Mayo Clinic goes big on wellness
As a Minnesota Twins fan, I’m currently blessed with the second year of outdoor baseball in our new ballpark, Target Field. Among many of the amazing design features and amenities is the gargantuan scoreboard. Standing 57 feet tall and measuring 101 feet wide, it covers the same space as 1,042 42” televisions, and is nine times larger than the previous video screen inside the Metrodome.
I caught my first two games of the season last week, and one of the best uses of that giant screen were short video clips from Mayo Clinic featuring Minnesota Twins baseball players promoting health and wellness tips. At 5,757 square feet of video, it’s safe to say Mayo Clinic is going big on wellness.
Whenever we are advocating for a certain perspective or trend in healthcare marketing, it always brings us joy to see the Mayo Clinic pursuing the same philosophy. That’s because for so many people in healthcare, the belief (and fairly deserved) is that if the Mayo Clinic is doing it, it must be right. This happened with social media, as Mayo Clinic spokesperson Lee Aase travelled the country helping to convert health systems with cold feet into SM advocates by demonstrating how the Mayo Clinic had embraced this trend. Well, here’s hoping the same occurs with using wellness to build brands in healthcare. As a major sponsor of the Minnesota Twins, the Mayo Clinic is focusing on wellness in a number of ways, including the giant in-game video messages from Twins players, and holding a contest for video submissions on wellness (check out the contest and videos on Mayo Clinic’s Facebook page).
But it’s not just a sponsorship with the Twins – the Mayo Clinic is making wellness a major component of their system’s approach to delivering care. A March 29 story in the Star Tribune, titled “Mayo to make wellness a deliberate part of care,” outlines how the Mayo Clinic is expanding their four-story Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center (currently used by employees and their families) thanks to a philanthropic donation from the founder of Slim-Fast. The new wellness facility will provide health and wellness guidance to patients with certain illnesses, such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease. Even better, the facility is also available to healthy folks who may be at risk for disease, who can learn how diet, exercise and other healthy choices will help them avoid or delay the onset of disease. The article says patients can stay in touch with wellness coaches through weekly chats or online check-ins. Here’s a quote from Dr. Patricia Barrier, Mayo Clinic’s medical director of disease prevention and health promotion:
“It’s one thing if you just give people information. Another thing can happen if you give people experiences. A third happens if you continue to connect with people.”
So now, with Mayo Clinic going all in with wellness, will it be easier for you to convince your leadership that engaging your community through wellness is a smart marketing strategy? Let’s hope so.
For more on wellness and healthcare marketing, revisit these past blog posts:
Wellness and branding: do you want the good news or the bad news?
Will you be the first to own wellness in your market?
Joe Public doesn’t care about your hospital