The Fun House

A best friend loves one ride more than any other: the Shockwave. He is a lot like Bill Gates, they are both studious with streaks of unique cool that create a lifelong endearment. I have long thought the two are a match.

When Shockwave was replaced with Superman at Six Flags, there was hesitancy on my part. I was sad for my friend, of course. And more of a spin fan, I decline initial offers of new heights. Eventually I joined my friends. It was different and I was glad to have had the experience, even if my neck was jarred for the remainder of the day. I suppose any contractual experience with the Man of Steel aims to please, and does so with a bit of a rough course. To be fair, it was I who had been curious. 

And even after all this time, there’s no replacing the Shockwave. In my mind, it’s just part of the Great America brand. We certainly can’t make America great again without being true to ourselves. 

Being true takes a solid marketing partner. 

Now I’ll admit there was a bit of marketing at play. When the Shockwave first came out, we heard about it, read about it, got excited for it. Hard to miss, the coaster was right up front at the gates. 

That’s the way I like my branding and marketing. Up front, so no one messes with your mind. 

There’s a reason these rides are commonly found in theme parks, and there’s a reason the Fun House isn’t. The Fun House messes with your mind. It’s not fun and rarely found in amusement parks. 

Growing up, I entered a Fun House twice. Once I went in with the whole family, once with high school friends. It is safer that way. Fun Houses are like creepy clown hotels, often lurking in corners of the fairgrounds. Sure, at the time it was funny to see mom and dad and sis look extra tall, or extra stout. As if each mirror was a character dog walker in the beginning of 101 Dalmations. After a few short minutes, I wanted out. With high school, we literally just walked through. What fun is there in looking at a creepy version of yourself? If I stared at the mirror long enough, would I transform permanently? Would my brain tell me that this new me is here to stay? How could we ever get back to Great America if trumped by fairground mirrors?

You won’t find Fun Houses in most amusement parks, nor will you find them as part of thrill seeking vacations. The Fun House is brought to us from the outside, usually through carnivals and other temporary guests. Usually at a town fest before departing rather quickly. On brand for the Fun House carnival.

I start out with this example because branding and marketing is serious. While the past couple of decades in healthcare has invested greatly in business models for management, healthcare has done itself a disservice in not distinguishing the importance of community trust. As such, many smooth and glossed over marketing strategies only create more public distrust. Messages of warmth with caring images don’t address the sentiments that healthcare doesn’t understand anxiety, healthcare isn’t being genuine, medicine isn’t telling the truth. These are the Fun House mirror traits we elect when we make healthcare too much of a business. In it too long, maybe we risk transforming permanently. Maybe executives tell us that this is who we are now.

A key takeaway from lessons learned during the current pandemic is the serious distrust between the public and medicine. The fracture has only widened. 

I believe it is critical that healthcare examine where Fun House mirrors have set up shop. Frankly, I’m not even sure where they got those fairground permits. 

Healthcare organizations are long term members of the community; the community deserves to see the marketed greatness up front, at the gate. Even if new themes enter faster than a speeding bullet, we will always have that endearing track. Just as there is no replacing a best friend, there is no replacing genuine virtue in healthcare.

I have the utmost respect for the health industry’s marketing and branding professionals. Patient experience, feel good stories, expert opinions on current events and other offers are smart, true and important. Professionals in this field make it all happen. So it is out of respect for absolute professionals that I share my opinions on improvement opportunities. I believe healthcare marketing and branding unwisely tears off of other industry playbooks from time to time. Let’s examine a few other industries. Let’s take a look at a few Fun Houses to avoid while we purchase our tickets to ride cherished Shockwaves at the gates.

A. 

“I’m not harassing you,” my boss said to me in the early summer of 2013. 

She had approached with this sentiment early morning in our Chicago office. The evening before, a loved one in his suburban home had put the brand name + harassment into Google search while I sat on the nearby couch, detailing my past year. I had worked for the partnering organization years prior, and my loved one’s brain connected the brand to route the search accordingly. Branding and marketing matter, whether an organization’s partners like it or not. Each subsidiary and affiliation are all connected, particularly through their true colors.

I didn’t respond to her, yet I looked at the contorted anger before me. I felt sad about the Fun House. It had become a permanent mirror for this company. They had let an ugly transformation happen. Six months prior, when she randomly smiled after a bout of yelling and advised that the Medical Director said I “could take it”, I knew the carnival was fixed. And even months before, lots of issues. So this was no quick walk through the funny mirrors. On this particular day, I couldn’t respond to her. I was sorry these true colors had transformed so hideously. I was sorry the Fun House operators set up permanent shop in Chicago, and in time I know everyone would want to be forgiven. Of course I would forgive; it wasn’t who they were down deep. And accountability would still be required. 

Over a few months later, there was mention of my hometown at my workplace, a desperation on numerous occasions. I shut it down, met them at their Fun House playbook (Google search) and Googled direct conversation from my own Chicago home. The temporary Fun House wasn’t welcome as a permanent suburban carnival fixture, and providing the truth to wired observers (where it needed to go) was my solution. Wouldn’t you know the powers that be closed down the carnival permit? This was a safety issue, and I exited the Fun House with my extended loved ones. Nope, the extended suburban family weren’t hideous. And despite the shockwave of mosquito repellent I applied through Google search swear words, neither was I. 

