is a, a brand genius, in my opinion.
Desiree Duncan: 1000% ’cause it came up. ’cause they were talking about like, you know, your brand legacy and this keynote speaker was the difference between like these nineties stars who got their start or rappers even. It was between vanilla ice. And Snoop Dogg and Vanilla Ice was still very much talking about like, oh, I missed the nineties.
The nineties were great. And it’s like, Ooh, sweetie. That was like 30 years ago. And where Snoop Dogg has been just continuing to rebrand, as you had mentioned, so.
nicole: absolutely.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, we wanna dive in a little deep about, you know, who you are and a little bit of your, your background. I know that you actually grew up in Canada, which doesn’t have exactly the same kind of healthcare set up the way that we do in the us. So I’m very curious, how did you get into healthcare marketing and branding based off of that?
nicole: I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s astounding that after all these years, so I grew up [00:06:00] in Canada and the United States, but very familiar with I went to university, in Alberta and never would’ve dreamed, and I didn’t even know that healthcare marketing was a thing right when, when I was growing up and. After university moved to Boston, I wanted to be Ellie McBeal, if I’m being totally honest.
My, that she was my point of reference back then that’s gonna date me. But, and tried to break into advertising and was, rejected is a strong word, but, you know, I had no experience. I applied it many different Boston based agencies and could not get my foot in the door. Ended up moving back to Florida. After a couple of wonderful years in Boston and met a woman who happened to be a CEO for HCA healthcare, and she was located in Palm Beach, and it was more about just loving her energy and loving what she stood for and not really [00:07:00] understanding the role itself, but it was an entry level position into marketing.
And I give her a lot of credit and a lot of people that I grew, you know, started the job with. Teaching me. ’cause again, I don’t, I don’t have a degree in, in marketing or in healthcare. And just being able to observe and listen and speak to the physicians, learn from the physicians, learn from people around me.
And I really almost instantly loved it. I loved the mission behind, you know, talking about the stories that I was witnessing in this hospital every day. Being able to stand and be part of these incredible stories and, and to spread the word of what I saw, these physicians and nurses and administrators and custodians and, and, you know, transporters and all these people that I interacted with every day.
You know, how do we tell that story and, and how do we fulfill that mission in ways beyond the hospital? And that’s what really got me into it. And gosh, it’s been, I just had my 20th anniversary. [00:08:00] At HCA healthcare in January, I can’t believe it, it seems like seconds and, and you know, 30 years all at the same time.
So, yeah, it’s, that’s how I got into it. And, and I’ve continued to, to love and, and build upon it from the people that I’ve had the pleasure of learning from and, and working alongside all these years.
Desiree Duncan: I love that. Congrats.
Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. That’s amazing. And I love hearing your story. I have a question for you. So I think that just, you know, having been around you a little bit for the last year plus, it’s been incredible to see your incredible knack for, you have this knack of like. Distilling a, an insight, right? And identifying and being like, I heard this from a physician and it made me think X, Y, Z, or, I saw this from a nurse and it made me think, what if like, you’re very much a, a big thinker, a visionary, and you have this ability to, to be a sponge and summarize and identify this incredible idea.
Is that something that you [00:09:00] feel like. You were born with, or did you develop that? Did it come over your time of, you know, those, those last couple decades? Like where did that come from?
nicole: Thank you.
That’s a very nice compliment, Stephanie. I think I think that it’s two, two part. I think some of that intrinsically is, is who I am and, and who I’ve always been. But I think keeping that tool sharp and, and, you know, continually, continuously educating myself. But I think the most important thing you said, and, and what I try to do and I’m not always great at it, but really try to pay attention and listen. And, you know, we’ve talked about this as a group many times that inspiration is literally everywhere. And it can come from the physician, it can come from someone, you know, you see on the street. It can come from a message or an ad from a a, a message that’s completely outta category. Just paying attention and listening and, and [00:10:00] observing and, and connecting the dots. Is, is is hard, but it’s easier if you are continuously listening and, and looking and seeing, and people will give you inspiration beyond your, your wildest expectations if you just pay attention. I think.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah. I, I, I love that. And I, I, I’m always kind of looking outside, of course, like our industry, but just kind of looking and just whenever I travel, trying to see like what kind of makes this area, you know, tick or different. But I’m curious, what’s been the most inspiring things that you’ve been seeing here lately?
nicole: Oh my gosh. So I, you and I talked about this last week. I had just had the privilege of traveling to Spain my sister, and I think even, I mean, it was a, the most incredible time and the most incredible experience. But even getting out of your. Environment and getting out of the, the [00:11:00] things that you are interacting with.
I mean, I have a tendency, I’m sure we all do of this routine. You know, you’re in this routine and the things that you do every day, and I think to your point, Des in different environments, but then also looking outside of healthcare. We talk about this all the time as a group, you know, how do we think about redefining our competition? And you, we were joking last week when we were talking about Netflix as an example. So Netflix and I learned this, gosh, several years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since, and I use this as an example. Netflix does not describe their competition as Hulu or Disney Plus or Max. They describe their competition as sleep, and I think Steph, you had an example from another, I’m trying to remember which one that was.
Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, it was the beverage category. So Dr. Pepper, Keurig describes their, their category as stomach. So share of stomach is what they’re trying to do. [00:12:00] And it’s, it’s not about knockout Coca-Cola, though, of course, that’s part of the goal, but it’s also about what are people snacking on or, you know, it could be water, it could be anything that you’re putting in your body.
So the competition is so much broader than the direct competitors.
nicole: right. I think, and I feel very strongly about this and I, I spent a lot of time thinking about this and talking about this and, you know, sort of the, I I just telling Dez last week, the. I think I’ve said this so many times that I’ve convinced myself that I said it, but it, it was a quote, it was for sure quoted from someone else.
I’m, I’m borrowing their words, but the, the boring slot in healthcare marketing is taken. And if you look at this sea of sameness of healthcare, marketing banking, you know, I think has caught up a little bit. But you look at these highly regulated industries, and highly regulated doesn’t mean boring.
I mean, you can still. Be authentic. You can be emotional and not looking in the rear view mirror all the time at what your competitors’ competitors are doing, but what [00:13:00] are the, the audiences that we are trying to engage with? I. Looking at, you know, my son, I mentioned Grayson, is, is 12. I was reading a stat the other day about the average attention span over the last 20 years has gone from 12 and a half seconds to six seconds. People would accuse my attention span of being less than a second, but we’ll save that for another discussion. when we order something from Amazon, hi. If it’s not there the next day, his reaction as a 12-year-old Gen Z. Audience is, why is this taking so long? And so as we think about behaviors changing and this generation comparing how we interact with them to Instacart, Amazon, shipped, you know, all these sort of on demand delivery services and how the expectations have changed and hospitality, how hospitality and Airbnb and Uber have disrupted and changed how people look at [00:14:00] things. I think we would be foolish healthcare marketers not to pay attention to that. And, and I think we’re catching up with, with how to do that in a meaningfully different way.
Desiree Duncan: I mean, especially in a hospital, like it’s, it’s in the title, like we’re at, at our core, we’re in the hospitality game. essentially looking at what are others in this particular world, what are they doing to create that experience for their, their visitors or, or who are thinking about that from a standpoint, from patients.
So I know that that’s very much on top of mind for you as well, right.
nicole: Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, I think that. The hardest thing as a brand person or as a marketing person, especially in healthcare, is, is the internal persuasion of brand is not a logo. Brand is not your advertising brand is not the sign on the door, you know, fill in the blank. [00:15:00] Brand is the experience. Brand is how we’re making people feel.
Brand is how we’re making our colleagues feel when they, you know, interact with us. When we engage with them, I. Our patients, our physicians, and I think taking a. Human look at what does that mean? And I think you guys give you a lot of credit for, for the work that you have, have done in this category with sort of breaking the mold and, and how do we get really deep into do we understand the audience?
How do we sort of get inside the heads of, of motivations, not just functional, but emotional as well. And I think that’s. What’s changing the game for
Desiree Duncan: Mm-hmm.
nicole: and I think that’s what could ultimately change the category. And hey, at the end of the day, all healthcare is trying to take care of patients and take care of our people and and provide healthier tomorrows.
And I think that as a category, as an industry, if we all sort of move in that [00:16:00] direction, it ultimately benefits the patient and it benefits our people. So that’s my perspective on that.
Stephanie Wierwille: I love that. I wanna pull it a. Pull it a thread here. ’cause I think you’re, you’re kind of combining so many really interesting and connected thoughts, so I love this point you make about the competition first and foremost. And I think that ties so beautifully to what you were talking about around inspiration comes from everywhere.
So if we think about the competitive set of, not other hospitals necessarily, but I’m hearing you talk about, you know, how, how people take care of themselves, get care health. Even hospitality. How would you, how do you sort of define what is the broadest competitive set in your mind for health, for healthcare?
nicole: I think the competitive set is. The, the products that people are engaging with that ultimately define their experiences and their expectations. And that
Stephanie Wierwille: Hmm.
nicole: may be different [00:17:00] depending on what segment we’re talking about. So another thing we’ve talked about both Steph and and and Des is it’s not a one size fits all, right?
I mean, you think about, I remember if I can tell you a funny story, I remember. The CFO is not, will not watch this, but he’ll know who he is. I remember bringing a strategy, gosh, probably 15 years ago, and it was all centered around women’s health and the OB category and, and how are we engaging differently when back then it was so transactional and, you know, how do we pull out that emotional component You know, worked with the agency on putting a pretty, what I thought was a pretty creative and and innovative approach, and brought it to the CFO, I think it was to get signed off on from a budgetary standpoint. And looked at it and said, I don’t like it. And I remember saying to him, and thank. Goodness.
I did [00:18:00] not get walked out the door after I said, when you become a 30-year-old woman, your opinion matters. And that is another thing that we are moving towards. We’re not there yet, but that, you know, understanding your target audience. That a 30-year-old woman is not a 55-year-old man and a 65-year-old female is not a 40-year-old man.
And, and people have different motivations. Their perceptions are shaped by their generation, by their technology, by their environment. I. And I, I don’t think you think about, you mentioned the beverage category or, or fill in the blank banking even. They are so hypersegmented on their approach with language and media and all the things that they use to engage with this audiences, but it’s not a, let’s see what. Sticks to the wall and talk. I think if you talk to everybody the same, [00:19:00] you’re, you’re talking to no one because it’s, I mean, even the three of us, if you think about ages are different. Our experiences are different, our locations are different and, and we’re shaped by, you know, hearing things differently.
And so I think we’ve gotta, as a industry, pay attention and be sensitive to that.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, I, I know Marcus Collins is a favorite of yours as well as ours. And he mentions that, you know, things are the way that we are. Right? And so how we’re gonna take something in is going to vary. But I, that emotional state you had mentioned, ’cause healthcare is very emotional, you know, it’s scary. It can be scary, it can be a relief. And so you really wanna take a, a lot of that into consideration, especially for that experience standpoint. I’ll, I’ll give a little anecdote. This was not a sponsored response to this, but as an, as a native Nashville and, you know, kind of growing up with HCA in my backyard, my aunt worked at what used to be [00:20:00] called the Centennial Hospital.
So I used to spend quite a bit of time there just hanging out because we would go visit her. But. You know, speaking of what you had mentioned about 30-year-old women essentially. you’re given birth or where you go to give birth, you kind of stay with that health system. And, you know, we went to a midtown located hospital when I was a kid. Mostly ’cause I, that’s where I was born and so that’s where we always went. And so when my mom had a scare, I took her there. But that experience was. Not great. And then she went in for a heart stint and it was her, the heart doctor happened to be at this Tristar centennial and my mom just raved about the patient experience and so to so much to the point that gonna be flipping and thinking about, you know, where are we gonna go moving forward?
Like, do we change our doctors or what have you. But so much, again, it just. Reiterate the emotion behind this. And it’s like, who took care of me, who [00:21:00] took care of my family, my close friends when they were really in the most need and thought about all those things. And that’s where, where you kind of carry on like that loyalty.
nicole: Yeah,
Desiree Duncan: I.
nicole: I think you know, to your point. People remember the moments and, you know, you can have a great outcome medically and, and not have the best experience because of number of factors. And I think what you’re saying there is so critical that it’s, it’s, it’s gotta be this combination of great care and hospitality and or experience.
Fill in, fill in the word. Actually the, I think we talked about this. Several times I, I should get a royalty from recommending this book. But The Unreasonable Hospitality, I don’t know if you guys have read that by Will Guera, who was the head of operations, at a, the number one restaurant in the world 11 Madison Park, [00:22:00] he wrote a book almost describing what you’re, what you’re talking about.
This, this idea of. Operations paired with experience and, and how these, these moments that are created and how do we tell those stories as marketers and, and sort of be the over the shoulder view in, in being able to share those experiences. I think it’s, I think it’s such an honor to be able to be a part of something like that.
Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, I, it is been a minute since I’ve read that book, so I need to go back and read it again. But I, I, I love, I love what you’re talking about in terms of, you know, brand. It’s not a logo, it’s not a sign. It’s, it’s, it’s so much bigger. It’s how, how you make people feel, and that’s why the experience is part of it, right?
It’s not about. Advertising. It’s so much bigger and I, you know, just connecting around the fact that healthcare is the most emotional industry there could ever be. And yet for some reason, most of [00:23:00] healthcare is very clinical in nature in terms of the marketing. It’s very features and benefits forward.
And I think what you’re talking about is this idea that it’s almost unquantifiable how much brand can create an emotional connection, which. That is, that is the magic that then makes longtime lifetime loyal patients, which then creates, of course, you know, patient lifetime value. I think one of the other sides that I see you and your team doing doing so well that’s very unique actually in this industry, is thinking about the emotional connection with physicians, with colleagues and the business value of that.
I would say so many health systems tend to think of internal comms. As you know, that’s where we talk to physicians. And I love that you all really think of brand as so broad. You’re thinking about the emotional connection we can create with consumers, with our people, and how all of it ties together.
nicole: Yeah, I have a, I am so blessed and lucky to [00:24:00] have partners in this company. Our, our head of communications, Maryann Hodge, and I, I think over the years have really, I think, I hope d discover the secret sauce in terms of how do we. How do we message internally, which is really the, you know, her team, but then how do we compliment her efforts with internal activation and marketing to our own people?
And I truly believe and have been, this has sort of been my soapbox for the last little while, and you guys know this, if we can’t win our people from a, from a, if they don’t know our message, if they don’t know our why, if they don’t know our brand, then. know, it’s all for Naugh because you can’t be messaging externally from a transactional perspective without the inside of the house.
Understanding who we are and what we stand for. to your point, and this again a I use all the time and Des [00:25:00] alluded to this is not a department. You know I am, I am. I tell people all the time, I am not. In charge of brand, I can, I can help facilitate, you know, the messaging around that and the packaging of it.
But every single employee our transporters, our, our environmental work service workers, our physicians, our nurses, our valet, our front, you know, volunteers. Leadership, they are all responsible and owners of the brand and these experiences that are happening every day in all of our sites of care everywhere. And that’s a big responsibility. But it is, you think about, and you know, and again, I’ll show my bias I think HC Healthcare is a company that always puts its people first and that always. you know, aligns to that why around the patient and, and everything we’re doing around remission is, is inspiring and, and it creates brand ambassadors [00:26:00] I think.
Stephanie Wierwille: So I have a question for you. So we’ve been talking lately on this podcast about the importance of partnering across disciplines, across functions. You know, with. Between marketing comms, between marketing and finance, between brand and experience, strategy, you name it. And so you just mentioned, you know, an a, a great partnership that you have.
How, what, what do you think are the best ways to create really good partnerships? Synergy to use a corporate word here, but really good partnerships across functions.
nicole: I think there are no words more motivating in a partnership than can you help me You know, I, I certainly am smart enough to know that I’m not smart enough to know at all, and there are so many amazing people in this organization rarely if, actually never have, I [00:27:00] approached someone in this organization and, and said, can you help me? Think about this or can you help me, you know, sift through this, this mess of thoughts in my head and, and see how we can collaborate on this. Not once has someone said, no, I don’t have time to help you with that, or, I don’t, I don’t wanna engage with you on that. I think sometimes, you know, forcing an issue that’s coming from your agenda. Is off-putting to people. And I think if, if you approach everything from there, there’s no, I, it’s, we you know, we as an organization, we as a company, us as a team, I think that’s where the magic happens. I think that’s the secret sauce. You know, surrounding yourself with people that, that are smarter than you and that can think differently and not being afraid to look at outside opinions, which is why I, I value both [00:28:00] internal and external perspectives.
I think sometimes the external partnerships I have got push me to think in ways that I didn’t even know I was thinking about, or that I thought it was possible to think about. And then the internal piece is taking one puzzle piece. Another puzzle piece and figuring out you may be missing one other puzzle piece, and how do you start to bring those things together? I, I would, I’ll tell you this, I would not be where I am. I would not be happy every day. I would not be fulfilled as a person, as a, as a, as an individual if I did not have the partnerships that I had and the, the team that I get to work with every day. I. That’s what makes me happy.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, you’re so right. It’s all about the relationships and, you know, really making sure that that’s strong so that the work you’re able to do together through the ups and the downs you know, really, really sings. You know, when you mentioned that it’s I, I guess I’m curious ’cause we’re always, there’s this anxious part of [00:29:00] us that always feels like we need to already have the answer or, you know, don’t ever show anyone that you don’t know. You know what kind of gave you that confidence to be able to say, Hey, yeah, I don’t know, but let’s figure this out together.
nicole: Gosh, I mean, des it goes back to people that I to learn from, right? It was being surrounded very early in my career with, and gosh, I remember, I won’t go into too many of ’em, but there was a lot of mistakes that I made. One funny one was not realizing that I had a budget when I was you know, at the hospital.
