Fortis is for profit but not for profiteering: Jasrita Dhir, Head-Branding & Marketing

In a sector such as healthcare, the competition between existing and upcoming hospitals is palpable. This makes it mandatory for each of them to get innovative with their marketing and positioning.

Jasrita Dhir, Head – Branding and Marketing, Fortis Healthcare gives more insights into the marketing mind of a healthcare facility.

You’ve been in the sales and marketing roles for different sectors, right from the hotel and media industry to now a hospital. What are the differentiators of each sector? How does the role change in the healthcare sector?

Unlike media, in healthcare a brand can’t be built on communication or advertising alone. The brand promise gets delivered in our hospitals through patient experience and not just by brand communication.

Fortis’ attempt, therefore, is to have the brand promise come alive at every patient touch-point and not just in advertising messages.

Hospitality and healthcare are both parts of the service industry and while there are some commonalities, a lot is different. The primary difference being that people walk into hotels with a positive frame of mind, wanting to have a good time whereas no one wants to come to a hospital. Each time a patient walks into a hospital, they are anxiety-ridden and not thinking rationally.

How does Fortis differentiate itself from its competitors?

A major challenge for healthcare providers and marketers has been around presenting healthcare in an ethical and responsible manner. Hence, providers have consciously started spending more time and resources in understanding and then influencing consumer behaviour. As a responsible healthcare provider, we at Fortis put a lot of emphasis on educating and conversing with patients and engage them in their growing role as healthcare consumers. This consumer-first thinking has had a huge impact throughout the organisation on the way we reach out to consumers (i.e. who), what we reach them with (i.e. the message), where we reach them (i.e. the medium) and what is their experience when they choose us (i.e. the way we deliver healthcare.)

One of our integral brand pillars is Community Connect, which is our engagement with the communities that reside in the immediate vicinity of our hospitals through free camps, talks on topical health issues, etc. Fortis has 25,000 citizens on its blood donation registry and it has imparted life skills training to thousands of individuals. Our CSR arm, Fortis Foundation, conducts free life-saving surgeries for underprivileged children regularly. Nearly 35,000 Indians have taken the pledge to donate their organs as a result of the Fortis More to Give Organ Donation initiative.

All of this is aimed at building an organisation that does well by doing good.

What marketing mix do you plan to use for the campaigns initiated and organised by Fortis?

The marketing mix depends purely on the outcomes that we want to drive. The outcomes could be pure-play brand building or generating footfalls and the mix would differ significantly based on the outcome. To elucidate further, for an outcome where we eventually want to change the organ donation culture of the country, the campaign is led by TV & Digital, amplified by Radio, supported by on-ground activations and cinema. Whereas for generating footfalls for a new clinic or speciality, the mix would be geo-targeted digital media lead generation campaign. It will be supported by flyer inserts in a targeted neighbourhood and email or SMS marketing to existing database, etc.

How big is the marketing team at Fortis? How different is it from the other industries in terms of internal divisions and work?

The structure is three-tiered. Each hospital depending on its size has a few marketing personnel who report into a zonal or regional marketing office (typically of four to five resources) and that folds into the Support Office (our nomenclature for Corporate Office) that has six members.

Unit Marketing resources are ‘generalists’ who cater to branding, digital marketing and PR requirements of a unit. Zonal or Regional offices have both generalists and specialists. Support Office has a three-member digital team and a two-member brand and offline marketing team. All of them report to the Head – Brand & Marketing.

What are the marketing activities happening right now at Fortis? Any new ones that we need to keep a lookout for?

The biggest campaign that we are engaged in is our campaign to boost awareness on organ donation. It is not the ‘flavour of the season’ i.e. episodic for us; rather, it’s an organisational commitment. The campaign started last year and we have just launched the second edition of the campaign.

http://www.fortishealthcare.com/moretogive

http://sites.ndtv.com/moretogive

We firmly believe that the only way to bring about a better tomorrow is by investing in our youth today. To that end, Fortis invests heavily in its School Mental Health programme.

http://www.fortishealthcare.com/school-mental-health-programme

What is your marketing strategy moving ahead?

Being relevant to the changing needs of people and being present at the platforms where they seek information, especially by harnessing the power of digital and social media is the plan. We will also do that by creating strong groups of brand evangelists and brand advocates (both from medical fraternity and patient community,) building our brand through Community Connect, Organ Donation, CSR and by doing the right thing. We will invest in our core, which is medical excellence. 

The biggest challenge that any private healthcare brand faces is a trust deficit amongst the public at large. Healthcare is expected to operate in the ‘not-for-profit’ space and all institutions that are ‘for profit’ are painted with a black brush. At Fortis, we are very clear on the fine line that divides ‘profit’ from ‘profiteering’; while being in the profit sector, we are not for profiteering.