SILVER WINNER: Philips Vital Signs

Client: Philips
Entrant Company: CNN International London
Entry Category: A Global or Multinational campaign running in several regions
Names to be credited with submission:
Advertising Sales: MAX RAVEN, SUZANNE WRIGHT, RUPERT BURNHAM, LINDSAY ROCKE, LUCY RYALL
Director of Turner Commercial Productions: PAUL HARPER
Producer/Director, Turner Commercial Productions: ADAM WOODS
Media Agency: CARAT
Creative Agency: DDB

Marketing Situation: Philips is typically associated with consumer electronics, but wanted to also boost their brand positioning in the health and well-being sector. Within this sector, Philips serves both consumer and professional markets through three overlapping categories: healthcare, lighting and consumer lifestyle.

Philips wanted to be positioned as a “thought leader” through a campaign that would achieve the following:

» Shift perceptions of Philips in the eyes of business leaders, with a long-term goal of positioning Philips as a leader in the areas of health and well-being.

» Demonstrate that through an understanding of people, Philips identifies what really matters to people’s health and well-being and uses this knowledge to bring innovation to diverse technological domains.

» Engage Philips’s target audience via an integrated multi-platform program.

» Make the launch of their consumer healthcare digital hub “Get Inside Health” a success by establishing it as a credible and premier destination for health-related issues.

Insights: Philips’ primary target combines senior business leaders, senior government officials and opinion leaders to make up an audience that is influential, affluent and international. These business influencers desire to be perceived as experts, best in the class, and leaders of the pack. While no single message / topic resonates across all of the audience, their interest and motivation around health and wellbeing is based upon personal, social and professional experiences.

Content is key for this audience as they are actively seeking information related to their field so that they will remain well informed within their area of expertise and more generally within the sector. A digital proposition would enable Philips to engage with the target audience directly, providing the in-depth, relevant health and well-being content they are seeking.

Digital Strategy: In line with Philips’ vision to build a leading brand in health and wellbeing, CNN secured the network’s resident medical expert and world renowned practicing Neurosurgeon, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to host ‘Vital Signs’.

The ‘Vital Signs’ website (www.cnn.com/vitalsigns) was integral to the building of a digital community, that comes to CNN to stay fully informed, up to speed and ahead in their field. In addition to the high quality of the content, Vital Signs actively engages and encourages the audience to contribute and participate with the site, most notably through CNN’s iReport, our user generated content site. In addition, the inclusion of Dr. Gupta’s Twitter feed within the site allows users to pose questions and to interact directly with him. This allows the campaign to move beyond two dimensions, into three dimensions as the emphasis is not only on providing users with the information but to actively engage their viewpoint, their opinion and their contribution.

In addition to the micro-site a dedicated WAP site was created where CNN audiences are able to view ‘Vital Signs’ video and article content on their mobile handset, programme information, iReport function, interactive quizzes and quick votes on health and medical issues, and the ability to contribute to blog responses.

Worldwide Best Practices: The Vital Signs campaign is representative of a fully comprehensive, worldwide, digitally integrated campaign. The 360 degree concept of this campaign uses the following strands: On air, online, mobile, events, and research, to capture as large a percentage of the targeted demographic as possible.

Results: According to a Continental Research survey commissioned by CNN in the UK and Germany three months after the launch:

» 72% of the sample who had seen ‘Vital Signs’ or the Philips ad agreed that Philips offers products that contribute to health and well-being.

» 78% of those exposed viewed Philips as understanding of consumers/customers needs.

» 75% of those exposed rated Philips as a leader in innovation.

The launch of Vital Signs was the largest ever website launch in CNN International’s history, achieving nearly 2 million visits in the first 30 days of the campaign. Through Vital Signs Dr. Gupta now has 858,275 followers, an increase of over 5500% in 5 months.

The digital campaign is also having a real life impact; a Vital Signs cnn.com story has resulted in possibly saving the life of a 19-year-old with a very intractable and large brain tumour. Just before Christmas, a story was published about a new 'perfect mirror' laser tool which allows complex brain operations to be carried out: http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/12/19/laser.surgery/ .

The 19-year-old’s surgeon read the story on CNN.com and contacted the creators of the perfect mirror about using it in his operation. They trained him in one day and he consequently successfully removed the tumour from his patient. Remarkably, the surgeons didn’t think they could save him just a week before the article was published.