And I remember my CEO coming in and what are you doing? And, you know, just, and, and you know, that was a very tactical mistake. Got fixed. But, you know, I think about that I’ve taken and I’ve always felt the security of the leadership that I’ve had. [00:30:00] And the company that I’m, I’m, I’m able to be a part of.
And listen, I don’t wanna make mistakes every day, but if I make mistakes once in a while, I think that’s okay. And I think as, as leaders, as you know, we move into leadership roles, sort of modeling what, what, what you wanted and, and what you had. And, and you know, I want, and we’ve talked, I think we’ve talked about this too. Now, I keep saying that we, I guess we’ve talked about a lot of stuff over the last couple years, but you think about the Koch model, right? The, the, their philosophy around. Innovation and marketing is 70% of the stuff they’re gonna do or they’re gonna spend their investment on is stuff they know is gonna work.
And 20% is stuff that they’re not really sure is gonna work, but they have a high level of confidence. And 10 is they don’t know if it’s gonna work and they don’t care. And you think about. Those Coke cans that, that have, you know, Stephanie on the side or Dez on the side, or team on the side, whatever, those, you know, [00:31:00] all the words, I’m seeing ’em come back too. that was a, a billion dollar, 10% project. I mean, that was something that, that someone thought of that, that no one really thought was gonna work. it, it created revenues beyond their wildest expectations. And I think for me, I. know, you’ve gotta build the trust. And it goes back to des what you said.
If, if people trust you you’re not gonna make wildly decisions, but they’re rooted in something matters, it’s okay to take a little risk because you’ve built that confidence over time. So I think it’s easier to do to Steph, to answer your question, I think risk is easier. The more established you get in your career. But I love risk takers. I love surrounding myself with risk takers. I love ideas. I, I don’t, you know, that theme around, there’s no bad, I really don’t believe. I think [00:32:00] everything should be put up as an option and then you whittle it down to what we can do. But I don’t think if someone says, I have a crazy idea, they’re getting invited in my office.
Stephanie Wierwille: Oh, I love that. Let’s have a crazy idea party. Just crazy ideas only. No safe ideas. I love that you bring up the 70 20 10 model. I, I am obsessed with that, and I think it’s so applicable in healthcare because this is a risk-based industry. I mean, at its core, healthcare is all about preventing risk, right?
That’s what we’re here to do in terms of operations. And so operational and, and, and the healthcare industry is an operation driven industry as it should be. And so from a marketer’s vantage point, I think, you know, we see across the entire industry there is a little bit, well, I would say a lot of risk averseness.
And, and so I think it’s so refreshing to say no. 10% of our efforts should be about. Innovation, 70% is what’s gonna carry it. 70% is what we know is gonna work. It’s gonna bring [00:33:00] that financial impact. But if we don’t ever do the 10%, we’ll never get to those Coke bottle ideas like you said. And you know, if 70% is our, a hundred percent, if you will, now I’m using all kinds of weird math here, but, but then it’s just gonna look like it’s always looked and it’s status quo.
And so it’s so refreshing for you to say, bring the crazy bring, bring the think different,
nicole: Yeah,
I feel like I’m just totally ripping off all of apple’s taglines here. But yes, I, I, you know, we had an activation here that I. Gosh. And you guys know what it is months ago that, that our agency came up with. And reaction here at the beginning was that seems a little out there.
And it was all around, you know, act activating emotion with our colleagues and it, it an investment and it was, something that had never been done before. And. Until the day we [00:34:00] launched it, it was, I’m not sure if this is a good idea and should we be doing this? And we did it and it, I will tell you, it is the number one thing now that we get requests from the hospitals and from the divisions to do I. Because it is different and it’s, it’s not an ad, it’s not a, you know, a tactical execution. It’s something that is, is really getting to the root of connection and emotion. And I think that was, when you were talking stuff, I was thinking I might correct myself and say, you know, not risk averse, but not, you know, it’s, it’s, I don’t wanna be innovation averse because certainly there is, there is a lot of that we have to be care and I never want to create risk. For the company, it’s how do we create innovation in a industry that is so highly regulated through different activations and through different emotional pieces and, and things like that. And to, you know, I, whenever you say the traditional, I always just imagine, you [00:35:00] know, the doctors with the arms crossed, with the stethoscopes and, you know, all the, the ads. That we’ve all seen that just, you could like insert logo here and that’s what I’m trying to get away from is, is let’s talk to people from a marketing standpoint, a brand standpoint, in a human forward, emotional forward, in an audience forward way.
Desiree Duncan: It is almost like you have to keep that entrepreneurial spirit or that, you know, that startup energy going, you know, throughout your career. You know, stay curious is always kind of the, the motto that I follow.
nicole: I love that. I love, love.
Stephanie Wierwille: I like the reframing though, of innovation Averse. I think that’s a really good reframing because in, in healthcare to innovate, it takes an understanding of what’s possible and not possible, and there’s a lot that’s not possible, right? So it [00:36:00] doesn’t mean. You know, to never say no because there are many things that should not be done right.
But it just means, you know, you mentioned it takes experience to know when you can innovate. And I, I think that’s important too. To really be able to say, like, it takes experience to know, okay, this is something we should put a bet on, and that is not.
nicole: I think to, I think to kind of on to what you’re saying too, Steph, and you’re just making me think, and I admittedly am not good at this, so let me put that disclaimer out there, but I think the. Focus of prioritization in the things you’re trying to do. and not to not get too distracted by too many things at the same time.
And I think that’s where sometimes innovation dies is if you are. Going after 50 new things at the same time versus two great things, two great new things at the same time. And I have, I mean, such an amazing team that [00:37:00] keeps me focused. ’cause again, admittedly, you know, I’m not a, a naturally focused person in terms of prioritization, but, I think you gotta always keep first things first and what are you trying to accomplish? And if you’re trying to break outta the sea of sameness, making sure or be more innovative as a company, how is everything laddering back to that objective? it gets hard, you know, in a, in a big company, in a small company, it, you know, things are flying at you nonstop.
And so how do you focus? And I love Des what you said so much, you know, stay curious. I think that is. The smartest thing in terms of, you know, we as leaders, we as marketers, we as communicators, we as all the things, if we’re not curious about the next thing
Desiree Duncan: Yeah.
nicole: know, it gets, it gets stale pretty quick.
Desiree Duncan: And I think that, that, when I think about creativity, which I don’t get to be as creative that often but a lot of [00:38:00] times your most creative ideas comes from those limitations. I. So, like, Stephanie, to your point where you were saying about like, there’s so many things that you feel, you know, being within healthcare that you can’t do, but there is always that little shining diamond that you can rub out from all of that limitations because you’re really making yourself, you know, stay curious, think outside of the box to get to that solution when there, when you are up against so many different obstacles. So, but I, what was that?
nicole: Oh no, I was just, I was just agreeing with you and I think. Two. I mean, I think about the two of you, and I’m not saying this ’cause I’m on the phone with you, but I think about the people that I get to engage with every day and, and or often. And, and you two are certainly two of those people. just the different perspectives that that you bring and the different opinions you bring. And I think surrounding yourself with people that aren’t, aren’t gonna [00:39:00] be. People that are gonna push your way of thinking and, and, and I value that so, so, so, so much in, in my team, in my partners, in my agencies, in my creative. I mean, I’ve, if I can think of the amount of times that, you know, I’ve thought about something and then I share it with, you know, someone externally or a team member. They just course correct it or say, let’s think about this differently. And it always ends up in a better place because you know, a siloed perspective you think about brand or marketing is really no perspective. You’ve gotta have that collaboration that we talked about earlier with. Different minded, different perspectives, different backgrounds.
I mean, I think that, again, I know I’ve kind of beat that to death, but I think that is where you just [00:40:00] get to the next level in terms of thinking and inspiration. And you two, you two do that for me. So I think that’s, I think that’s kind of a cool thing.
Desiree Duncan: Oh, we appreciate that and just being able to have that opportunity to th bring those ideas and think outside of the box when there are some of those limitations. I dunno, Steph, you might have something to add.
Stephanie Wierwille: Well, yeah, I just thank you and right back at you. I’m curious, I think we’ve, we’ve probably just got a couple minutes more here and I could probably have this conversation all day ’cause you’re bringing so many interesting thoughts and ideas, but you’ve talked a lot about inspiration and you started this convo with getting inspiration from anywhere and you were just chatting about people.
I’m just curious, like where are other places that you go for inspiration? Is it music? Is it culture? Is it, you know, you mentioned travel, like what are the top three or four places you go for ongoing inspiration,
nicole: I think the number one, and you know, again, everywhere, I think [00:41:00] listening to conversations is probably one of the number one things that, and whether
Stephanie Wierwille: eavesdropping.
nicole: Let’s not call it eavesdropping. Let’s rebrand that to, you know, listening. But I think, you know, if I’m sitting in a meeting and there’s a discussion happening about something, you know, what are they talking about?
How are they connecting it back to our work? How are they? And, and there’s stuff that I hear all the time You know, someone in the same room is hearing the same discussion, but how are you sort of making the connections and being intentional? It’s not something that just comes naturally. Are you being intentional about it? I get a lot of inspiration, and this is gonna sound very nerdy. I’m a, I’m a night owl. I am not a morning person. I’m a NightOwl and I love sort of scouring the, you know. Ad Week and New York Times, and I, you know, I’ve got a whole trove of, of websites that I go to where I’m looking at, you know, ads [00:42:00] that are being put out there, discussions that are happening, Ted Talks commercials, and then things that are socially relevant.
You know, how are we, and I’ll, I’ll tell you one story that I thought was. to the point of innovation is everywhere. Going back to Taylor Swift, I hate to bring it back to Taylor Swift again, but we had, when we, we were working on the nursing strategy and there was a lady at one of our hospitals in Kansas and she was watching all this activity happened with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey when they first started going out. And she innovated against creating you know, one of those Taylor Swift bracelets with our nursing thematic on it. like a risky, crazy out there idea, but leveraging social currency of the time. And again, that bracelet that she came up with was then scaled an organization with, you know, [00:43:00] 300,000 people and. The, the nursing team all just got them for nurses week. And so when you think about ideas, inspiration, I think she’s a great example of leveraging social currency and paying attention to what’s going on in the world. So I do that. I watch videos. I read a lot. And I have to just admit, which I know, you know, I love tv.
I mean, I’m, I’m a big TV person. I love all the, know, Netflix and Apple TV and, and all the shows. And I think there’s, there’s in that too. I mean, between dialogue and how they’re representing things. And watch too much tv, but
Desiree Duncan: No.
nicole: another.
Stephanie Wierwille: too much. Tv never too much Taylor Swift or too much tv.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah. It’s like all those themes start to kind of bubble up. Like I’m, I’m always looking for the pieces of the puzzle. I’m like, what? Like I’m seeing this happening over [00:44:00] here in this industry and now they’re using this as a, a subplot for this show. Like what’s kind of brewing of where people are is always kind of interesting to me.
nicole: I think so. It’s interesting. I don’t know if you can see on the back. I don’t know why. I’m gonna tell you the story and then I’m gonna have asking me about it. I’ve had this, this You guys see what it is in the, in the background?
Desiree Duncan: it with the pink?
nicole: It. No, it’s the on the wall. So it’s a
Desiree Duncan: Okay.
nicole: of the Wonder Bread sign. I have had that hanging in my office for 10 years, and only three times 10 years have I had anyone ask me, Hey, why do you have a picture of the Wonder Bread sign hanging on your wall? And. The story behind that picture, which I wish more people asked me about, is, I think it was, I’m gonna get some of the facts wrong.
In 18, late 18 hundreds, there was a man named Otto, [00:45:00] gosh, I’m gonna think of his last name. I should have written this down. Otto Wine, I was pronounce it wrong, wine Breer. And he created the first sliced bread and. in me not remembering his name, or being able to pronounce it. He gets no credit for inventing sliced bread, even though he invented the technology.
He, you know, actually made it happen. There’s stories about this, I think Seth Godden writes a, a, a story similar to this in one of his books. wonder Bread gets the credit. time for inventing sliced bread because they packaged it, they marketed it, they put the sentiment behind it. People, I mean, you think about Wonder Bread and it’s probably not the best bread, but the nostalgia that [00:46:00] people, I hope no one from Wonder Bread watches this.
But it’s, it’s. It’s the magic they created around that sliced bread. Which is why I have that picture hanging up as a reminder that, you know, we can, we can do all these things in the background, but we still need people to tell the story to I. sort of shout with a, a megaphone, not a whisper of the things that are happening every day by amazing people and nurses and doctors and patient stories
Desiree Duncan: Mm-hmm.
nicole: all the things.
So
Desiree Duncan: And the.
nicole: that’s my crazy story about Wonder Bread.
Desiree Duncan: And we will wrap it up there. But essentially just the impact of that, the ripples effect, we’re still saying, you know, the best thing since sliced bread.
nicole: That’s right.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah. So
nicole: Yep.
Desiree Duncan: Nicole, this was such a treat. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
nicole: to people.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, yeah.
nicole: I always love talking to you and yeah, I’m excited for all the great things to come and [00:47:00] to sort of move together and breaking outta that sea of sameness in healthcare.
Desiree Duncan: Yes, please. and for all of you listening, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter, the No Normal Rewind, which recaps the discussion due here on the No Normal show. With some extra insights you won’t find anywhere else and expect thought provoking articles, exclusive interviews, and a few hot takes. You can sign up at the link in our show notes or even subscribe via Bpds LinkedIn. And don’t forget that we wanna hear from you. So shoot us an email at non normal at BPD healthcare dot. Com so that your question may be featured in our next episode. And make sure to share the show with friends and colleagues and give us a review and rating in iTunes and Spotify, preferably five stars.
That would all be greatly appreciated. And until next time, don’t ever be satisfied with the normal push that no normal y’all, and we’ll talk to you next week.[00:48:00]
Stephanie Wierwille: That was so fun. Thank you. That was
nicole: was so fun. I could talk to you guys for like 10 hours.
Stephanie Wierwille: same. I felt like you were just giving like a masterclass in brand. That was really fun.
nicole: I love talking to you guys. It’s like the.
Stephanie Wierwille: Hi de.
Hello. This is gonna be a fun chat. I am so excited to hear everything you have to say about all things brand and culture [00:49:00] and everything going on in your world.[00:50:00][00:51:00]
Well, you’re in good company here because both Des and I joke sometimes about sports ball and our lack of understanding. Um, so yes, I’m with you on like Taylor Swift got me into football a little bit. Um, more recently the show Running Point with Kate Hudson got me into basketball. So anything that gets me into hockey or basketball and hockey’s been having its moment for the last decade or so.
So I, I, I love the way you’re coming at this ’cause I [00:52:00] actually think, um. You know, your point about broadening to new audiences is, is really interesting.[00:53:00]
Yes.[00:54:00][00:55:00][00:56:00]
Yeah. That’s amazing. And I love hearing your story. I have a question for you. Um, so I think that just, you know, having been around you a little bit for the last year plus, it’s [00:57:00] been incredible to see your incredible knack for, you have this knack of like. Distilling a, an insight, right? And identifying and being like, I heard this from a physician and it made me think X, Y, Z, or, I saw this from a nurse and it made me think, what if like, you’re very much a, a big thinker, a visionary, and you have this ability to, to be a sponge and summarize and identify this incredible idea.
Is that something that you feel like. You were born with, or did you develop that? Did it come over your time of, you know, those, those last couple decades? Like where did that come from?[00:58:00][00:59:00][01:00:00]
Yeah, it was the beverage category. So, um, Dr. Pepper, Keurig, uh, describes their, their category as stomach. So share of stomach is what they’re trying to do. And it’s, it’s not about knockout Coca-Cola, though, of course, that’s part of the goal, but it’s also about what are people snacking on or, you know, it could be water, it could be anything that you’re putting in your body.
So the competition is so much broader than the direct competitors.[01:01:00][01:02:00][01:03:00][01:04:00]
I love that. I wanna pull it a. Pull it a thread here. ’cause I think you’re, you’re kind of combining so many really interesting and connected thoughts, so I love this point you make about the competition first and foremost. And I think that ties so beautifully to what you were talking about [01:05:00] around inspiration comes from everywhere.
So if we think about the competitive set of, not other hospitals necessarily, but I’m hearing you talk about, you know, how, how people take care of themselves, get care health. Um, even hospitality. How would you, how do you sort of define what is the broadest competitive set in your mind for health, for healthcare?
Hmm.[01:06:00][01:07:00][01:08:00][01:09:00][01:10:00][01:11:00]
Yeah, I, it is been a minute since I’ve read that book, so I need to go back and read it again. But I, I, I love, I love what you’re talking about in terms of, you know, brand. It’s not a logo, it’s not a sign. It’s, it’s, it’s so much bigger. It’s how, how you make people feel, and that’s why the experience is part of it, right?
It’s not about. Advertising. Um, it’s so much bigger and I, you know, just connecting around the fact that healthcare is the most emotional industry there could ever be. And yet for some reason, most of healthcare is very clinical in nature in terms of the marketing. It’s very features and benefits, um, forward.
And I think what you’re talking about is this idea that it’s almost [01:12:00] unquantifiable how much brand can create an emotional connection, which. That is, that is the magic that then makes longtime lifetime loyal patients, which then creates, of course, you know, patient lifetime value. I think one of the other, um, sides that I see you and your team doing, um, doing so well that’s very unique actually in this industry, is thinking about the emotional connection, uh, with physicians, with colleagues and the business value of that.
Um. I would say so many health systems tend to think of internal comms. As you know, that’s where we talk to physicians. Um, and I love that you all really think of brand as so broad. You’re thinking about the emotional connection we can create with consumers, with our people, and how all of it ties together.[01:13:00][01:14:00]
So I have a question for you. So we’ve been talking lately on this podcast about the importance [01:15:00] of partnering across disciplines, across functions. You know, with. Between marketing comms, between marketing and finance, between brand and, uh, experience, strategy, you name it. And so you just mentioned, you know, an, uh, a, a great partnership that you have.
