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Video Transcript: LAVIDGE 2024 Healthcare Marketing Report

Welcome to Lightbulb Moments, presented by Lavage, a Phoenix-based marketing and communications firm. Today, Stephen Heitz and Tim Trull will share a few highlights from a recent research study. Welcome. I'm Stephen Heitz, Chief Innovation Officer at Lavage, and with me is Tim Trull, our Chief Strategy Officer, and Susan Beyer from Audience Audit, who does attitudinal segmentation research and has been one of our partners for many years. We've been working in healthcare for a long time and doing research, our own research, and research for clients for a while, Tim. Why don't you let us fill us in on what our research scope has been over the last decade and how this particular new study we've done fits into that. Yeah, so as you say, healthcare is one of our primary industries that we focus on. We've done not only proprietary research for healthcare over the last few years, but also worked with a lot of clients. Before COVID, we did some research immediately after COVID to see how things had changed in consumer attitudes and what people were looking at. Certainly a lot of changes then, and now as we start looking at how consumers have moved forward since the immediate post-COVID period. There's a new thing coming up now, which is technology and how healthcare companies are embracing more technology, using technology for not only efficiencies, but also to help them provide better diagnosis and outcomes. We want to just keep our finger on the pulse of what's going on with healthcare, not only for our clients, which we do research for ongoing, but also just in general on where the category is going. Let's talk about attitudinal segmentation and why it's so unique and why we use it as a basis for our marketing and research activities. Yeah, it's quantitative research, which is, I think, really important when we're trying to, to your point, keep our finger on what's happening—to know that we've tasted enough of the soup to know what's in the whole pot. But attitudinal segmentation, in terms of our work, the reason that's what we are devoted to is because it gives us an organic view of what's going on in the mindsets of people who are experiencing a category. We see studies all the time where if you look at differences in age or income or gender, that's fine. You could see what people under 20 think, or whatever. But when you start to lay an attitudinal component on top of that, you really understand that a lot of the time it's not about those things. It's about a direct experience that people have had, regardless of age or whatever. So getting that mindset level on the data, I think, is really helpful in understanding who we're dealing with, especially from a marketing standpoint, but just generally, what are people thinking? It's like the missing piece from the other research. The other research is really important, and certainly that's something that we need to look at. But this is kind of that missing piece that we really never had that gets into people's minds about what they're thinking. Yeah, I think it's an important lens when we're looking at data. So statistician Andrew Ehrenberg famously said that your customers are really other people's customers who occasionally buy you. And I think what he was trying to say there was that when you look demographically at McDonald's or Burger King or, you know, this hospital system or that hospital system, you're going to see the same demographics. You're going to see the same age breakouts. You're going to see the same income levels. You're going to see these gender. And so when you look at those, there is duplication. And the law of duplication basically says that these customers are trading brands. I mean, I don't only buy one type of beer, or these kinds of things, right? So attitudinal segmentation basically says, why are our customers our customers? Because demographically, they look the same, right? When we compare our share. Understanding why people are making the choices they are—to be loyal, to not be loyal—is critically important for all kinds of decisions. Marketing, obviously, but lots of things. Correct. I think of the Taylor Swift phenomenon that we've just been through here recently. We know you're a Swiftie. Sorry. Hey, now, now, now. But Swifties come in all genders, ages, income levels. And I think that where we are with branding today is branding is now about—Dr. Collins talked about it as—"people like me do things like this." Yes. And so that's where the attitudinal segmentation comes in. And I think when marketers try to simplify to demographics, they miss out on unlocking the power that can really change the share of their brand. So that's why when we talk about attitudes today, that's a big differentiator. Because otherwise, you're ignoring a lot of these things, and you probably have a conversion rate ceiling. You've got all these kinds of other challenges, and you're just fighting it out. Yeah. I mean, what happens is you assign your own assumptions about how people are thinking, based on a demographic. So you irritate people and misinterpret them. And you miss out on opportunities that you think may not exist because of a certain demographic profile that actually are really good for your brand. Well, and I know we compare it off a lot of times to politics or religion. Yeah. You know? I mean, if you're a follower of a particular party, that crosses all demographics. It does. Same thing with religion. That's right. Since we've done this, we've identified, in the past, four types or attitudinal segments around healthcare consumers. And I don't think that our new study on how they're experienced changes the original four. So we had an original four set of how people interacted mainly with their provider, whether they were a team player going to do whatever their doctor told them, whether they had self-diagnosed on the way in and they were the boss, whether they were a bystander who wanted nothing to do with it until their leg was falling off, or whether they were really a cheerleader for those kinds of things. Now this builds on this and kind of creates an additional window into how they feel about their experience with the system together—not just their provider and the outcomes, but with the system and with technology and all of that. So this