INSIGHTEC commissioned the lorries to reach an audience of physicians, hospitals, investors, patients and their families. The most important objective was to reposition the INSIGHTEC brand away from an Israeli-founded, medical device company, to a U.S.-centric, health technology innovator. It also wanted to:
- Positively influence sceptical medical device buyers
- Push for Medicare coverage across the U.S.
- Raise end-user awareness of the real-world impacts and potential for treatment of ET and other degenerative cognitive disorders
Creating buzz around INSIGHTEC’s revolutionary, incisionless surgery through top-tier media was a central strategy to achieving these objectives. Early on, however, we recognized that it would take a lot of groundwork to show notoriously sceptical national media that this was worth their attention.
So, we started out small by developing a grassroots campaign that focused on the work being done in local treatment centers. We researched the scale of ET and the wider impact it had on people beyond simple day-to-day living, such as self-esteem issues or the tendency to self-medicate with alcohol. This research helped us to:
- Humanize the impact of INSIGHTEC and its technology, in order to spark consumer demand and put pressure on medical providers and Medicare contractors
- Validate the technology innovation in the upper echelon of media that appeals to both the sceptical med-device buyer and patients
- Build trust in the technology by leveraging relationships with big-name technology and treatment center partners
We developed a patient reference program to identify candidates for PR and content opportunities who had undergone or were seeking treatment. These stories helped us understand how ET impacted their lives, enabling us to develop honest and authentic stories. We then targeted medical trades and regional broadcast, print and online media to build a foundation of coverage and demonstrate the technology’s real-world, life-saving impacts.
We also implemented an awards program to further validate INSIGHTEC’s innovation, and used social media to amplify talking points and spread further awareness. Engaging with patients and their families on Facebook, responding to questions about treatment and sharing helpful content to help people manage their condition, helped put pressure on Medicare contractors to provide coverage.
Using a combination of traditional and social media, patient blogs and awards, we successfully created a groundswell of support around ET. This included securing interest and briefings with national healthcare reporters, creating more than 30 million unique media impressions over the course of the campaign and nearly tripling INSIGHTEC’s share of voice among competitors.