How, what, what do you think are the best, um, ways to create really good partnerships? Synergy to use a corporate word here, but really good partnerships across functions.[01:16:00][01:17:00][01:18:00][01:19:00][01:20:00][01:21:00]
Oh, I love that. Let’s have a crazy idea party. Just crazy ideas only. No safe ideas. I love that you bring up the 70 20 10 model. I, I am obsessed with that, and I think it’s so applicable in healthcare because this is a risk-based industry. I mean, at its core, healthcare is all about preventing risk, right?
That’s what we’re here to do in terms of operations. Um. And so operational and, and, and the healthcare industry is an operation driven industry as it should be. Um, and so from a marketer’s vantage point, I think, you know, we see across the entire industry [01:22:00] there is a little bit, well, I would say a lot of, um, risk averseness.
Uh, and, and so I think it’s so refreshing to say no. 10% of our efforts should be about. Innovation, 70% is what’s gonna carry it. 70% is what we know is gonna work. It’s gonna bring that financial impact. But if we don’t ever do the 10%, we’ll never get to those Coke bottle ideas like you said. And you know, if 70% is our, a hundred percent, if you will, now I’m using all kinds of weird math here, but, but then it’s just gonna look like it’s always looked and it’s status quo.
And so it’s so refreshing for you to say, um. Bring the crazy bring, bring the think different, um.[01:23:00][01:24:00][01:25:00]
I like the reframing though, of innovation Averse. Um, I think that’s a really good reframing because in, in healthcare to innovate, it takes an understanding of what’s possible and not possible, and there’s a lot that’s not possible, right? So it doesn’t mean. You know, to never say no because there are many things that should not be done right.
But it just means, you know, you mentioned it takes experience to know when you can innovate. And I, I think that’s important too. Um, to really be able to say, like, it takes experience to know, okay, this is something we should put a bet on, and that is not.[01:26:00][01:27:00][01:28:00][01:29:00]
Well, yeah, I just thank you and right back at you. I’m curious, I think we’ve, we’ve probably just got a couple minutes more here and I could probably have this conversation all day ’cause you’re [01:30:00] bringing so many interesting thoughts and ideas, but you’ve talked a lot about inspiration, um, and you started this convo with getting inspiration from anywhere and you were just chatting about people.
Um. I’m just curious, like where are other places that you go for inspiration? Is it music? Is it culture? Is it, you know, you mentioned travel, like what are the top three or four places you go for ongoing inspiration,
eavesdropping.[01:31:00][01:32:00][01:33:00]
too much. Tv never too much Taylor Swift or too much tv.[01:34:00][01:35:00][01:36:00][01:37:00]
That was so fun. Thank you. That was
same. I felt like you were just giving like a masterclass in brand. That was really fun.
Desiree Duncan: Welcome everyone to the No Normal show brought to you by BPD. This is where we leave all things status quo, traditional old school, and [01:38:00] boring in the dust, and celebrate the new, the powerful, the innovative, the bold, while delivering the future to healthcare’s leading brands. I’m Desiree Duncan, vice President of Health Equity and Inclusion, and today I’m joined by, of course, Stephanie Werewell, EVP of Engagement.
Hi, Steph.
Stephanie Wierwille: Hi de.
Desiree Duncan: Hi. And then we have of course, a very special guest, longtime friend of BPD Nicole Baxter, chief Brand Officer of HHA Healthcare. Welcome to the po Nicole. Excited to have you.
nicole: So excited to be here. Des and hello Stephanie.
Stephanie Wierwille: Hello. This is gonna be a fun chat. I am so excited to hear everything you have to say about all things brand and culture and everything going on in your world.
nicole: It’s gonna be fun. I always have fun talking to the two of you, so I’m excited to see where the discussion goes. You never know.
Desiree Duncan: Exactly. But before we get into all that, I know we’re gonna, because of your role brand officer, we’re gonna talk about all things brand. You know, some of, I know Stephanie’s favorite conversations and mine as well. I love to just kind of go down all of the tangents and, and [01:39:00] throw things at folks on this.
But, but before we jump into that what are you kinda getting into? I know you, you’ve been talking about the Stanley Cup. What’s been exciting for you during this playoff season?
nicole: Yeah, my son Grayson, who’s 12 recently took up hockey and so I have become a. Expert in all things Stanley Cup and and stats and all the things that he talks about. Like it’s just second nature to him. And I’ve been entertaining myself through the Stanley Cup process that he is loving going through is by really engaging with a lot of the and, you know, looking at how that brand is representing itself.
Not a brand I would organ, you know, usually go deep into, but in terms of just being a very traditional longstanding brand in, in all of North America, really looking at how are they establishing themselves with the next generation and how are they staying relevant? So I think it’s very interesting for anyone who’s [01:40:00] interested to look at how they really invoke emotion into. This very, you know, special but high pressure time of their sport. So it’s been interesting to, to look, take a look at that.
Desiree Duncan: Would you say it feels a bit different from N-F-L-N-B-A in that regard?
nicole: You know, Des no one will ever accuse me of being a, a sports expert. I’ll tell you that for sure. I get laughed at often when I try to make, you know, two yard play examples or hit it out of the ballpark examples. I’m constantly being told that’s the wrong sport or that’s the wrong reference. So I do think the NFL from. And admittedly I got into the NFL when Taylor Swift got involved in the NFL, but I do think it’s interesting how they’ve capitalized on, on that sort of social currency of Taylor Swift and how they’ve, they’ve leveraged. I don’t wanna get any negative comments for affiliating Taylor Swift to the NFL, but I do think it is, you [01:41:00] know, for, for an audience that’s been untapped for generations, has really started to take a new look at, at the game.
Stephanie Wierwille: Well, you’re in good company here because both Des and I joke sometimes about sports ball and our lack of understanding. So yes, I’m with you on like Taylor Swift got me into football a little bit. More recently the show Running Point with Kate Hudson got me into basketball. So anything that gets me into hockey or basketball and hockey’s been having its moment for the last decade or so.
So I, I, I love the way you’re coming at this ’cause I actually think, you know, your point about broadening to new audiences is, is really interesting.
Desiree Duncan: Speaking of which, it, it’s funny, something came up around this is when I was at Shushed and Snoop Dogg actually talked. About wanting to get into NHL by a team so that he can help push the brand forward. He saw what was going on, of course, with NBA and NFL, which is why I brought him up. But that he feels like there’s really this great opportunity, especially what we’ve been seeing with the WNBA.
Like I will always be pushing that ’cause I’ve been [01:42:00] obsessed with watching that brand thrive, but.
nicole: yeah, I think Des he was, and I stand to be corrected, but I think he, if I recall correctly, he was one of the coaches for one of the games they did out in la that one of the NHL to benefit the firefighters. And I just have to say, so I’m a huge Snoop fan. I think he’s amazing and I think two of the best brand. Examples in the world are Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, the
Stephanie Wierwille: Yes.
nicole: been able to, like I remember listening to, you know, Snoop Dogg when I was in high school and he was cool then, and that was a long time ago. And he has reinvented himself and reinvented himself and stayed relevant. I mean, people just. He has built brand equity for himself in a way that is just to be admired. Whether, regardless of what you think of him, he is a, a brand genius, in my opinion.
Desiree Duncan: 1000% ’cause it came up. ’cause they were [01:43:00] talking about like, you know, your brand legacy and this keynote speaker was the difference between like these nineties stars who got their start or rappers even. It was between vanilla ice. And Snoop Dogg and Vanilla Ice was still very much talking about like, oh, I missed the nineties.
The nineties were great. And it’s like, Ooh, sweetie. That was like 30 years ago. And where Snoop Dogg has been just continuing to rebrand, as you had mentioned, so.
nicole: absolutely.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, we wanna dive in a little deep about, you know, who you are and a little bit of your, your background. I know that you actually grew up in Canada, which doesn’t have exactly the same kind of healthcare set up the way that we do in the us. So I’m very curious, how did you get into healthcare marketing and branding based off of that?
nicole: I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s astounding that after all these years, so I grew up in Canada and the United States, but very familiar with I went to university, in Alberta and never would’ve dreamed, and I didn’t even know [01:44:00] that healthcare marketing was a thing right when, when I was growing up and. After university moved to Boston, I wanted to be Ellie McBeal, if I’m being totally honest.
My, that she was my point of reference back then that’s gonna date me. But, and tried to break into advertising and was, rejected is a strong word, but, you know, I had no experience. I applied it many different Boston based agencies and could not get my foot in the door. Ended up moving back to Florida. After a couple of wonderful years in Boston and met a woman who happened to be a CEO for HCA healthcare, and she was located in Palm Beach, and it was more about just loving her energy and loving what she stood for and not really understanding the role itself, but it was an entry level position into marketing.
And I give her a lot of credit and a lot of people that I grew, you know, started the job with. [01:45:00] Teaching me. ’cause again, I don’t, I don’t have a degree in, in marketing or in healthcare. And just being able to observe and listen and speak to the physicians, learn from the physicians, learn from people around me.
And I really almost instantly loved it. I loved the mission behind, you know, talking about the stories that I was witnessing in this hospital every day. Being able to stand and be part of these incredible stories and, and to spread the word of what I saw, these physicians and nurses and administrators and custodians and, and, you know, transporters and all these people that I interacted with every day.
You know, how do we tell that story and, and how do we fulfill that mission in ways beyond the hospital? And that’s what really got me into it. And gosh, it’s been, I just had my 20th anniversary. At HCA healthcare in January, I can’t believe it, it seems like seconds and, and you know, 30 years all at the same time.
So, [01:46:00] yeah, it’s, that’s how I got into it. And, and I’ve continued to, to love and, and build upon it from the people that I’ve had the pleasure of learning from and, and working alongside all these years.
Desiree Duncan: I love that. Congrats.
Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. That’s amazing. And I love hearing your story. I have a question for you. So I think that just, you know, having been around you a little bit for the last year plus, it’s been incredible to see your incredible knack for, you have this knack of like. Distilling a, an insight, right? And identifying and being like, I heard this from a physician and it made me think X, Y, Z, or, I saw this from a nurse and it made me think, what if like, you’re very much a, a big thinker, a visionary, and you have this ability to, to be a sponge and summarize and identify this incredible idea.
Is that something that you feel like. You were born with, or did you develop that? Did it come over your time of, you know, those, those last couple decades? Like where did that come [01:47:00] from?
nicole: Thank you.
That’s a very nice compliment, Stephanie. I think I think that it’s two, two part. I think some of that intrinsically is, is who I am and, and who I’ve always been. But I think keeping that tool sharp and, and, you know, continually, continuously educating myself. But I think the most important thing you said, and, and what I try to do and I’m not always great at it, but really try to pay attention and listen. And, you know, we’ve talked about this as a group many times that inspiration is literally everywhere. And it can come from the physician, it can come from someone, you know, you see on the street. It can come from a message or an ad from a a, a message that’s completely outta category. Just paying attention and listening and, and observing and, and connecting the dots. Is, is is hard, but it’s easier if you are [01:48:00] continuously listening and, and looking and seeing, and people will give you inspiration beyond your, your wildest expectations if you just pay attention. I think.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah. I, I, I love that. And I, I, I’m always kind of looking outside, of course, like our industry, but just kind of looking and just whenever I travel, trying to see like what kind of makes this area, you know, tick or different. But I’m curious, what’s been the most inspiring things that you’ve been seeing here lately?
nicole: Oh my gosh. So I, you and I talked about this last week. I had just had the privilege of traveling to Spain my sister, and I think even, I mean, it was a, the most incredible time and the most incredible experience. But even getting out of your. Environment and getting out of the, the things that you are interacting with.
I mean, I have a tendency, I’m sure we all do of this routine. You know, you’re in this routine and the things that you do every day, and I [01:49:00] think to your point, Des in different environments, but then also looking outside of healthcare. We talk about this all the time as a group, you know, how do we think about redefining our competition? And you, we were joking last week when we were talking about Netflix as an example. So Netflix and I learned this, gosh, several years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since, and I use this as an example. Netflix does not describe their competition as Hulu or Disney Plus or Max. They describe their competition as sleep, and I think Steph, you had an example from another, I’m trying to remember which one that was.
Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, it was the beverage category. So Dr. Pepper, Keurig describes their, their category as stomach. So share of stomach is what they’re trying to do. And it’s, it’s not about knockout Coca-Cola, though, of course, that’s part of the goal, but it’s also about what are people snacking on or, you know, it could be water, it could be anything that [01:50:00] you’re putting in your body.
So the competition is so much broader than the direct competitors.
nicole: right. I think, and I feel very strongly about this and I, I spent a lot of time thinking about this and talking about this and, you know, sort of the, I I just telling Dez last week, the. I think I’ve said this so many times that I’ve convinced myself that I said it, but it, it was a quote, it was for sure quoted from someone else.
I’m, I’m borrowing their words, but the, the boring slot in healthcare marketing is taken. And if you look at this sea of sameness of healthcare, marketing banking, you know, I think has caught up a little bit. But you look at these highly regulated industries, and highly regulated doesn’t mean boring.
I mean, you can still. Be authentic. You can be emotional and not looking in the rear view mirror all the time at what your competitors’ competitors are doing, but what are the, the audiences that we are trying to engage with? I. Looking at, you know, my son, I mentioned Grayson, is, is 12. [01:51:00] I was reading a stat the other day about the average attention span over the last 20 years has gone from 12 and a half seconds to six seconds. People would accuse my attention span of being less than a second, but we’ll save that for another discussion. when we order something from Amazon, hi. If it’s not there the next day, his reaction as a 12-year-old Gen Z. Audience is, why is this taking so long? And so as we think about behaviors changing and this generation comparing how we interact with them to Instacart, Amazon, shipped, you know, all these sort of on demand delivery services and how the expectations have changed and hospitality, how hospitality and Airbnb and Uber have disrupted and changed how people look at things. I think we would be foolish healthcare marketers not to pay attention to that. And, and I think we’re catching up [01:52:00] with, with how to do that in a meaningfully different way.
Desiree Duncan: I mean, especially in a hospital, like it’s, it’s in the title, like we’re at, at our core, we’re in the hospitality game. essentially looking at what are others in this particular world, what are they doing to create that experience for their, their visitors or, or who are thinking about that from a standpoint, from patients.
So I know that that’s very much on top of mind for you as well, right.
nicole: Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, I think that. The hardest thing as a brand person or as a marketing person, especially in healthcare, is, is the internal persuasion of brand is not a logo. Brand is not your advertising brand is not the sign on the door, you know, fill in the blank. Brand is the experience. Brand is how we’re making people feel.
Brand is how we’re making our colleagues feel when they, you know, interact with us. When we engage [01:53:00] with them, I. Our patients, our physicians, and I think taking a. Human look at what does that mean? And I think you guys give you a lot of credit for, for the work that you have, have done in this category with sort of breaking the mold and, and how do we get really deep into do we understand the audience?
How do we sort of get inside the heads of, of motivations, not just functional, but emotional as well. And I think that’s. What’s changing the game for
Desiree Duncan: Mm-hmm.
nicole: and I think that’s what could ultimately change the category. And hey, at the end of the day, all healthcare is trying to take care of patients and take care of our people and and provide healthier tomorrows.
And I think that as a category, as an industry, if we all sort of move in that direction, it ultimately benefits the patient and it benefits our people. So that’s my perspective on that.[01:54:00]
Stephanie Wierwille: I love that. I wanna pull it a. Pull it a thread here. ’cause I think you’re, you’re kind of combining so many really interesting and connected thoughts, so I love this point you make about the competition first and foremost. And I think that ties so beautifully to what you were talking about around inspiration comes from everywhere.
So if we think about the competitive set of, not other hospitals necessarily, but I’m hearing you talk about, you know, how, how people take care of themselves, get care health. Even hospitality. How would you, how do you sort of define what is the broadest competitive set in your mind for health, for healthcare?
nicole: I think the competitive set is. The, the products that people are engaging with that ultimately define their experiences and their expectations. And that
Stephanie Wierwille: Hmm.
nicole: may be different depending on what segment we’re talking about. So another thing we’ve talked about both Steph and and and Des is [01:55:00] it’s not a one size fits all, right?
I mean, you think about, I remember if I can tell you a funny story, I remember. The CFO is not, will not watch this, but he’ll know who he is. I remember bringing a strategy, gosh, probably 15 years ago, and it was all centered around women’s health and the OB category and, and how are we engaging differently when back then it was so transactional and, you know, how do we pull out that emotional component You know, worked with the agency on putting a pretty, what I thought was a pretty creative and and innovative approach, and brought it to the CFO, I think it was to get signed off on from a budgetary standpoint. And looked at it and said, I don’t like it. And I remember saying to him, and thank. Goodness.
I did not get walked out the door after I said, when you become a 30-year-old woman, your opinion matters. And that is another thing that we are [01:56:00] moving towards. We’re not there yet, but that, you know, understanding your target audience. That a 30-year-old woman is not a 55-year-old man and a 65-year-old female is not a 40-year-old man.
And, and people have different motivations. Their perceptions are shaped by their generation, by their technology, by their environment. I. And I, I don’t think you think about, you mentioned the beverage category or, or fill in the blank banking even. They are so hypersegmented on their approach with language and media and all the things that they use to engage with this audiences, but it’s not a, let’s see what. Sticks to the wall and talk. I think if you talk to everybody the same, you’re, you’re talking to no one because it’s, I mean, even the three of us, if you think about ages are different. Our experiences are [01:57:00] different, our locations are different and, and we’re shaped by, you know, hearing things differently.