is really more of an experience lens. So what do we find and how do we conduct the study? Give us a little bit of methodology, Susan, and then maybe we can go into what we found in the new attitudinal segments. Yeah, you bet. So as I said, quantitative study. This is a big survey. Respondents were anonymous. We have a huge cross-section of the U.S. population, basically. We've got pretty much everybody represented in here, and it's a statistically reliable study. We have a high level of confidence in the results. I think the only thing was that they had to have engaged with healthcare over the past year. That's right. That's the only criteria. Almost everybody has. Right, exactly. And then in addition to the questions around their demographics and questions about what experiences they have had and what they've done, we put 40 or 50 attitudinal statements in front of them that they can rate from "I agree completely" to "I disagree completely." Everybody who takes the survey rates all of them. And then we do an analysis that doesn't superimpose our assumptions on how they're going to break up. We don't predetermine the buckets. We don't say, "We think there are people like that, and we're going to put you in that bucket." Basically, their responses tell us what the buckets should be. And what they are is groups of people who have a mindset about things. They connect a set of attitudes together in terms of whether they realize it or not, right? And it really colors their perspective and their decisions around these topics—healthcare in general, healthcare providers and organizations, technology use in healthcare. So it's kind of a deep dive into one arm of what's happening in healthcare right now that can sit on top of the basic research that we've already got. Okay. Specifically, these are more related to their experience with technology and with healthcare. Yes. And how technology and healthcare overlap. That's right. So, Tim, what do we find? What were the segments? Yeah. You were talking earlier about how there are so many commonalities between the past studies, whether it be the studies that we've done proprietary or studies for clients. We did a big study for labs. We've done big studies for health insurance. Correct. So I think that we're finding a lot of common themes on how people are really experiencing their healthcare environment. Specifically, as you put the overlay of technology on that, I think that really does kind of go into maybe reinforcing what some of those other ones were. So there are four different groups that kind of came out of this study, pretty much an equal distribution of each one of the groups as far as percentage-wise. Just because it shook out that way. Yeah. There's one group, which is we call "frustrated." We see them in every study that we do. Yep. They're frustrated with the system. They're frustrated with dealing with doctors. They're frustrated with dealing with health insurance companies. They're just frustrated in general. Yep. And because of that frustration, they're also even more frustrated now whenever you layer technology onto that. So they're not real thrilled about jumping into technology. They're frustrated with everything. They're going to stay frustrated. There's another group—and you had talked earlier a little bit about a group in a previous study that is much more willing to take their doctor's advice. Well, there's another group, which is called "appreciative." They're almost like the early adopters of technology. They're like, you know what? This is great. This is great. This is something good. I love working with my provider. I love working with the health care. I have no problems at all with these people. This is great. We're lucky to have this health care. And I really want to use this new technology. So that's that appreciative group. One of the other interesting things about appreciative—even though demographics don't really fall into this—the appreciative group does tend to skew a little bit more male. Yep. They're a little bit more higher income. Yep. And they tend to be a little bit more—oh, what am I going to say—happy with what they're doing in general. So you're basically saying they're privileged? Yeah. A little bit, yeah. And also a little more conservative, too, which is interestingly enough. It's working for them. The system's working for them now. So the technology's this. They have access. Frankly, they have access. And they trust the system. So the technology overlay for them is like, "I trust you, bring it." There's another group that we call "skeptical." One of their biggest issues is they're very skeptical that any new technology or dealing with any large healthcare system is going to be a challenge for finding out their identity and about their healthcare practices. They are scared to death. It's a privacy concern. It's a privacy. That the privacy part is going to be now that we have technology, different things that are applied to that, now that they're going to be open to anyone or anything out there. It just makes them more vulnerable from a privacy standpoint. So from adopting the technology, they're like, "I don't necessarily know that I want to do that because I don't want to leave myself exposed." Yeah. They really wonder whether any of this is actually for them or if it's just to make things easier on the companies. Yep. Well, and that's a big challenge, is that they oftentimes, and across all these groups, really see the healthcare system as looking out for themselves rather than— Their patients. Yeah, their patients. Okay, so we've got frustrated, appreciative, skeptical. What's the last one? The last one is "equitable." Again, a group that we tend to find in most of all of our studies. They have kind of an altruistic view of what healthcare should be, and that everyone should really have access to healthcare. They should be able to pay a lower cost for healthcare, and there shouldn't be any kind of challenges with healthcare. When it applies to technology, they look at this and go, "You know what? Technology, great, as long as you're passing the savings along so that more people can get the help that they need." Yep. But they also are a bit like the skeptical group in the fact that they're saying, "Well, I don't know that the healthcare system is going to do that." But they really do want everyone to have access to healthcare and