St Louis-based Ascension released a new marketing campaign June 7 titled Care for All. Nick Ragone, executive vice president and chief marketing and communications officer, spoke to Becker's about the campaign, its meaning and its reach.
The campaign is the third Ascension has commissioned since the pandemic started, the first two being titled our Care is our Calling and Hope and Healing, touching on building trust and the reasons why Ascension caregivers come to work respectively. While Mr. Ragone said there is no set pace behind all these campaigns, the pandemic definitely increased how intentional the system was in regards to communicating with patients.
"It turns out, it's been really important for us to continue to be the trusted voice in our communities and using brand new marketing campaigns has been a big part of that," he said.
Ascension's latest campaign is focussed on health equity, with the central message being that all patients deserve to be listened to and respected when they receive care, no matter their reason for seeking it or what background they come from. While this has always been the case, the pandemic really shed light on the disparities in care among different demographics, making the timing of this campaign more targeted.
"We felt like it was the right time for the third part of the campaign to really focus on the idea of welcoming all, caring for all, listening and respecting all and creating, delivering those health care outcomes that people really deserve," he said.
Ascension also used multicultural marketing firms in the creation of the campaign.
"It was important that we, for this piece of the campaign, that we worked with a trusted partner agency in this case, that had a really strong multicultural background and lens that could help us make sure we were seeing and presenting the campaign, the way that we wanted people to view it in the community."
The campaign will go out across all of Ascension's markets, representing 19 states. It will be on TV, billboards, print, digital and radio.