And so I think we’ve gotta, as a industry, pay attention and be sensitive to that.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, I, I know Marcus Collins is a favorite of yours as well as ours. And he mentions that, you know, things are the way that we are. Right? And so how we’re gonna take something in is going to vary. But I, that emotional state you had mentioned, ’cause healthcare is very emotional, you know, it’s scary. It can be scary, it can be a relief. And so you really wanna take a, a lot of that into consideration, especially for that experience standpoint. I’ll, I’ll give a little anecdote. This was not a sponsored response to this, but as an, as a native Nashville and, you know, kind of growing up with HCA in my backyard, my aunt worked at what used to be called the Centennial Hospital.
So I used to spend quite a bit of time there just hanging out because we would go visit her. But. You know, speaking of what you had mentioned about [01:58:00] 30-year-old women essentially. you’re given birth or where you go to give birth, you kind of stay with that health system. And, you know, we went to a midtown located hospital when I was a kid. Mostly ’cause I, that’s where I was born and so that’s where we always went. And so when my mom had a scare, I took her there. But that experience was. Not great. And then she went in for a heart stint and it was her, the heart doctor happened to be at this Tristar centennial and my mom just raved about the patient experience and so to so much to the point that gonna be flipping and thinking about, you know, where are we gonna go moving forward?
Like, do we change our doctors or what have you. But so much, again, it just. Reiterate the emotion behind this. And it’s like, who took care of me, who took care of my family, my close friends when they were really in the most need and thought about all those things. And that’s where, where you kind of carry on like [01:59:00] that loyalty.
nicole: Yeah,
Desiree Duncan: I.
nicole: I think you know, to your point. People remember the moments and, you know, you can have a great outcome medically and, and not have the best experience because of number of factors. And I think what you’re saying there is so critical that it’s, it’s, it’s gotta be this combination of great care and hospitality and or experience.
Fill in, fill in the word. Actually the, I think we talked about this. Several times I, I should get a royalty from recommending this book. But The Unreasonable Hospitality, I don’t know if you guys have read that by Will Guera, who was the head of operations, at a, the number one restaurant in the world 11 Madison Park, he wrote a book almost describing what you’re, what you’re talking about.
This, this idea of. Operations paired with [02:00:00] experience and, and how these, these moments that are created and how do we tell those stories as marketers and, and sort of be the over the shoulder view in, in being able to share those experiences. I think it’s, I think it’s such an honor to be able to be a part of something like that.
Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, I, it is been a minute since I’ve read that book, so I need to go back and read it again. But I, I, I love, I love what you’re talking about in terms of, you know, brand. It’s not a logo, it’s not a sign. It’s, it’s, it’s so much bigger. It’s how, how you make people feel, and that’s why the experience is part of it, right?
It’s not about. Advertising. It’s so much bigger and I, you know, just connecting around the fact that healthcare is the most emotional industry there could ever be. And yet for some reason, most of healthcare is very clinical in nature in terms of the marketing. It’s very features and benefits forward.
And I think what you’re talking about is [02:01:00] this idea that it’s almost unquantifiable how much brand can create an emotional connection, which. That is, that is the magic that then makes longtime lifetime loyal patients, which then creates, of course, you know, patient lifetime value. I think one of the other sides that I see you and your team doing doing so well that’s very unique actually in this industry, is thinking about the emotional connection with physicians, with colleagues and the business value of that.
I would say so many health systems tend to think of internal comms. As you know, that’s where we talk to physicians. And I love that you all really think of brand as so broad. You’re thinking about the emotional connection we can create with consumers, with our people, and how all of it ties together.
nicole: Yeah, I have a, I am so blessed and lucky to have partners in this company. Our, our head of communications, Maryann Hodge, and I, I think over the years have [02:02:00] really, I think, I hope d discover the secret sauce in terms of how do we. How do we message internally, which is really the, you know, her team, but then how do we compliment her efforts with internal activation and marketing to our own people?
And I truly believe and have been, this has sort of been my soapbox for the last little while, and you guys know this, if we can’t win our people from a, from a, if they don’t know our message, if they don’t know our why, if they don’t know our brand, then. know, it’s all for Naugh because you can’t be messaging externally from a transactional perspective without the inside of the house.
Understanding who we are and what we stand for. to your point, and this again a I use all the time and Des alluded to this is not a department. You know I am, I am. I tell people all the time, I am not. In charge of brand, I can, [02:03:00] I can help facilitate, you know, the messaging around that and the packaging of it.
But every single employee our transporters, our, our environmental work service workers, our physicians, our nurses, our valet, our front, you know, volunteers. Leadership, they are all responsible and owners of the brand and these experiences that are happening every day in all of our sites of care everywhere. And that’s a big responsibility. But it is, you think about, and you know, and again, I’ll show my bias I think HC Healthcare is a company that always puts its people first and that always. you know, aligns to that why around the patient and, and everything we’re doing around remission is, is inspiring and, and it creates brand ambassadors I think.
Stephanie Wierwille: So I have a question for you. So we’ve been talking lately on this podcast about the importance of partnering across disciplines, across [02:04:00] functions. You know, with. Between marketing comms, between marketing and finance, between brand and experience, strategy, you name it. And so you just mentioned, you know, an a, a great partnership that you have.
How, what, what do you think are the best ways to create really good partnerships? Synergy to use a corporate word here, but really good partnerships across functions.
nicole: I think there are no words more motivating in a partnership than can you help me You know, I, I certainly am smart enough to know that I’m not smart enough to know at all, and there are so many amazing people in this organization rarely if, actually never have, I approached someone in this organization and, and said, can you help me? Think about this or can you help me, you know, sift through this, [02:05:00] this mess of thoughts in my head and, and see how we can collaborate on this. Not once has someone said, no, I don’t have time to help you with that, or, I don’t, I don’t wanna engage with you on that. I think sometimes, you know, forcing an issue that’s coming from your agenda. Is off-putting to people. And I think if, if you approach everything from there, there’s no, I, it’s, we you know, we as an organization, we as a company, us as a team, I think that’s where the magic happens. I think that’s the secret sauce. You know, surrounding yourself with people that, that are smarter than you and that can think differently and not being afraid to look at outside opinions, which is why I, I value both internal and external perspectives.
I think sometimes the external partnerships I have got push me to think in ways that I didn’t even [02:06:00] know I was thinking about, or that I thought it was possible to think about. And then the internal piece is taking one puzzle piece. Another puzzle piece and figuring out you may be missing one other puzzle piece, and how do you start to bring those things together? I, I would, I’ll tell you this, I would not be where I am. I would not be happy every day. I would not be fulfilled as a person, as a, as a, as an individual if I did not have the partnerships that I had and the, the team that I get to work with every day. I. That’s what makes me happy.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, you’re so right. It’s all about the relationships and, you know, really making sure that that’s strong so that the work you’re able to do together through the ups and the downs you know, really, really sings. You know, when you mentioned that it’s I, I guess I’m curious ’cause we’re always, there’s this anxious part of us that always feels like we need to already have the answer or, you know, don’t ever show anyone that you don’t know. You know what kind of gave you that [02:07:00] confidence to be able to say, Hey, yeah, I don’t know, but let’s figure this out together.
nicole: Gosh, I mean, des it goes back to people that I to learn from, right? It was being surrounded very early in my career with, and gosh, I remember, I won’t go into too many of ’em, but there was a lot of mistakes that I made. One funny one was not realizing that I had a budget when I was you know, at the hospital.
And I remember my CEO coming in and what are you doing? And, you know, just, and, and you know, that was a very tactical mistake. Got fixed. But, you know, I think about that I’ve taken and I’ve always felt the security of the leadership that I’ve had. And the company that I’m, I’m, I’m able to be a part of.
And listen, I don’t wanna make mistakes every day, but if I make mistakes once in a [02:08:00] while, I think that’s okay. And I think as, as leaders, as you know, we move into leadership roles, sort of modeling what, what, what you wanted and, and what you had. And, and you know, I want, and we’ve talked, I think we’ve talked about this too. Now, I keep saying that we, I guess we’ve talked about a lot of stuff over the last couple years, but you think about the Koch model, right? The, the, their philosophy around. Innovation and marketing is 70% of the stuff they’re gonna do or they’re gonna spend their investment on is stuff they know is gonna work.
And 20% is stuff that they’re not really sure is gonna work, but they have a high level of confidence. And 10 is they don’t know if it’s gonna work and they don’t care. And you think about. Those Coke cans that, that have, you know, Stephanie on the side or Dez on the side, or team on the side, whatever, those, you know, all the words, I’m seeing ’em come back too. that was a, a billion dollar, 10% project. I mean, that was something that, that [02:09:00] someone thought of that, that no one really thought was gonna work. it, it created revenues beyond their wildest expectations. And I think for me, I. know, you’ve gotta build the trust. And it goes back to des what you said.
If, if people trust you you’re not gonna make wildly decisions, but they’re rooted in something matters, it’s okay to take a little risk because you’ve built that confidence over time. So I think it’s easier to do to Steph, to answer your question, I think risk is easier. The more established you get in your career. But I love risk takers. I love surrounding myself with risk takers. I love ideas. I, I don’t, you know, that theme around, there’s no bad, I really don’t believe. I think everything should be put up as an option and then you whittle it down to what we can do. But I don’t think if someone says, I have a crazy idea, [02:10:00] they’re getting invited in my office.
Stephanie Wierwille: Oh, I love that. Let’s have a crazy idea party. Just crazy ideas only. No safe ideas. I love that you bring up the 70 20 10 model. I, I am obsessed with that, and I think it’s so applicable in healthcare because this is a risk-based industry. I mean, at its core, healthcare is all about preventing risk, right?
That’s what we’re here to do in terms of operations. And so operational and, and, and the healthcare industry is an operation driven industry as it should be. And so from a marketer’s vantage point, I think, you know, we see across the entire industry there is a little bit, well, I would say a lot of risk averseness.
And, and so I think it’s so refreshing to say no. 10% of our efforts should be about. Innovation, 70% is what’s gonna carry it. 70% is what we know is gonna work. It’s gonna bring that financial impact. But if we don’t ever do the 10%, we’ll never get to those Coke bottle ideas like you said. And you know, if 70% is our, a hundred [02:11:00] percent, if you will, now I’m using all kinds of weird math here, but, but then it’s just gonna look like it’s always looked and it’s status quo.
And so it’s so refreshing for you to say, bring the crazy bring, bring the think different,
nicole: Yeah,
I feel like I’m just totally ripping off all of apple’s taglines here. But yes, I, I, you know, we had an activation here that I. Gosh. And you guys know what it is months ago that, that our agency came up with. And reaction here at the beginning was that seems a little out there.
And it was all around, you know, act activating emotion with our colleagues and it, it an investment and it was, something that had never been done before. And. Until the day we launched it, it was, I’m not sure if this is a good idea and should we be doing this? And we did it and it, I will tell you, it is the number one thing [02:12:00] now that we get requests from the hospitals and from the divisions to do I. Because it is different and it’s, it’s not an ad, it’s not a, you know, a tactical execution. It’s something that is, is really getting to the root of connection and emotion. And I think that was, when you were talking stuff, I was thinking I might correct myself and say, you know, not risk averse, but not, you know, it’s, it’s, I don’t wanna be innovation averse because certainly there is, there is a lot of that we have to be care and I never want to create risk. For the company, it’s how do we create innovation in a industry that is so highly regulated through different activations and through different emotional pieces and, and things like that. And to, you know, I, whenever you say the traditional, I always just imagine, you know, the doctors with the arms crossed, with the stethoscopes and, you know, all the, the ads. That we’ve [02:13:00] all seen that just, you could like insert logo here and that’s what I’m trying to get away from is, is let’s talk to people from a marketing standpoint, a brand standpoint, in a human forward, emotional forward, in an audience forward way.
Desiree Duncan: It is almost like you have to keep that entrepreneurial spirit or that, you know, that startup energy going, you know, throughout your career. You know, stay curious is always kind of the, the motto that I follow.
nicole: I love that. I love, love.
Stephanie Wierwille: I like the reframing though, of innovation Averse. I think that’s a really good reframing because in, in healthcare to innovate, it takes an understanding of what’s possible and not possible, and there’s a lot that’s not possible, right? So it doesn’t mean. You know, to never say no because there are many things that should not be done right.
But it just means, you know, you mentioned it takes [02:14:00] experience to know when you can innovate. And I, I think that’s important too. To really be able to say, like, it takes experience to know, okay, this is something we should put a bet on, and that is not.
nicole: I think to, I think to kind of on to what you’re saying too, Steph, and you’re just making me think, and I admittedly am not good at this, so let me put that disclaimer out there, but I think the. Focus of prioritization in the things you’re trying to do. and not to not get too distracted by too many things at the same time.
And I think that’s where sometimes innovation dies is if you are. Going after 50 new things at the same time versus two great things, two great new things at the same time. And I have, I mean, such an amazing team that keeps me focused. ’cause again, admittedly, you know, I’m not a, a naturally focused person in terms of prioritization, but, I [02:15:00] think you gotta always keep first things first and what are you trying to accomplish? And if you’re trying to break outta the sea of sameness, making sure or be more innovative as a company, how is everything laddering back to that objective? it gets hard, you know, in a, in a big company, in a small company, it, you know, things are flying at you nonstop.
And so how do you focus? And I love Des what you said so much, you know, stay curious. I think that is. The smartest thing in terms of, you know, we as leaders, we as marketers, we as communicators, we as all the things, if we’re not curious about the next thing
Desiree Duncan: Yeah.
nicole: know, it gets, it gets stale pretty quick.
Desiree Duncan: And I think that, that, when I think about creativity, which I don’t get to be as creative that often but a lot of times your most creative ideas comes from those limitations. I. So, like, Stephanie, to your point where you were saying about like, there’s so many things that you feel, you know, being within healthcare [02:16:00] that you can’t do, but there is always that little shining diamond that you can rub out from all of that limitations because you’re really making yourself, you know, stay curious, think outside of the box to get to that solution when there, when you are up against so many different obstacles. So, but I, what was that?
nicole: Oh no, I was just, I was just agreeing with you and I think. Two. I mean, I think about the two of you, and I’m not saying this ’cause I’m on the phone with you, but I think about the people that I get to engage with every day and, and or often. And, and you two are certainly two of those people. just the different perspectives that that you bring and the different opinions you bring. And I think surrounding yourself with people that aren’t, aren’t gonna be. People that are gonna push your way of thinking and, and, and I value that so, so, so, so [02:17:00] much in, in my team, in my partners, in my agencies, in my creative. I mean, I’ve, if I can think of the amount of times that, you know, I’ve thought about something and then I share it with, you know, someone externally or a team member. They just course correct it or say, let’s think about this differently. And it always ends up in a better place because you know, a siloed perspective you think about brand or marketing is really no perspective. You’ve gotta have that collaboration that we talked about earlier with. Different minded, different perspectives, different backgrounds.
I mean, I think that, again, I know I’ve kind of beat that to death, but I think that is where you just get to the next level in terms of thinking and inspiration. And you two, you two do that for me. So I think that’s, I [02:18:00] think that’s kind of a cool thing.
Desiree Duncan: Oh, we appreciate that and just being able to have that opportunity to th bring those ideas and think outside of the box when there are some of those limitations. I dunno, Steph, you might have something to add.
Stephanie Wierwille: Well, yeah, I just thank you and right back at you. I’m curious, I think we’ve, we’ve probably just got a couple minutes more here and I could probably have this conversation all day ’cause you’re bringing so many interesting thoughts and ideas, but you’ve talked a lot about inspiration and you started this convo with getting inspiration from anywhere and you were just chatting about people.
I’m just curious, like where are other places that you go for inspiration? Is it music? Is it culture? Is it, you know, you mentioned travel, like what are the top three or four places you go for ongoing inspiration,
nicole: I think the number one, and you know, again, everywhere, I think listening to conversations is probably one of the number one things that, and whether
Stephanie Wierwille: eavesdropping.
nicole: Let’s not call it eavesdropping. Let’s [02:19:00] rebrand that to, you know, listening. But I think, you know, if I’m sitting in a meeting and there’s a discussion happening about something, you know, what are they talking about?
How are they connecting it back to our work? How are they? And, and there’s stuff that I hear all the time You know, someone in the same room is hearing the same discussion, but how are you sort of making the connections and being intentional? It’s not something that just comes naturally. Are you being intentional about it? I get a lot of inspiration, and this is gonna sound very nerdy. I’m a, I’m a night owl. I am not a morning person. I’m a NightOwl and I love sort of scouring the, you know. Ad Week and New York Times, and I, you know, I’ve got a whole trove of, of websites that I go to where I’m looking at, you know, ads that are being put out there, discussions that are happening, Ted Talks commercials, and then things that are socially relevant.
You know, how are [02:20:00] we, and I’ll, I’ll tell you one story that I thought was. to the point of innovation is everywhere. Going back to Taylor Swift, I hate to bring it back to Taylor Swift again, but we had, when we, we were working on the nursing strategy and there was a lady at one of our hospitals in Kansas and she was watching all this activity happened with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey when they first started going out. And she innovated against creating you know, one of those Taylor Swift bracelets with our nursing thematic on it. like a risky, crazy out there idea, but leveraging social currency of the time. And again, that bracelet that she came up with was then scaled an organization with, you know, 300,000 people and. The, the nursing team all just got them for nurses week. And so when you think about ideas, [02:21:00] inspiration, I think she’s a great example of leveraging social currency and paying attention to what’s going on in the world. So I do that. I watch videos. I read a lot. And I have to just admit, which I know, you know, I love tv.
I mean, I’m, I’m a big TV person. I love all the, know, Netflix and Apple TV and, and all the shows. And I think there’s, there’s in that too. I mean, between dialogue and how they’re representing things. And watch too much tv, but
Desiree Duncan: No.
nicole: another.