to get the kind of healthcare that they need. Yeah. All right, so a couple of things. With the frustrated group, what are their communication needs? What are their key concerns? I know you talked a little bit about just frustration in general, but can you give me a couple of attitudinal statements that bind them together and how those might fit? You know, they're frustrated at a lot of levels, let's be clear. So frustration that they don't think that in their direct engagement with their providers, they have enough time with them, that they're being heard when they say something. I think one of the comments was from the frustrated, when we had open-ended responses, was, "It's just really, it's no fun to be sitting in a doctor's office and they're looking at a screen all the time instead of me." You know what I mean? So they have a frustration that their provider is not engaging with them in the way that they would like. Well, they're a number and they're not a human. That's right. And then that elevates their frustration when they're looking at their health insurance requirements, the paperwork, the cost, the billing. It just all piles on top of that. It's simply being able to get in to see somebody, scheduling an appointment months in advance and not being able to see them. They're just frustrated with the system. The other thing is they're worried they won't be able to get care when they're sick because of access, because of whatever plan that they may have, because they can't afford the care that they need. So it's sort of a—it's bad now and I'm really worried it could be bad if I get in real trouble. Yeah. So you can imagine how to try to communicate with these people when they're already kind of in a place of being fed up with it. Do you feel like the next group, the appreciative group, has a role in helping the other groups understand? Or are they kind of like, "Well, you guys are kind of in a bubble. We're not really going to trust anything you tell us about the system." They could be ambassadors. I mean, that's a good point. I mean, the appreciative group, they're bought in. Okay. They're bought in. And they trust what's going on. They have good relationships with their providers. They have good relationships. They feel that the system is doing what it needs to be doing. And they certainly could be ambassadors, maybe from a testimonial standpoint or something like that. But I don't know how much credibility that they lend to some of the other consumers. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of us make decisions because of what the people around us say about their experiences and recommend or say, "Ooh, ooh, ooh, don't go there." So I think if you're lucky enough to have people who are appreciative and are having a good experience, then there is a potential impact when you have the opportunity to choose healthcare coverage or providers or visit a particular facility or pursue a type, a course of action in terms of your healthcare. I think we can't forget about the one-on-one, but I agree with you that there might be some skepticism from people for whom that is not their experience to have people, especially if they're— If they seem privileged in some way, yeah. If they seem a little more privileged, to say, "Your experience is not what's happening to me." Okay. So there are two groups that are kind of on this other side of this equation, and that is the frustrated group, which is just, I think, more overwhelmed than anything else. And then there's the skeptical group you guys talked about who is kind of like, you know, kind of got that privacy concern lens there. How do we address the skeptical group? What are their key areas? And if you're trying to win over this group or if you want to make this group your tribe as a brand and really be, you know, like the, you know— Yeah. How can you address them? I think the skeptical need information. I think part of what they're worried about is the black box—about what is happening to my data, what is new technology, what are the implications on my data. I almost felt sort of a, why aren't you talking about this? Like, this whole thing, this AI thing, this is coming. There's a lot of adoption. Why aren't you talking about how it's going to impact me and where my data goes and who's using it? We've seen a lot in the news about what's happening with AI and stuff like news and content and art and all those kinds of things. I think they are cautious with respect to trusting that companies are going to do the right thing. Well, another thing I thought was really interesting—one of the defining attitudes says, "Advancements in healthcare technology won't do much to impact my health." Yeah. Right. So I think this is also coming down to the reality that, okay, maybe it helps the system, maybe it does some admin stuff in the background, but am I going to be a healthier person because of this advancement? And I don't know that we've made that connection yet down to that individual level of— Sure. And I think that they're looking at technology and going, "I'm not sure that this is going to have a positive impact on that one-to-one moment, a patient interacting with their healthcare provider. Tell me how it's going to help that." You know, that's really where the rubber hits the road in terms of healthcare. And I think they're like, "Is this being done to support that relationship, or is it being done for some other reason that's maybe not my priority?" Right. Yeah. The skeptical group, to me, is kind of interesting because they cross industries. I mean, if you think about it in the advertising industry, there are agencies that are skeptical about technology, AI, and what it's going to do and how it's going to impact you. Sure. So look at all kinds of different industries. Well, you could even look at the in-person remote work debates, right? It's just— I mean, this is— Yes. Technology gets in the way of healthcare providers really connecting with their patients. Yeah. Right. It's one of their key attitudes, right? Yeah. So— Yeah. I mean, the elephant in the room is the erosion of trust across everything in our society over the last five to 10 years. And it's— These folks— And in the healthcare space, I mean, it's—what was it? Three out of four? Yeah. People don't trust the healthcare system. Healthcare system. They think it's broken. Yeah. Today. Right. So, I mean