Stephanie Wierwille: too much. Tv never too much Taylor Swift or too much tv.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah. It’s like all those themes start to kind of bubble up. Like I’m, I’m always looking for the pieces of the puzzle. I’m like, what? Like I’m seeing this happening over here in this industry and now they’re using this as a, a subplot for this show. Like what’s kind of brewing of where people are is always kind of interesting to me.
nicole: I [02:22:00] think so. It’s interesting. I don’t know if you can see on the back. I don’t know why. I’m gonna tell you the story and then I’m gonna have asking me about it. I’ve had this, this You guys see what it is in the, in the background?
Desiree Duncan: it with the pink?
nicole: It. No, it’s the on the wall. So it’s a
Desiree Duncan: Okay.
nicole: of the Wonder Bread sign. I have had that hanging in my office for 10 years, and only three times 10 years have I had anyone ask me, Hey, why do you have a picture of the Wonder Bread sign hanging on your wall? And. The story behind that picture, which I wish more people asked me about, is, I think it was, I’m gonna get some of the facts wrong.
In 18, late 18 hundreds, there was a man named Otto, gosh, I’m gonna think of his last name. I should have written this down. Otto Wine, I was pronounce it wrong, wine Breer. And [02:23:00] he created the first sliced bread and. in me not remembering his name, or being able to pronounce it. He gets no credit for inventing sliced bread, even though he invented the technology.
He, you know, actually made it happen. There’s stories about this, I think Seth Godden writes a, a, a story similar to this in one of his books. wonder Bread gets the credit. time for inventing sliced bread because they packaged it, they marketed it, they put the sentiment behind it. People, I mean, you think about Wonder Bread and it’s probably not the best bread, but the nostalgia that people, I hope no one from Wonder Bread watches this.
But it’s, it’s. It’s the magic they created around that [02:24:00] sliced bread. Which is why I have that picture hanging up as a reminder that, you know, we can, we can do all these things in the background, but we still need people to tell the story to I. sort of shout with a, a megaphone, not a whisper of the things that are happening every day by amazing people and nurses and doctors and patient stories
Desiree Duncan: Mm-hmm.
nicole: all the things.
So
Desiree Duncan: And the.
nicole: that’s my crazy story about Wonder Bread.
Desiree Duncan: And we will wrap it up there. But essentially just the impact of that, the ripples effect, we’re still saying, you know, the best thing since sliced bread.
nicole: That’s right.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah. So
nicole: Yep.
Desiree Duncan: Nicole, this was such a treat. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
nicole: to people.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, yeah.
nicole: I always love talking to you and yeah, I’m excited for all the great things to come and to sort of move together and breaking outta that sea of sameness in healthcare.
Desiree Duncan: Yes, please. and for all of you listening, be sure to [02:25:00] subscribe to our newsletter, the No Normal Rewind, which recaps the discussion due here on the No Normal show. With some extra insights you won’t find anywhere else and expect thought provoking articles, exclusive interviews, and a few hot takes. You can sign up at the link in our show notes or even subscribe via Bpds LinkedIn. And don’t forget that we wanna hear from you. So shoot us an email at non normal at BPD healthcare dot. Com so that your question may be featured in our next episode. And make sure to share the show with friends and colleagues and give us a review and rating in iTunes and Spotify, preferably five stars.
That would all be greatly appreciated. And until next time, don’t ever be satisfied with the normal push that no normal y’all, and we’ll talk to you next week.
Stephanie Wierwille: That was so fun. Thank you. That was
nicole: was so fun. I could talk to you guys for like 10 hours.
Stephanie Wierwille: same. I felt like you were just giving like a [02:26:00] masterclass in brand. That was really fun.
nicole: I love talking to you guys. It’s like the.
Desiree Duncan: Welcome everyone to the No Normal show brought to you by BPD. This is where we leave all things status quo, traditional old school, and boring in the dust, and celebrate the new, the powerful, the innovative, the bold, while delivering the future to healthcare’s leading brands. I’m Desiree Duncan, vice President of Health Equity and Inclusion, and today I’m joined by, of course, Stephanie Werewell, EVP of Engagement.
Hi, Steph. Hi. And then we have of course, a very special guest, longtime friend of BPD Nicole Baxter, chief Brand Officer of HHA Healthcare. Welcome to the po Nicole. Excited to have you.[02:27:00]
Exactly. But before we get into all that, I know we’re gonna, because of your role brand officer, we’re gonna talk about all things brand. You know, some of, I know Stephanie’s favorite conversations, uh, and mine as well. I love to just kind of, uh, go down all of the tangents and, and throw things at folks on this.
But, but before we jump into that, uh, what are you kinda getting into? I know you, you’ve been talking about the Stanley Cup. What’s been exciting for you during this playoff season?[02:28:00]
Would you say it feels a bit different from N-F-L-N-B-A in that regard?[02:29:00]
Speaking of which, it, it’s funny, something came up [02:30:00] around, uh, this is when I was at Shushed and Snoop Dogg actually talked. About wanting to get into NHL by a team so that he can help, uh, push the brand forward. He saw what was going on, of course, with NBA, uh, and NFL, which is why I brought him up. Um, but that he feels like there’s really this great opportunity, especially what we’ve been seeing with the WNBA.
Like I will always be pushing that ’cause I’ve been obsessed with watching that brand thrive, but.[02:31:00]
1000% ’cause it came up. ’cause they were talking about like, you know, your brand legacy and this keynote speaker was, uh, the difference between like these nineties stars who got their start or rappers even. It was between vanilla ice. And Snoop Dogg and Vanilla Ice was still very much talking about like, oh, I missed the nineties.
The nineties were great. And it’s like, Ooh, sweetie. That was like 30 years ago. And where Snoop Dogg has been just continuing to rebrand, as you had mentioned, so. Yeah, we wanna, um, dive in a little deep about, you know, who you are and a little bit of your, your background. Um, I know that you actually grew up in Canada, which doesn’t have exactly the same kind of [02:32:00] healthcare, uh, set up the way that we do in the us.
Um, so I’m very curious, how did you get into, uh, healthcare marketing and branding based off of that?[02:33:00][02:34:00]
I love that. Congrats.[02:35:00][02:36:00]
Yeah. I, I, I love that. And I, I, I’m always kind of looking outside, of course, like our industry, but just kind of looking and just whenever I travel, trying to see like what kind of makes this area, you know, tick or different. But I’m curious, what’s been the most inspiring, uh, things that you’ve been seeing here lately?[02:37:00][02:38:00][02:39:00][02:40:00]
I mean, especially in a hospital, like it’s, it’s in the title, like we’re at, at our core, we’re in the hospitality game. essentially looking at what are others in this particular world, what are they doing to create that experience for their, their visitors or, or who are thinking about that from a standpoint, from patients.
So I know that [02:41:00] that’s very much on, uh, top of mind for you as well, right.[02:42:00]
Mm-hmm.[02:43:00][02:44:00][02:45:00]
Yeah, I, I know Marcus Collins is a favorite of yours as well as ours. And he mentions that, you know, things are the way that we are. Right? And so how we’re gonna [02:46:00] take something in is going to vary. But I, that emotional state you had mentioned, ’cause healthcare is very emotional, you know, it’s scary. It can be scary, it can be a relief.
And so you really wanna take a, a lot of that into consideration, especially for that experience standpoint. I’ll, I’ll give a little anecdote. Um, this was not a sponsored, uh, uh, response to this, but as an, as a native Nashville and, you know, kind of growing up with HCA in my backyard, my aunt, uh, worked at what used to be called the Centennial Hospital.
So I used to spend quite a bit of time there just hanging out, uh, because we would go visit her. Um, but. You know, speaking of what you had mentioned about, um, 30-year-old women, uh, essentially. you’re given birth or where you go to give birth, you kind of stay with that health system. And, you know, we went to a midtown located, uh, hospital when I was a kid.
Uh, mostly ’cause I, that’s where I was born and [02:47:00] so that’s where we always went. Uh, and so when my mom had a scare, I took her there. But that experience was. Not great. Um, and then she went in for a heart stint and it was her, the heart doctor happened to be at, um, this, uh, Tristar centennial and my mom just raved about the patient experience and so to so much to the point that gonna be flipping and thinking about, you know, where are we gonna go moving forward?
Like, do we change our doctors or what have you. But so much, again, it just. Reiterate the emotion behind this. And it’s like, who took care of me, who took care of my family, my close, um, friends when they were really in the most need and thought about all those things. And that’s where, where you kind of carry on like that loyalty.
I.[02:48:00][02:49:00][02:50:00][02:51:00][02:52:00][02:53:00][02:54:00][02:55:00]
Yeah, you’re so right. It’s all about the relationships and, you know, really making sure that that’s strong so that the work you’re able to do together through the ups and the downs, uh, you know, really, really sings. Um. You know, when you mentioned that it’s, uh, I, I guess I’m curious ’cause we’re always, there’s this anxious part of us that always feels like we need to already have the answer or, you know, don’t ever show anyone that you don’t know.
You know [02:56:00] what kind of gave you that confidence to be able to say, Hey, yeah, I don’t know, but let’s figure this out together.[02:57:00][02:58:00][02:59:00][03:00:00][03:01:00][03:02:00]
It is almost like you have to keep that entrepreneurial spirit or that, you know, that startup energy going, you know, throughout your career. Um, you know, stay curious is always kind of the, the motto that I follow.[03:03:00][03:04:00][03:05:00]
Yeah.
And I think, uh, that, that, when I think about creativity, which I don’t get to be as creative that often, uh, but a lot of times your most creative ideas comes from those limitations. I. So, like, Stephanie, to your point where you were saying about like, there’s so many things that you feel, you know, being within healthcare that you can’t do, but there is always that little shining diamond that you can rub out from all of that limitations because you’re really, uh, making yourself, you know, stay curious, think outside of the box to get to that solution when there, when you are up against so many different obstacles.
So, but I, what was that?[03:06:00][03:07:00]
Oh, we appreciate that and just being able to have that opportunity to th bring those ideas and think outside of the box when there are some of those limitations. I dunno, Steph, you might have something to add.[03:08:00][03:09:00][03:10:00][03:11:00]
No.
Yeah. It’s like all those themes start to kind of bubble up. Like I’m, I’m always looking for the pieces of the puzzle. I’m like, what? Like I’m seeing this happening over here in this industry and now they’re using this as a, a subplot for this show. Like what’s kind of brewing of where people are is always kind of interesting to me.
it with the pink?
Okay.[03:12:00][03:13:00][03:14:00]
Mm-hmm. And the. And we will wrap it up there. But essentially just the impact of that, the ripples effect, we’re still saying, you know, the best thing since sliced bread. Yeah. So Nicole, this was such a treat. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. Yeah, yeah.
Yes, please. and for all of you listening, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter, the No Normal Rewind, which recaps the discussion due here on the No Normal show. With some extra insights you won’t find anywhere else and expect thought provoking articles, exclusive interviews, and a few hot takes.
Uh, you can sign up at the link in our show notes or even subscribe via Bpds LinkedIn. And don’t forget that we wanna hear from you. So shoot us an email at non normal at BPD [03:15:00] healthcare dot. Com so that your question may be featured in our next episode. And make sure to share the show with friends and colleagues and give us a review and rating in iTunes and Spotify, preferably five stars.
That would all be greatly appreciated. And until next time, don’t ever be satisfied with the normal push that no normal y’all, and we’ll talk to you next week.
Mm-hmm.
Stephanie Wierwille: [03:16:00] Hi de.
Hello. This is gonna be a fun chat. I am so excited to hear everything you have to say about all things brand and culture and everything going on in your world.[03:17:00][03:18:00][03:19:00]
Well, you’re in good company here because both Des and I joke sometimes about sports ball and our lack of understanding. Um, so yes, I’m with you on like Taylor Swift got me into football a little bit. Um, more recently the show Running Point with Kate Hudson got me into basketball. So anything that gets me into hockey or basketball and hockey’s been having its moment for the last decade or so.
So I, I, I love the way you’re coming at this ’cause I actually think, um. You know, your point about broadening to new audiences is, is really interesting.[03:20:00]
Yes.[03:21:00][03:22:00][03:23:00][03:24:00]
Yeah. That’s amazing. And I love hearing your story. I have a question for you. Um, so I think that just, you know, having been around you a little bit for the last year plus, it’s been incredible to see your incredible knack for, you have this knack of like. Distilling a, an insight, right? And identifying and being like, I heard this from a physician and it made me think X, Y, Z, or, I saw this from a nurse and it made me think, what if like, you’re very much a, a big thinker, a visionary, and you have this ability to, to be a sponge and summarize and identify this incredible idea.
Is that something that you feel like. You were born with, or did you develop that? Did it come over your time [03:25:00] of, you know, those, those last couple decades? Like where did that come from?[03:26:00][03:27:00]
Yeah, it was the beverage category. So, um, Dr. Pepper, Keurig, uh, describes their, their category as stomach. So share of stomach is what they’re trying to do. And it’s, it’s [03:28:00] not about knockout Coca-Cola, though, of course, that’s part of the goal, but it’s also about what are people snacking on or, you know, it could be water, it could be anything that you’re putting in your body.
So the competition is so much broader than the direct competitors.[03:29:00][03:30:00][03:31:00][03:32:00]
I love that. I wanna pull it a. Pull it a thread here. ’cause I think you’re, you’re kind of combining so many really interesting and connected thoughts, so I love this point you make about the competition first and foremost. And I think that ties so beautifully to what you were talking about around inspiration comes from everywhere.
So if we think about the competitive set of, not other hospitals necessarily, but I’m hearing you talk about, you know, how, how people take care of themselves, get care health. Um, even hospitality. How would you, how do you sort of define what is the broadest competitive set in your mind for health, for healthcare?[03:33:00]
Hmm.[03:34:00][03:35:00][03:36:00][03:37:00][03:38:00]
Yeah, I, it is been a minute since I’ve read that book, so I need to go back and read it again. But I, I, I love, I love what you’re talking about in terms of, you know, brand. It’s not a logo, it’s not a sign. It’s, it’s, [03:39:00] it’s so much bigger. It’s how, how you make people feel, and that’s why the experience is part of it, right?
It’s not about. Advertising. Um, it’s so much bigger and I, you know, just connecting around the fact that healthcare is the most emotional industry there could ever be. And yet for some reason, most of healthcare is very clinical in nature in terms of the marketing. It’s very features and benefits, um, forward.
And I think what you’re talking about is this idea that it’s almost unquantifiable how much brand can create an emotional connection, which. That is, that is the magic that then makes longtime lifetime loyal patients, which then creates, of course, you know, patient lifetime value. I think one of the other, um, sides that I see you and your team doing, um, doing so well that’s very unique actually in this industry, is thinking about the emotional connection, uh, with physicians, with colleagues and the business value of that.
Um. I would say so many health systems tend to [03:40:00] think of internal comms. As you know, that’s where we talk to physicians. Um, and I love that you all really think of brand as so broad. You’re thinking about the emotional connection we can create with consumers, with our people, and how all of it ties together.[03:41:00][03:42:00]
So I have a question for you. So we’ve been talking lately on this podcast about the importance of partnering across disciplines, across functions. You know, with. Between marketing comms, between marketing and finance, between brand and, uh, experience, strategy, you name it. And so you just mentioned, you know, an, uh, a, a great partnership that you have.
How, what, what do you think are the best, um, ways to create really good partnerships? Synergy to use a corporate word here, but really good partnerships across functions.[03:43:00][03:44:00][03:45:00][03:46:00][03:47:00][03:48:00]
Oh, I love that. Let’s have a crazy idea party. Just crazy ideas only. No safe [03:49:00] ideas. I love that you bring up the 70 20 10 model. I, I am obsessed with that, and I think it’s so applicable in healthcare because this is a risk-based industry. I mean, at its core, healthcare is all about preventing risk, right?
That’s what we’re here to do in terms of operations. Um. And so operational and, and, and the healthcare industry is an operation driven industry as it should be. Um, and so from a marketer’s vantage point, I think, you know, we see across the entire industry there is a little bit, well, I would say a lot of, um, risk averseness.
Uh, and, and so I think it’s so refreshing to say no. 10% of our efforts should be about. Innovation, 70% is what’s gonna carry it. 70% is what we know is gonna work. It’s gonna bring that financial impact. But if we don’t ever do the 10%, we’ll never get to those Coke bottle ideas like you said. And you know, if 70% is our, a hundred percent, if you will, now I’m using all kinds of weird math here, but, but then it’s just gonna [03:50:00] look like it’s always looked and it’s status quo.
And so it’s so refreshing for you to say, um. Bring the crazy bring, bring the think different, um.[03:51:00][03:52:00]
I like the reframing though, of innovation Averse. Um, I think that’s a really good reframing because in, in healthcare to innovate, it takes an understanding of what’s possible and not possible, and there’s a lot that’s not possible, right? So it doesn’t mean. You know, to never say no because there are many things that should not be done right.
But it just means, you know, you [03:53:00] mentioned it takes experience to know when you can innovate. And I, I think that’s important too. Um, to really be able to say, like, it takes experience to know, okay, this is something we should put a bet on, and that is not.[03:54:00][03:55:00][03:56:00][03:57:00]
Well, yeah, I just thank you and right back at you. I’m curious, I think we’ve, we’ve probably just got a couple minutes more here and I could probably have this conversation all day ’cause you’re bringing so many interesting thoughts and ideas, but you’ve talked a lot about inspiration, um, and you started this convo with getting inspiration from anywhere and you were just chatting about people.
Um. I’m just curious, like where are other places that you go for inspiration? Is it music? Is it culture? Is it, you know, you mentioned travel, like what are the top three or four places you go for ongoing inspiration,[03:58:00]
eavesdropping.[03:59:00][04:00:00]
too much. Tv never too much Taylor Swift or too much tv.[04:01:00][04:02:00][04:03:00][04:04:00][04:05:00]
That was so fun. Thank you. That was
same. I felt like you were just giving like a masterclass in brand. That was really fun.
Hi de.[04:06:00]
Hello. This is gonna be a fun chat. I am so excited to hear everything you have to say about all things brand and culture and everything going on in your world.[04:07:00][04:08:00]
Well, you’re in good company here because both Des and I joke sometimes about sports ball and our lack of understanding. Um, so yes, I’m with you on like Taylor Swift got me into football a little bit. Um, more recently the show Running Point with Kate Hudson got me into basketball. So anything that gets me [04:09:00] into hockey or basketball and hockey’s been having its moment for the last decade or so.
So I, I, I love the way you’re coming at this ’cause I actually think, um. You know, your point about broadening to new audiences is, is really interesting.[04:10:00]
Yes.[04:11:00][04:12:00][04:13:00]
Yeah. That’s amazing. And I love hearing your story. I have a question for [04:14:00] you. Um, so I think that just, you know, having been around you a little bit for the last year plus, it’s been incredible to see your incredible knack for, you have this knack of like. Distilling a, an insight, right? And identifying and being like, I heard this from a physician and it made me think X, Y, Z, or, I saw this from a nurse and it made me think, what if like, you’re very much a, a big thinker, a visionary, and you have this ability to, to be a sponge and summarize and identify this incredible idea.
Is that something that you feel like. You were born with, or did you develop that? Did it come over your time of, you know, those, those last couple decades? Like where did that come from?[04:15:00][04:16:00][04:17:00]
Yeah, it was the beverage category. So, um, Dr. Pepper, Keurig, uh, describes their, their category as stomach. So share of stomach is what they’re trying to do. And it’s, it’s not about knockout Coca-Cola, though, of course, that’s part of the goal, but it’s also about what are people snacking on or, you know, it could be water, it could be anything that you’re putting in your body.
So the competition is so much broader than the direct competitors.[04:18:00][04:19:00][04:20:00][04:21:00]
I love that. I wanna pull it a. Pull it a thread here. ’cause I think you’re, you’re kind of combining so many really interesting and connected thoughts, [04:22:00] so I love this point you make about the competition first and foremost. And I think that ties so beautifully to what you were talking about around inspiration comes from everywhere.
So if we think about the competitive set of, not other hospitals necessarily, but I’m hearing you talk about, you know, how, how people take care of themselves, get care health. Um, even hospitality. How would you, how do you sort of define what is the broadest competitive set in your mind for health, for healthcare?
Hmm.[04:23:00][04:24:00][04:25:00][04:26:00][04:27:00][04:28:00]
Yeah, I, it is been a minute since I’ve read that book, so I need to go back and read it again. But I, I, I love, I love what you’re talking about in terms of, you know, brand. It’s not a logo, it’s not a sign. It’s, it’s, it’s so much bigger. It’s how, how you make people feel, and that’s why the experience is part of it, right?
It’s not about. Advertising. Um, it’s so much bigger and I, you know, just connecting around the fact that healthcare is the most emotional industry there could ever be. And yet for some reason, most of healthcare is very clinical in nature in terms of the marketing. It’s [04:29:00] very features and benefits, um, forward.
And I think what you’re talking about is this idea that it’s almost unquantifiable how much brand can create an emotional connection, which. That is, that is the magic that then makes longtime lifetime loyal patients, which then creates, of course, you know, patient lifetime value. I think one of the other, um, sides that I see you and your team doing, um, doing so well that’s very unique actually in this industry, is thinking about the emotional connection, uh, with physicians, with colleagues and the business value of that.
Um. I would say so many health systems tend to think of internal comms. As you know, that’s where we talk to physicians. Um, and I love that you all really think of brand as so broad. You’re thinking about the emotional connection we can create with consumers, with our people, and how all of it ties together.[04:30:00][04:31:00][04:32:00]
So I have a question for you. So we’ve been talking lately on this podcast about the importance of partnering across disciplines, across functions. You know, with. Between marketing comms, between marketing and finance, between brand and, uh, experience, strategy, you name it. And so you just mentioned, you know, an, uh, a, a great partnership that you have.
How, what, what do you think are the best, um, ways to create really good partnerships? Synergy to use a corporate word here, but really good partnerships across functions.[04:33:00][04:34:00][04:35:00][04:36:00][04:37:00][04:38:00]
Oh, I love that. Let’s have a crazy idea party. Just crazy ideas only. No safe ideas. I love that you bring up the 70 20 10 model. I, I am obsessed with that, and I think it’s so applicable in healthcare because this is a risk-based industry. I mean, at its core, healthcare is all about preventing risk, right?
That’s what we’re here to do in terms of operations. Um. And so operational and, and, and the healthcare industry is an operation driven industry as it [04:39:00] should be. Um, and so from a marketer’s vantage point, I think, you know, we see across the entire industry there is a little bit, well, I would say a lot of, um, risk averseness.
Uh, and, and so I think it’s so refreshing to say no. 10% of our efforts should be about. Innovation, 70% is what’s gonna carry it. 70% is what we know is gonna work. It’s gonna bring that financial impact. But if we don’t ever do the 10%, we’ll never get to those Coke bottle ideas like you said. And you know, if 70% is our, a hundred percent, if you will, now I’m using all kinds of weird math here, but, but then it’s just gonna look like it’s always looked and it’s status quo.
And so it’s so refreshing for you to say, um. Bring the crazy bring, bring the think different, um.[04:40:00][04:41:00][04:42:00]
I like the reframing though, of innovation Averse. Um, I think that’s a really good reframing because in, in healthcare to innovate, it takes an understanding of what’s possible and not possible, and there’s a lot that’s not possible, right? So it doesn’t mean. You know, to never say no because there are many things that should not be done right.
But it just means, you know, you mentioned it takes experience to know when you can innovate. And I, I think that’s important too. Um, to really be able to say, like, it takes experience to know, okay, this is something we should put a bet on, and that is not.[04:43:00][04:44:00][04:45:00][04:46:00]
Well, yeah, I just thank you and right back [04:47:00] at you. I’m curious, I think we’ve, we’ve probably just got a couple minutes more here and I could probably have this conversation all day ’cause you’re bringing so many interesting thoughts and ideas, but you’ve talked a lot about inspiration, um, and you started this convo with getting inspiration from anywhere and you were just chatting about people.
Um. I’m just curious, like where are other places that you go for inspiration? Is it music? Is it culture? Is it, you know, you mentioned travel, like what are the top three or four places you go for ongoing inspiration,
eavesdropping.[04:48:00][04:49:00][04:50:00]
too much. Tv never too much Taylor Swift or too much tv.[04:51:00][04:52:00][04:53:00][04:54:00]
That was so fun. Thank you. That was
same. I felt like you were just giving like a masterclass in brand. That was really fun.
nicole: [04:55:00] So excited to be here. Des and hello Stephanie.
It’s gonna be fun. I always have fun talking to the two of you, so I’m excited to see where the discussion goes. You never know.[04:56:00]
Yeah, my son Grayson, who’s 12 recently took up hockey and so I have become a. Expert in all things Stanley Cup and and stats and all the things that he talks about. Like it’s just second nature to him. And, um, I’ve been entertaining myself through the Stanley Cup, uh, process that he is loving going through is by really engaging with a lot of the and, you know, looking at how that brand is representing itself.
Not a brand I would organ, you know, um. Usually go deep into, but in terms of just being a very traditional, um, uh, longstanding [04:57:00] brand in, in all of North America, really looking at how are they establishing themselves with the next generation and how are they staying relevant? So I think it’s very interesting for anyone who’s interested to look at how they really invoke emotion into.
This very, you know, special but high pressure time of their sport. So it’s been interesting to, to look, take a look at that.
You know, Des no one will ever accuse me of being a, a sports expert. I’ll tell you that for sure. Um, I get, uh, laughed at often when I try to make, you know, two yard, uh, play examples or hit it out of the ballpark examples. I’m constantly being told that’s the wrong sport or that’s the wrong reference. So I do think the NFL, um, from.
And admittedly I got into the NFL when Taylor Swift got involved in the NFL, but I do think it’s interesting how they’ve [04:58:00] capitalized on, on that sort of social currency of Taylor Swift and how they’ve, they’ve leveraged. I don’t wanna get any negative comments for affiliating Taylor Swift to the NFL, but I do think it is, you know, for, for an audience that’s been untapped for generations, has really started to take a new look at, at the game.[04:59:00]
yeah, I think Des he was, and I stand to be corrected, but I think he, if I recall correctly, he was one of the coaches for one of the, uh, games they did out in la that one of the NHL to benefit the firefighters. And I just have to say, so I’m a huge Snoop fan. I think he’s amazing and I think two of the best brand.
Examples in the world are Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, the been able to, like I remember listening to, you know, Snoop Dogg when I was in high school and he was cool then, and that was a long time ago. And he has reinvented himself and reinvented himself and stayed relevant. I mean, [05:00:00] people just.
He has built brand equity for himself in a way that is just to be admired. Whether, regardless of what you think of him, he is a, a brand genius, in my opinion.
absolutely.[05:01:00]
I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s astounding that after all these years, so I grew up in Canada and the United States, but very familiar with, uh, I went to university, in Alberta and never would’ve dreamed, and I didn’t even know that healthcare marketing was a thing right when, when I was growing up and. After university moved to Boston, I wanted to be Ellie McBeal, if I’m being totally honest.
My, that she was my point of reference back then that’s gonna date me. But, and tried to break into advertising and was, rejected is a strong word, but, you know, I had no experience. I applied it many different Boston based agencies and could not get my foot in the door. uh, ended up moving back to Florida.
After a couple of wonderful years in Boston and met a woman who happened to be a CEO, uh, for HCA healthcare, and she was located in Palm [05:02:00] Beach, and it was more about just loving her energy and loving what she stood for and not really understanding the role itself, but it was an entry level position into marketing.
And I give her a lot of credit and a lot of people that I grew, you know, started the job with. Teaching me. ’cause again, I don’t, I don’t have a degree in, in marketing or in healthcare. And just being able to observe and listen and speak to the physicians, learn from the physicians, learn from people around me.
And I really almost instantly loved it. I loved the mission behind, you know, talking about the stories that I was witnessing in this hospital every day. Being able to stand and be part of these incredible stories and, and to spread the word of what I saw, these physicians and nurses and administrators and custodians and, and, you know, transporters and all these people that I interacted with every day.
You know, how do we [05:03:00] tell that story and, and how do we fulfill that mission in ways beyond the hospital? And that’s what really got me into it. And gosh, it’s been, I just had my 20th anniversary. At HCA healthcare in January, I can’t believe it, it seems like seconds and, and you know, 30 years all at the same time.
So, yeah, it’s, that’s how I got into it. And, and I’ve continued to, to love and, and build upon it from the people that I’ve had the pleasure of learning from and, and working alongside all these years.[05:04:00]
Thank you.
That’s a very nice compliment, Stephanie. I think, um, I think that it’s two, two part. I think some of that intrinsically is, is who I am and, and who I’ve always been. But I think keeping that tool sharp and, and, you know, continually, continuously educating myself. But I think the most important thing you said, and, and what I try to do and I’m not always great at it, but really try to pay attention and listen.
And, you know, we’ve talked about this, um, as a group many times that inspiration is literally everywhere. And it can come from the physician, it can come from someone, you know, you see on the [05:05:00] street. It can come from a message or an ad from a, uh, a, a message that’s completely outta category. Um, just paying attention and listening and, and observing and, and connecting the dots.
Is, is is hard, but it’s easier if you are continuously listening and, and looking and seeing, and people will give you inspiration beyond your, your wildest expectations if you just pay attention. I think.
Oh my gosh. So I, you and I talked about this last week. I had just had the privilege of traveling to Spain [05:06:00] my sister, and I think even, I mean, it was a, the most incredible time and the most incredible experience. But even getting out of your. Environment and getting out of the, the things that you are interacting with.
I mean, I have a tendency, I’m sure we all do of this routine. You know, you’re in this routine and the things that you do every day, and I think to your point, Des in different environments, but then also looking outside of healthcare. We talk about this all the time as a group, you know, how do we think about redefining our competition?
And you, we were joking last week when we were talking, um, about Netflix as an example. So Netflix and I learned this, gosh, several years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since, and I use this as an example. Netflix does not describe their competition as Hulu or Disney Plus or Max. They describe their competition as sleep, and I think Steph, you had an example from another, [05:07:00] I’m trying to remember which one that was.
right. I think, and I feel very strongly about this and I, I spent a lot of time thinking about this and talking about this and, you know, sort of the, I I just telling Dez last week, the. I think I’ve said this so many times that I’ve convinced myself that I said it, but it, it was a quote, it was for sure quoted from someone else.
I’m, I’m borrowing their words, but the, the boring slot in healthcare marketing is taken. And if you look at this sea of sameness of healthcare, marketing, um, banking, you know, I think has caught up a little bit. But you look at these highly [05:08:00] regulated, uh, industries, and highly regulated doesn’t mean boring.
I mean, you can still. Be authentic. You can be emotional and not looking in the rear view mirror all the time at what your competitors’ competitors are doing, but what are the, the audiences that we are trying to engage with? I. Looking at, you know, my son, I mentioned Grayson, is, is 12. I was reading a stat the other day about the average attention span over the last 20 years has gone from 12 and a half seconds to six seconds.
Uh, people would accuse my attention span of being less than a second, but we’ll save that for another discussion. when we order something from Amazon, hi. If it’s not there the next day, his reaction as a 12-year-old Gen Z. Audience is, why is this taking so long? And so as we think about behaviors changing and this generation comparing how we interact with them to Instacart, [05:09:00] Amazon, uh.
Shipped, you know, all these sort of on demand, uh, delivery services and how the expectations have changed and hospitality, how hospitality and Airbnb and Uber have disrupted and changed how people look at things. I think we would be foolish healthcare marketers not to pay attention to that. And, and I think we’re catching up with, with how to do that in a meaningfully different way.
Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, I think that. The [05:10:00] hardest thing as a brand person or as a marketing person, especially in healthcare, is, is the internal persuasion of brand is not a logo. Brand is not your advertising brand is not the sign on the door, you know, fill in the blank. Uh, brand is the experience. Brand is how we’re making people feel.
Brand is how we’re making our colleagues feel when they, you know, interact with us. When we engage with them, I. Our patients, our physicians, and I think taking a. Human look at what does that mean? And I think you guys, um, give you a lot of credit for, for the work that you have, have done in this category with sort of breaking the mold and, and how do we get really deep into do we understand the audience?
How do we sort of get inside the heads of, of motivations, not just functional, but emotional as well. And I think [05:11:00] that’s. What’s changing the game for and I think that’s what could ultimately change the category. And hey, at the end of the day, all healthcare is trying to take care of patients and take care of our people and and provide healthier tomorrows.
And I think that as a category, as an industry, if we all sort of move in that direction, it ultimately benefits the patient and it benefits our people. So that’s my perspective on that.[05:12:00]
I think the competitive set is. The, the products that people are engaging with that ultimately define their experiences and their expectations. And that may be different depending on what segment we’re talking about. So another thing we’ve talked about both Steph and and and Des is it’s not a one size fits all, right?
I mean, you think about, I remember if I can tell you a funny story, I remember. uh, the CFO is not, will not watch this, but he’ll know who he is. Uh, I remember bringing a strategy, gosh, probably 15 years ago, and it was all centered around women’s health and the OB category and, and how are we engaging differently when back then it was so transactional and, you know, how do we pull out that emotional component [05:13:00] You know, worked with the agency on putting a pretty, what I thought was a pretty creative and and innovative approach, and brought it to the CFO, I think it was to get signed off on from a budgetary standpoint. And looked at it and said, I don’t like it. And I remember saying to him, and thank. Goodness.
I did not get walked out the door after I said, when you become a 30-year-old woman, your opinion matters. And that is another thing that we are moving towards. We’re not there yet, but that, you know, understanding your target audience. That a 30-year-old woman is not a 55-year-old man and a 65-year-old female is not a 40-year-old man.
And, and people have different motivations. Their perceptions are shaped by their generation, by their technology, by their environment. I. And I, I don’t think you think about, you mentioned the [05:14:00] beverage, um, category or, or fill in the blank banking even. They are so hypersegmented on their approach with language and media and all the things that they use to engage with this audiences, but it’s not a, let’s see what.
Sticks to the wall and talk. I think if you talk to everybody the same, you’re, you’re talking to no one because it’s, I mean, even the three of us, if you think about ages are different. Our experiences are different, our locations are different and, and we’re shaped by, you know, hearing things differently.
And so I think we’ve gotta, as a industry, pay attention and be sensitive to that.[05:15:00][05:16:00]
Yeah, I think, uh, you know, to your point. People remember the moments and, you know, you can have a great outcome medically and, and not have the best experience because of number of factors. And I think what you’re saying there is so [05:17:00] critical that it’s, it’s, it’s gotta be this combination of great care and hospitality and or experience.
Fill in, fill in the word. Um, actually the, I think we talked about this. Several times I, I should, uh, get a royalty from recommending this book. But The Unreasonable Hospitality, I don’t know if you guys have read that, uh, by Will Guera, who was the head of operations, at a, the number one restaurant in the world, uh, 11 Madison Park, he wrote a book almost describing what you’re, what you’re talking about.
This, this idea of. Operations paired with experience and, and how these, these moments that are created, um, and how do we tell those stories as marketers and, and sort of be the over the shoulder view in, in being able to share those experiences. I think it’s, I think it’s such an honor to be [05:18:00] able to be a part of something like that.[05:19:00]
Yeah, I have a, I am so blessed and lucky to have partners in this company. Um, our, our head of communications, Maryann Hodge, and I, I think over the years have really, I think, I hope d discover the secret sauce in terms of how do we. How do we message internally, which is really the, you know, her team, but then how do we compliment her efforts with internal [05:20:00] activation and marketing to our own people?
And I truly believe and have been, this has sort of been my soapbox for the last little while, and you guys know this, if we can’t win our people from a, from a, if they don’t know our message, if they don’t know our why, if they don’t know our brand, then. know, it’s all for Naugh because you can’t be messaging externally from a transactional perspective without the inside of the house.
Understanding who we are and what we stand for. to your point, and this again a I use all the time and Des alluded to this is not a department. You know I am, I am. I tell people all the time, I am not. In charge of brand, I can, I can help facilitate, you know, the messaging around that and the packaging of it.
But every single employee, uh, our transporters, our, our environmental work service workers, our physicians, our nurses, our valet, [05:21:00] our front, you know, volunteers. Leadership, they are all responsible and owners of the brand and these experiences that are happening every day in all of our sites of care everywhere.
And that’s a big responsibility. Um, but it is, you think about, and you know, and again, I’ll show my bias, um, I think HC Healthcare is a company that always puts its people first and that always. you know, aligns to that why around the patient and, and everything we’re doing around remission is, is inspiring and, and it creates brand ambassadors I think.[05:22:00]
I think there are no words more motivating in a partnership than can you help me You know, I, I certainly am smart enough to know that I’m not smart enough to know at all, and there are so many amazing people in this organization rarely if, actually never have, I approached someone in this organization and, and said, can you help me?
Think about this or can you help me, you know, sift through this, this mess of thoughts in my head and, and see how we can collaborate on this. Not once has someone said, no, I don’t have time to help you with that, or, I don’t, I don’t wanna engage with [05:23:00] you on that. I think sometimes, you know, forcing an issue that’s coming from your agenda.
Is off-putting to people. And I think if, if you approach everything from there, there’s no, I, it’s, we, uh, you know, we as an organization, we as a company, us as a team, I think that’s where the magic happens. I think that’s the secret sauce. Um, you know, surrounding yourself with people that, that are smarter than you and that can think differently and not being afraid to look at outside opinions, which is why I, I value both internal and external perspectives.
I think sometimes the external partnerships I have got push me to think in ways that I didn’t even know I was thinking about, or that I thought it was possible to think about. And then the internal piece is taking one puzzle piece. Another puzzle piece and figuring out you may be missing one [05:24:00] other puzzle piece, and how do you start to bring those things together?
Um, I, I would, I’ll tell you this, I would not be where I am. I would not be happy every day. I would not be fulfilled as a person, as a, as a, as an individual if I did not have the partnerships that I had and the, the team that I get to work with every day. Um, I. That’s what makes me happy.[05:25:00]
Gosh, I mean, des it goes back to people that I to learn from, right? It was, um, being surrounded very early in my career with, and gosh, I remember, I won’t go into too many of ’em, but there was a lot of mistakes that I made. Um. One funny one was not realizing that I had a budget when I was, uh, you know, at the hospital.
And I remember my CEO coming in and what are you doing? And, you know, just, and, and you know, that was a very tactical mistake. Um, got fixed. But, you know, I think about that I’ve taken and I’ve always felt the security of the leadership that I’ve had. And the company that I’m, I’m, I’m able to be a part of.
And listen, I don’t wanna make mistakes every day, but if I make mistakes once in a while, I think [05:26:00] that’s okay. And I think as, as leaders, as you know, we move into leadership roles, um. Sort of modeling what, what, what you wanted and, and what you had. And, and you know, I want, and we’ve talked, I think we’ve talked about this too.
Now, I keep saying that we, I guess we’ve talked about a lot of stuff over the last couple years, but you think about the Koch model, right? The, the, their philosophy around. Innovation and marketing is 70% of the stuff they’re gonna do or they’re gonna spend their investment on is stuff they know is gonna work.
And 20% is stuff that they’re not really sure is gonna work, but they have a high level of confidence. And 10 is they don’t know if it’s gonna work and they don’t care. And you think about. Those Coke cans that, that have, you know, Stephanie on the side or Dez on the side, or team on the side, whatever, those, you know, all the words, I’m seeing ’em come back too.
that was a, a billion dollar, 10% project. I mean, that was something that, [05:27:00] that someone thought of that, that no one really thought was gonna work. it, it created revenues beyond their wildest expectations. And I think for me, I. know, you’ve gotta build the trust. And it goes back to des what you said.
If, if people trust you you’re not gonna make wildly decisions, but they’re rooted in something matters, it’s okay to take a little risk because you’ve built that confidence, um, over time. So I think it’s easier to do to Steph, to answer your question, I think risk is easier. The more established you get in your career.
Um, but I love risk takers. I love surrounding myself with risk takers. I love, um, ideas. I, I don’t, you know, that theme around, there’s no bad, I really don’t believe. I think everything should be, um, [05:28:00] put up as an option and then you whittle it down to what we can do. But I don’t think if someone says, I have a crazy idea, they’re getting invited in my office.[05:29:00]
Yeah, I feel like I’m just totally ripping off all of apple’s, uh, taglines here. But, uh, yes, I, I, you know, we had an activation here that I. Uh, gosh. And you guys know what it is months ago that, that, um, our agency came up with. And reaction here at the beginning was that seems a little out there.
And it was all around, you know, act activating, uh, emotion with our colleagues and it, it an investment [05:30:00] and it was, something that had never been done before. And. Until the day we launched it, it was, I’m not sure if this is a good idea and should we be doing this? And we did it and it, I will tell you, it is the number one thing now that we get requests from the hospitals and from the divisions to do I.
Because it is different and it’s, it’s not an ad, it’s not a, you know, a tactical execution. It’s something that is, is really getting to the root of connection and emotion. And I think that was, when you were talking stuff, I was thinking I might correct myself and say, you know, not risk averse, but not, you know, it’s, it’s, I don’t wanna be innovation averse because certainly there is, there is a lot of that we have to be care and I never want to create risk.
For the company, it’s how do we create innovation in a industry that is so highly regulated, um, through different activations and through different [05:31:00] emotional pieces and, and things like that. And to, you know, I, whenever you say the traditional, I always just imagine, you know, the doctors with the arms crossed, with the stethoscopes and, you know, all the, the ads.
That we’ve all seen that just, you could like insert logo here and that’s what I’m trying to get away from is, is let’s talk to people from a marketing standpoint, a brand standpoint, in a human forward, emotional forward, in an audience forward way.
I love that. I love, love.[05:32:00]
I think to, I think to kind of on to what you’re saying too, Steph, and you’re just making me think, and I admittedly am not good at this, so let me put that disclaimer out there, but I think the. Focus of prioritization in the things you’re trying to do. and not to not get too distracted by too many things at the same time.
And I think that’s where sometimes innovation dies is if you are. Going after 50 new things at the [05:33:00] same time versus two great things, two great new things at the same time. Um, and I have, I mean, such an amazing team that keeps me focused. ’cause again, admittedly, you know, I’m not a, a naturally focused person in terms of prioritization, but, um.
I think you gotta always keep first things first and what are you trying to accomplish? And if you’re trying to break outta the sea of sameness, making sure or be more innovative as a company, how is everything laddering back to that objective? it gets hard, you know, in a, in a big company, in a small company, it, you know, things are flying at you nonstop.
And so how do you focus? And I love Des what you said so much, you know, stay curious. I think that is. The smartest thing in terms of, you know, we as leaders, we as marketers, we as communicators, we as all the things, if we’re not curious about the next thing know, [05:34:00] it gets, it gets stale pretty quick.
Oh no, I was just, I was just agreeing with you and I think. Two. I mean, I think about the two of you, and I’m not saying this ’cause I’m on the phone with you, but I think about the people that I get to engage with every day and, and or often. And, and you two are certainly two of those people. [05:35:00] just the different perspectives that that you bring and the different opinions you bring.
And I think surrounding yourself with people that aren’t, aren’t gonna be. People that are gonna push your way of thinking and, and, and I value that so, so, so, so much in, in my team, in my partners, in my agencies, in my creative. I mean, I’ve, if I can think of the amount of times that, you know, I’ve thought about something and then I share it with, you know, someone externally or a team member.
They just course correct it or say, let’s think about this differently. And it always ends up in a better place because you know, a siloed perspective you think about brand or marketing is really no perspective. You’ve gotta have that collaboration that we talked about earlier with. Different [05:36:00] minded, different perspectives, different backgrounds.
I mean, I think that, again, I know I’ve kind of beat that to death, but I think that is where you just get to the next level in terms of thinking and inspiration. And you two, you two do that for me. So I think that’s, I think that’s kind of a cool thing.[05:37:00]
I think the number one, and you know, again, everywhere, I think listening to conversations is probably one of the number one things that, and whether Let’s not call it eavesdropping. Let’s rebrand that to, you know, listening. But, um, I think, you know, if I’m sitting in a meeting and there’s a discussion happening about something, you know, what are they talking about?
How are they connecting it back to our work? How are they? And, and there’s stuff that I hear all the time You know, someone in the same room is hearing the same discussion, but how are you sort of making the connections and being intentional? It’s not something that just comes naturally. Are you being intentional about it?
I get a lot of inspiration, and this is gonna sound very, um, nerdy. I’m a, I’m a night owl. Uh, I am not a morning person. I’m a [05:38:00] NightOwl and I love sort of scouring the, you know. Ad Week and New York Times, and I, you know, I’ve got a whole trove of, of websites that I go to where I’m looking at, you know, ads that are being put out there, discussions that are happening, Ted Talks commercials, and then things that are socially relevant.
You know, how are we, and I’ll, I’ll tell you one story that I thought was. to the point of innovation is everywhere. Going back to Taylor Swift, I hate to bring it back to Taylor Swift again, but we had, when we, we were working on the nursing strategy and there was a lady, um, at one of our hospitals in Kansas and she was watching all this activity happened with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey when they first started going out.
And she innovated against creating, um, you know, one of those Taylor Swift bracelets with our nursing thematic on it. [05:39:00] like a risky, crazy out there idea, but leveraging social currency of the time. And again, that bracelet that she came up with was then scaled an organization with, you know, 300,000 people and.
The, the nursing team all just got them for nurses week. And so when you think about ideas, inspiration, I think she’s a great example of leveraging social currency and paying attention to what’s going on in the world. So I do that. I watch videos. I read a lot. And I have to just admit, which I know, you know, I love tv.
I mean, I’m, I’m a big TV person. I love all the, know, Netflix and Apple TV and, and all the shows. And I think there’s, there’s in that too. I mean, between dialogue and how they’re [05:40:00] representing things. And watch too much tv, but another.
I think so. It’s interesting. I don’t know if you can see on the back. I don’t know why. I’m gonna tell you the story and then I’m gonna have asking me about it. I’ve had this, this You guys see what it is in the, in the background? It. No, it’s the on the wall. So it’s a of the Wonder Bread sign.
Um, I have had that hanging in my office for 10 years, and only three times 10 years have I had anyone ask me, Hey, why do you have a picture of the Wonder Bread sign [05:41:00] hanging on your wall? And. The story behind that picture, which I wish more people asked me about, is, I think it was, I’m gonna get some of the facts wrong.
In 18, late 18 hundreds, there was a man named Otto, gosh, I’m gonna think of his last name. I should have written this down. Otto Wine, I was pronounce it wrong, wine Breer. And he created the first sliced bread and. in me not remembering his name, or being able to pronounce it. He gets no credit for inventing sliced bread, even though he invented the technology.
He, you know, actually made it happen. There’s stories about this, I think, um, Seth Godden writes a, a, a story similar to this in one of his books. wonder Bread gets the credit. [05:42:00] time for inventing sliced bread because they packaged it, they marketed it, they put the sentiment behind it. People, I mean, you think about Wonder Bread and it’s probably not the best bread, but the nostalgia that people, I hope no one from Wonder Bread watches this.
Um, but it’s, it’s. It’s the magic they created around that sliced bread. Um, which is why I have that picture hanging up as a reminder that, you know, we can, we can do all these things in the background, but we still need people to tell the story to I. sort of shout with a, a megaphone, not a whisper of the things that are happening every day by amazing people and nurses and doctors and patient stories all the things.
So that’s my crazy story about Wonder Bread.[05:43:00]
That’s right. Yep.
to people. I always love talking to you and um, yeah, I’m excited for all the great things to come and to sort of move together and breaking outta that sea of sameness in healthcare.[05:44:00]
was so fun. I could talk to you guys for like 10 hours.
I love talking to you guys. It’s like the.
[05:45:00] So excited to be here. Des and hello Stephanie.
It’s gonna be fun. I always have fun talking to the two of you, so I’m excited to see where the discussion goes. You never know.
Yeah, my son Grayson, who’s 12 recently took up hockey and so [05:46:00] I have become a. Expert in all things Stanley Cup and and stats and all the things that he talks about. Like it’s just second nature to him. And, um, I’ve been entertaining myself through the Stanley Cup, uh, process that he is loving going through is by really engaging with a lot of the and, you know, looking at how that brand is representing itself.
Not a brand I would organ, you know, um. Usually go deep into, but in terms of just being a very traditional, um, uh, longstanding brand in, in all of North America, really looking at how are they establishing themselves with the next generation and how are they staying relevant? So I think it’s very interesting for anyone who’s interested to look at how they really invoke emotion into.
This very, you know, special but high pressure time of their sport. So it’s been interesting [05:47:00] to, to look, take a look at that.
You know, Des no one will ever accuse me of being a, a sports expert. I’ll tell you that for sure. Um, I get, uh, laughed at often when I try to make, you know, two yard, uh, play examples or hit it out of the ballpark examples. I’m constantly being told that’s the wrong sport or that’s the wrong reference. So I do think the NFL, um, from.
And admittedly I got into the NFL when Taylor Swift got involved in the NFL, but I do think it’s interesting how they’ve capitalized on, on that sort of social currency of Taylor Swift and how they’ve, they’ve leveraged. I don’t wanna get any negative comments for affiliating Taylor Swift to the NFL, but I do think it is, you know, for, for an audience that’s been untapped for generations, has really started to take a new look at, at the game.[05:48:00]
yeah, I think Des he was, and I stand to be corrected, but I think he, [05:49:00] if I recall correctly, he was one of the coaches for one of the, uh, games they did out in la that one of the NHL to benefit the firefighters. And I just have to say, so I’m a huge Snoop fan. I think he’s amazing and I think two of the best brand.
Examples in the world are Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, the been able to, like I remember listening to, you know, Snoop Dogg when I was in high school and he was cool then, and that was a long time ago. And he has reinvented himself and reinvented himself and stayed relevant. I mean, people just.
He has built brand equity for himself in a way that is just to be admired. Whether, regardless of what you think of him, he is a, a brand genius, in my opinion.[05:50:00]
absolutely.
I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s astounding that after all these years, so I grew up in Canada and the United States, but very familiar with, uh, I went to university, in Alberta and never would’ve dreamed, and I didn’t even know that healthcare marketing was a thing right when, when I was growing up and. [05:51:00] After university moved to Boston, I wanted to be Ellie McBeal, if I’m being totally honest.
My, that she was my point of reference back then that’s gonna date me. But, and tried to break into advertising and was, rejected is a strong word, but, you know, I had no experience. I applied it many different Boston based agencies and could not get my foot in the door. uh, ended up moving back to Florida.
After a couple of wonderful years in Boston and met a woman who happened to be a CEO, uh, for HCA healthcare, and she was located in Palm Beach, and it was more about just loving her energy and loving what she stood for and not really understanding the role itself, but it was an entry level position into marketing.
And I give her a lot of credit and a lot of people that I grew, you know, started the job with. Teaching me. ’cause again, I don’t, I don’t have a degree in, in [05:52:00] marketing or in healthcare. And just being able to observe and listen and speak to the physicians, learn from the physicians, learn from people around me.
And I really almost instantly loved it. I loved the mission behind, you know, talking about the stories that I was witnessing in this hospital every day. Being able to stand and be part of these incredible stories and, and to spread the word of what I saw, these physicians and nurses and administrators and custodians and, and, you know, transporters and all these people that I interacted with every day.
You know, how do we tell that story and, and how do we fulfill that mission in ways beyond the hospital? And that’s what really got me into it. And gosh, it’s been, I just had my 20th anniversary. At HCA healthcare in January, I can’t believe it, it seems like seconds and, and you know, 30 years all at the same time.
So, yeah, it’s, that’s how I got into it. And, and I’ve continued to, [05:53:00] to love and, and build upon it from the people that I’ve had the pleasure of learning from and, and working alongside all these years.
Thank you.
That’s a very nice compliment, [05:54:00] Stephanie. I think, um, I think that it’s two, two part. I think some of that intrinsically is, is who I am and, and who I’ve always been. But I think keeping that tool sharp and, and, you know, continually, continuously educating myself. But I think the most important thing you said, and, and what I try to do and I’m not always great at it, but really try to pay attention and listen.
And, you know, we’ve talked about this, um, as a group many times that inspiration is literally everywhere. And it can come from the physician, it can come from someone, you know, you see on the street. It can come from a message or an ad from a, uh, a, a message that’s completely outta category. Um, just paying attention and listening and, and observing and, and connecting the dots.
Is, is is hard, but it’s easier if you are continuously listening [05:55:00] and, and looking and seeing, and people will give you inspiration beyond your, your wildest expectations if you just pay attention. I think.
Oh my gosh. So I, you and I talked about this last week. I had just had the privilege of traveling to Spain my sister, and I think even, I mean, it was a, the most incredible time and the most incredible experience. But even getting out of your. Environment and getting out of the, the things that you are interacting with.
I mean, I have a tendency, I’m sure we all do of this routine. You know, you’re in this routine and the things that you do every day, and I think to your point, [05:56:00] Des in different environments, but then also looking outside of healthcare. We talk about this all the time as a group, you know, how do we think about redefining our competition?
And you, we were joking last week when we were talking, um, about Netflix as an example. So Netflix and I learned this, gosh, several years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since, and I use this as an example. Netflix does not describe their competition as Hulu or Disney Plus or Max. They describe their competition as sleep, and I think Steph, you had an example from another, I’m trying to remember which one that was.[05:57:00]
right. I think, and I feel very strongly about this and I, I spent a lot of time thinking about this and talking about this and, you know, sort of the, I I just telling Dez last week, the. I think I’ve said this so many times that I’ve convinced myself that I said it, but it, it was a quote, it was for sure quoted from someone else.
I’m, I’m borrowing their words, but the, the boring slot in healthcare marketing is taken. And if you look at this sea of sameness of healthcare, marketing, um, banking, you know, I think has caught up a little bit. But you look at these highly regulated, uh, industries, and highly regulated doesn’t mean boring.
I mean, you can still. Be authentic. You can be emotional and not looking in the rear view mirror all the time at what your competitors’ competitors are doing, but what are the, the audiences that we are trying to engage with? I. Looking at, you know, my son, I mentioned Grayson, [05:58:00] is, is 12. I was reading a stat the other day about the average attention span over the last 20 years has gone from 12 and a half seconds to six seconds.
Uh, people would accuse my attention span of being less than a second, but we’ll save that for another discussion. when we order something from Amazon, hi. If it’s not there the next day, his reaction as a 12-year-old Gen Z. Audience is, why is this taking so long? And so as we think about behaviors changing and this generation comparing how we interact with them to Instacart, Amazon, uh.
Shipped, you know, all these sort of on demand, uh, delivery services and how the expectations have changed and hospitality, how hospitality and Airbnb and Uber have disrupted and changed how people look at things. I think we would be foolish healthcare [05:59:00] marketers not to pay attention to that. And, and I think we’re catching up with, with how to do that in a meaningfully different way.
Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, I think that. The hardest thing as a brand person or as a marketing person, especially in healthcare, is, is the internal persuasion of brand is not a logo. Brand is not your advertising brand is not the sign on the door, you know, fill in the blank. Uh, brand is the experience. Brand is how we’re making people [06:00:00] feel.
Brand is how we’re making our colleagues feel when they, you know, interact with us. When we engage with them, I. Our patients, our physicians, and I think taking a. Human look at what does that mean? And I think you guys, um, give you a lot of credit for, for the work that you have, have done in this category with sort of breaking the mold and, and how do we get really deep into do we understand the audience?
How do we sort of get inside the heads of, of motivations, not just functional, but emotional as well. And I think that’s. What’s changing the game for and I think that’s what could ultimately change the category. And hey, at the end of the day, all healthcare is trying to take care of patients and take care of our people and and provide healthier tomorrows.
And I think that as a category, as an industry, if we all sort of move in that direction, it ultimately [06:01:00] benefits the patient and it benefits our people. So that’s my perspective on that.
I think the competitive set is. The, the products that people are engaging with that ultimately define their experiences and their expectations. And that may be different depending on what segment we’re talking [06:02:00] about. So another thing we’ve talked about both Steph and and and Des is it’s not a one size fits all, right?
I mean, you think about, I remember if I can tell you a funny story, I remember. uh, the CFO is not, will not watch this, but he’ll know who he is. Uh, I remember bringing a strategy, gosh, probably 15 years ago, and it was all centered around women’s health and the OB category and, and how are we engaging differently when back then it was so transactional and, you know, how do we pull out that emotional component You know, worked with the agency on putting a pretty, what I thought was a pretty creative and and innovative approach, and brought it to the CFO, I think it was to get signed off on from a budgetary standpoint. And looked at it and said, I don’t like it. And I remember saying to him, and thank. Goodness.
I did not get walked out the [06:03:00] door after I said, when you become a 30-year-old woman, your opinion matters. And that is another thing that we are moving towards. We’re not there yet, but that, you know, understanding your target audience. That a 30-year-old woman is not a 55-year-old man and a 65-year-old female is not a 40-year-old man.
And, and people have different motivations. Their perceptions are shaped by their generation, by their technology, by their environment. I. And I, I don’t think you think about, you mentioned the beverage, um, category or, or fill in the blank banking even. They are so hypersegmented on their approach with language and media and all the things that they use to engage with this audiences, but it’s not a, let’s see what.
Sticks to the wall and talk. I think if you talk to everybody the same, you’re, you’re [06:04:00] talking to no one because it’s, I mean, even the three of us, if you think about ages are different. Our experiences are different, our locations are different and, and we’re shaped by, you know, hearing things differently.
And so I think we’ve gotta, as a industry, pay attention and be sensitive to that.[06:05:00][06:06:00]
Yeah, I think, uh, you know, to your point. People remember the moments and, you know, you can have a great outcome medically and, and not have the best experience because of number of factors. And I think what you’re saying there is so critical that it’s, it’s, it’s gotta be this combination of great care and hospitality and or experience.
Fill in, fill in the word. Um, actually the, I think we talked about this. Several times I, I should, uh, get a royalty from recommending this book. But The Unreasonable Hospitality, I don’t know if you guys have read that, uh, by Will [06:07:00] Guera, who was the head of operations, at a, the number one restaurant in the world, uh, 11 Madison Park, he wrote a book almost describing what you’re, what you’re talking about.
This, this idea of. Operations paired with experience and, and how these, these moments that are created, um, and how do we tell those stories as marketers and, and sort of be the over the shoulder view in, in being able to share those experiences. I think it’s, I think it’s such an honor to be able to be a part of something like that.[06:08:00][06:09:00]
Yeah, I have a, I am so blessed and lucky to have partners in this company. Um, our, our head of communications, Maryann Hodge, and I, I think over the years have really, I think, I hope d discover the secret sauce in terms of how do we. How do we message internally, which is really the, you know, her team, but then how do we compliment her efforts with internal activation and marketing to our own people?
And I truly believe and have been, this has sort of been my soapbox for the last little while, and you guys know this, if we can’t win our people from a, from a, if they don’t know our message, if they don’t know our why, if they don’t know our brand, then. know, it’s all for Naugh because you can’t be [06:10:00] messaging externally from a transactional perspective without the inside of the house.
Understanding who we are and what we stand for. to your point, and this again a I use all the time and Des alluded to this is not a department. You know I am, I am. I tell people all the time, I am not. In charge of brand, I can, I can help facilitate, you know, the messaging around that and the packaging of it.
But every single employee, uh, our transporters, our, our environmental work service workers, our physicians, our nurses, our valet, our front, you know, volunteers. Leadership, they are all responsible and owners of the brand and these experiences that are happening every day in all of our sites of care everywhere.
And that’s a big responsibility. Um, but it is, you think about, and you know, and again, I’ll show my bias, um, I think HC Healthcare is a [06:11:00] company that always puts its people first and that always. you know, aligns to that why around the patient and, and everything we’re doing around remission is, is inspiring and, and it creates brand ambassadors I think.
I think there are no words more motivating in a partnership than can you help me [06:12:00] You know, I, I certainly am smart enough to know that I’m not smart enough to know at all, and there are so many amazing people in this organization rarely if, actually never have, I approached someone in this organization and, and said, can you help me?
Think about this or can you help me, you know, sift through this, this mess of thoughts in my head and, and see how we can collaborate on this. Not once has someone said, no, I don’t have time to help you with that, or, I don’t, I don’t wanna engage with you on that. I think sometimes, you know, forcing an issue that’s coming from your agenda.
Is off-putting to people. And I think if, if you approach everything from there, there’s no, I, it’s, we, uh, you know, we as an organization, we as a company, us as a [06:13:00] team, I think that’s where the magic happens. I think that’s the secret sauce. Um, you know, surrounding yourself with people that, that are smarter than you and that can think differently and not being afraid to look at outside opinions, which is why I, I value both internal and external perspectives.
I think sometimes the external partnerships I have got push me to think in ways that I didn’t even know I was thinking about, or that I thought it was possible to think about. And then the internal piece is taking one puzzle piece. Another puzzle piece and figuring out you may be missing one other puzzle piece, and how do you start to bring those things together?
Um, I, I would, I’ll tell you this, I would not be where I am. I would not be happy every day. I would not be fulfilled as a person, as a, as a, as an individual if I did not have the partnerships that I had and the, the team that I [06:14:00] get to work with every day. Um, I. That’s what makes me happy.
Gosh, I mean, des it goes back to people that I to learn from, right? It was, um, being surrounded very early in my career with, and gosh, I remember, I won’t go into too many of ’em, but there was a lot of mistakes that I made. Um. One [06:15:00] funny one was not realizing that I had a budget when I was, uh, you know, at the hospital.
And I remember my CEO coming in and what are you doing? And, you know, just, and, and you know, that was a very tactical mistake. Um, got fixed. But, you know, I think about that I’ve taken and I’ve always felt the security of the leadership that I’ve had. And the company that I’m, I’m, I’m able to be a part of.
And listen, I don’t wanna make mistakes every day, but if I make mistakes once in a while, I think that’s okay. And I think as, as leaders, as you know, we move into leadership roles, um. Sort of modeling what, what, what you wanted and, and what you had. And, and you know, I want, and we’ve talked, I think we’ve talked about this too.
Now, I keep saying that we, I guess we’ve talked about a lot of stuff over the last couple years, but you think about the Koch model, right? [06:16:00] The, the, their philosophy around. Innovation and marketing is 70% of the stuff they’re gonna do or they’re gonna spend their investment on is stuff they know is gonna work.
And 20% is stuff that they’re not really sure is gonna work, but they have a high level of confidence. And 10 is they don’t know if it’s gonna work and they don’t care. And you think about. Those Coke cans that, that have, you know, Stephanie on the side or Dez on the side, or team on the side, whatever, those, you know, all the words, I’m seeing ’em come back too.
that was a, a billion dollar, 10% project. I mean, that was something that, that someone thought of that, that no one really thought was gonna work. it, it created revenues beyond their wildest expectations. And I think for me, I. know, you’ve gotta build the trust. And it goes back to des what you said.
If, if people trust you you’re not gonna make wildly [06:17:00] decisions, but they’re rooted in something matters, it’s okay to take a little risk because you’ve built that confidence, um, over time. So I think it’s easier to do to Steph, to answer your question, I think risk is easier. The more established you get in your career.
Um, but I love risk takers. I love surrounding myself with risk takers. I love, um, ideas. I, I don’t, you know, that theme around, there’s no bad, I really don’t believe. I think everything should be, um, put up as an option and then you whittle it down to what we can do. But I don’t think if someone says, I have a crazy idea, they’re getting invited in my office.[06:18:00][06:19:00]
Yeah, I feel like I’m just totally ripping off all of apple’s, uh, taglines here. But, uh, yes, I, I, you know, we had an activation here that I. Uh, gosh. And you guys know what it is months ago that, that, um, our agency came up with. And reaction here at the beginning was that seems a little out there.
And it was all around, you know, act activating, uh, emotion with our colleagues and it, it an investment and it was, something that had never been done before. And. Until the day we launched it, it was, I’m not sure if this is a good idea and should we be doing this? And we did it and it, I will tell you, it is the number one thing now that we get requests from the hospitals and from the divisions to do I.
Because it is different and it’s, it’s not [06:20:00] an ad, it’s not a, you know, a tactical execution. It’s something that is, is really getting to the root of connection and emotion. And I think that was, when you were talking stuff, I was thinking I might correct myself and say, you know, not risk averse, but not, you know, it’s, it’s, I don’t wanna be innovation averse because certainly there is, there is a lot of that we have to be care and I never want to create risk.
For the company, it’s how do we create innovation in a industry that is so highly regulated, um, through different activations and through different emotional pieces and, and things like that. And to, you know, I, whenever you say the traditional, I always just imagine, you know, the doctors with the arms crossed, with the stethoscopes and, you know, all the, the ads.
That we’ve all seen that just, you could like insert logo here and that’s what I’m trying to get away from is, [06:21:00] is let’s talk to people from a marketing standpoint, a brand standpoint, in a human forward, emotional forward, in an audience forward way.
I love that. I love, love.[06:22:00]
I think to, I think to kind of on to what you’re saying too, Steph, and you’re just making me think, and I admittedly am not good at this, so let me put that disclaimer out there, but I think the. Focus of prioritization in the things you’re trying to do. and not to not get too distracted by too many things at the same time.
And I think that’s where sometimes innovation dies is if you are. Going after 50 new things at the same time versus two great things, two great new things at the same time. Um, and I have, I mean, such an amazing team that keeps me focused. ’cause again, admittedly, you know, I’m not a, a naturally focused person in terms of prioritization, but, um.
I think you gotta always keep first things first and what are you trying to [06:23:00] accomplish? And if you’re trying to break outta the sea of sameness, making sure or be more innovative as a company, how is everything laddering back to that objective? it gets hard, you know, in a, in a big company, in a small company, it, you know, things are flying at you nonstop.
And so how do you focus? And I love Des what you said so much, you know, stay curious. I think that is. The smartest thing in terms of, you know, we as leaders, we as marketers, we as communicators, we as all the things, if we’re not curious about the next thing know, it gets, it gets stale pretty quick.[06:24:00]
Oh no, I was just, I was just agreeing with you and I think. Two. I mean, I think about the two of you, and I’m not saying this ’cause I’m on the phone with you, but I think about the people that I get to engage with every day and, and or often. And, and you two are certainly two of those people. just the different perspectives that that you bring and the different opinions you bring.
And I think surrounding yourself with people that aren’t, aren’t gonna be. People that are gonna push your way of thinking and, and, and I value that so, so, so, so much in, in my [06:25:00] team, in my partners, in my agencies, in my creative. I mean, I’ve, if I can think of the amount of times that, you know, I’ve thought about something and then I share it with, you know, someone externally or a team member.
They just course correct it or say, let’s think about this differently. And it always ends up in a better place because you know, a siloed perspective you think about brand or marketing is really no perspective. You’ve gotta have that collaboration that we talked about earlier with. Different minded, different perspectives, different backgrounds.
I mean, I think that, again, I know I’ve kind of beat that to death, but I think that is where you just get to the next level in terms of thinking and inspiration. And you two, you two do that for me. So I think that’s, I think that’s kind of a cool thing.[06:26:00]
I think the number one, and you know, again, everywhere, I think listening to conversations is probably one of the number one things that, and whether Let’s not call it eavesdropping. Let’s rebrand that [06:27:00] to, you know, listening. But, um, I think, you know, if I’m sitting in a meeting and there’s a discussion happening about something, you know, what are they talking about?
How are they connecting it back to our work? How are they? And, and there’s stuff that I hear all the time You know, someone in the same room is hearing the same discussion, but how are you sort of making the connections and being intentional? It’s not something that just comes naturally. Are you being intentional about it?
I get a lot of inspiration, and this is gonna sound very, um, nerdy. I’m a, I’m a night owl. Uh, I am not a morning person. I’m a NightOwl and I love sort of scouring the, you know. Ad Week and New York Times, and I, you know, I’ve got a whole trove of, of websites that I go to where I’m looking at, you know, ads that are being put out there, discussions that are happening, Ted Talks commercials, and then things that are socially [06:28:00] relevant.
You know, how are we, and I’ll, I’ll tell you one story that I thought was. to the point of innovation is everywhere. Going back to Taylor Swift, I hate to bring it back to Taylor Swift again, but we had, when we, we were working on the nursing strategy and there was a lady, um, at one of our hospitals in Kansas and she was watching all this activity happened with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey when they first started going out.
And she innovated against creating, um, you know, one of those Taylor Swift bracelets with our nursing thematic on it. like a risky, crazy out there idea, but leveraging social currency of the time. And again, that bracelet that she came up with was then scaled an organization with, you know, 300,000 people and.
The, the nursing team all just got them for [06:29:00] nurses week. And so when you think about ideas, inspiration, I think she’s a great example of leveraging social currency and paying attention to what’s going on in the world. So I do that. I watch videos. I read a lot. And I have to just admit, which I know, you know, I love tv.
I mean, I’m, I’m a big TV person. I love all the, know, Netflix and Apple TV and, and all the shows. And I think there’s, there’s in that too. I mean, between dialogue and how they’re representing things. And watch too much tv, but another.[06:30:00]
I think so. It’s interesting. I don’t know if you can see on the back. I don’t know why. I’m gonna tell you the story and then I’m gonna have asking me about it. I’ve had this, this You guys see what it is in the, in the background? It. No, it’s the on the wall. So it’s a of the Wonder Bread sign.
Um, I have had that hanging in my office for 10 years, and only three times 10 years have I had anyone ask me, Hey, why do you have a picture of the Wonder Bread sign hanging on your wall? And. The story behind that picture, which I wish more people asked me about, is, I think it was, I’m gonna get some of the facts wrong.
In 18, late 18 hundreds, there was a man named Otto, gosh, I’m gonna think of his last name. I should have written this down. Otto [06:31:00] Wine, I was pronounce it wrong, wine Breer. And he created the first sliced bread and. in me not remembering his name, or being able to pronounce it. He gets no credit for inventing sliced bread, even though he invented the technology.
He, you know, actually made it happen. There’s stories about this, I think, um, Seth Godden writes a, a, a story similar to this in one of his books. wonder Bread gets the credit. time for inventing sliced bread because they packaged it, they marketed it, they put the sentiment behind it. People, I mean, you think about Wonder Bread and it’s probably not the best bread, but the nostalgia that people, I hope no one from Wonder Bread watches this.
Um, but it’s, [06:32:00] it’s. It’s the magic they created around that sliced bread. Um, which is why I have that picture hanging up as a reminder that, you know, we can, we can do all these things in the background, but we still need people to tell the story to I. sort of shout with a, a megaphone, not a whisper of the things that are happening every day by amazing people and nurses and doctors and patient stories all the things.
So that’s my crazy story about Wonder Bread.
That’s right. Yep.
to people. I always love talking to you and um, yeah, I’m excited for all the great things to come and to sort of move [06:33:00] together and breaking outta that sea of sameness in healthcare.[06:34:00]
was so fun. I could talk to you guys for like 10 hours.
I love talking to you guys. It’s like the.