In marketing and advertising for healthcare, use search analytics wisely. Safeguard data. Avoid the Fun House. Be wise about who we share search metrics with, and how these metrics are analyzed. As if boarding a double-decker carousel, choose the carousel horse to reflect your truth. Hopefully the choice will avoid the wild-eyed, gape-mouth frantics that accompany misuse of search privacy.

Let’s make sure the full story of patient and community interest is understood before responding to search queries. Say no to carnival executives intent on permanent funny mirrors. 

And remember, community safety and trust first. 

B. 

About a year or so later, 2014-2015 ish, I watched a bus whizzer by Rogers Park. Ironically, it was plastered with the hospital’s rebranding efforts. There was no breakthrough there, I thought to myself. There was no breakthrough in a broken healthcare industry still fixated on attracting private payers without full community regard. I took a deep breath in as it passed. 

In healthcare, branding and marketing gloss over does nothing for actual community trust. It only begs the question: what is your medicine hiding, why isn’t basic medical care covered, and what faults is your organization not admitting to? 

The reality of today’s world is that much of the healthcare branding and marketing is tailored away from actual community trust. In doing so, the fracture is widened. People go to academic medicine in part because faculty members teach what’s up and coming, so logically the newest medicine will be available. People go to community hospitals because they are a staple. We still need to meet unspoken concern. 

The spoken assessment will tell healthcare that the neighborhood wants a short ER wait. The unspoken assessment will tell us that the neighborhood wants assurance that the hospital lobbyists aren’t against the poor, the physician scientist isn’t side making money off the product that the hospital provides and that the quality measures reported are true. The unspoken asks why mental health isn’t medicine’s priority, and why an antidepressant is medicine’s first remedy. Yes, this does matter in everyone’s trust. A Fun House tells us to just keep marketing the same way; the new color design is bringing in the dollars. A Fun House tells us that we’re a business just like Target or Toyota. ‘This is the way businesses are’, says the carnival. ‘Look, look at yourself in the mirror’, says the Fun House. ‘Stay here, clown around awhile. Sell the products, love the bottom line, transform the industry in a way a black belt would.’ 

Take a look at the patient-clinician relationship advertised right at the gate. It is worth the wait, it is a staple, it is true. It’s even scarier, climbing those shockwave tracks and sitting with anticipation at the top. What if patient outcomes don’t go as expected? What if we don’t make as much profit, because utilization is spent with chronic conditions management? What if we foster a deep relationship with community trust and then injure a patient? 

With upfront marketing, we address the fears and don’t ignore those track noises. And watch as this becomes the experience everyone returns to, again and again.

Exit the funny mirrors. We’re in medicine. We can’t deliver it well without meeting the community’s trust. 

Get out of the Fun House, break through it if you must.

C.

No, I didn’t want to talk about her Match.com username search, I thought to myself. 

My 2012 colleague pressed on anyway, sharing about some name she had. I ignored her prompting and digging, listened to the spiel and went back to my desk. Thinking about health policies on my new job, my thoughts turned back to the online world. I started Match just months before. Aware that my ex boss, like many people in life, also used that service, I still wondered if the online world was safe. The longer the weirdness with the new job continued, the more I grew anxious. We all have nervous ticks when the pressure cooker is cranked up. Mine was keystroking. Months later, when they asked about ex bosses directly, I searched his name. 

Trump Tower appeared as his Google first result. 

Trump Tower? I didn’t even remember that existed in Chicago. What a turn off for the city, I thought. I shouldn’t have thought this, because I’ve never been in a Trump hotel, but the thought did occur. True to my healthcare marketing message, I’m being honest with you readers. I’m not perfect, I was judgmental. How was I to know if Trump places had comfortable units? The marketing and branding of that name, though, was connected to money first. And for me, while money is important for our communities, rolling in cash as a measure of human success was relatively ignorant. There is intelligence with money and then there is the sheer Fun House ignorance of extreme greed. Advertising this ignorance as success messes with the public’s mind. Because I’m unimpressed with the branding, I find no reason to patronize it. 

I told myself the wiring and mocking likely made the whole search not true, and I told myself not to worry about computer privacy and keystrokes. I also told myself not to be judgmental, many people love the Trump brand. I knew I would never personally be interested in the Chicago Trump experience. Though happy to try a martini there, I’d never stay among any permanent mirrors.

My best friends don’t value success the same way. Neither do I. That’s really all this came down too.

Marketing and branding matter.

It is important to understand negative reactions between public and healthcare branding. It is important to seek honesty, view the community from the Sky Trek and require community-centered change as a result.

Give me an honest upfront main attraction again and again, and may the gates transform this renewable energy.

D.  

“I’m going to call the station,” my parent exclaimed. 

I’m not a big TV person. My parents are, and so we were into shows and news growing up. I looked over my sisters and blankets on the floor among the evening commercials. 

 “Do you see that in the background?” he said, mad.

 “What?” 

“The number. The number 7, in the background. That’s illegal.” 

“But the TV Station has a right to advertise, like commercials.”

“No, not in that way.” 

Um, hello Dad! Is anyone home? Freedom of speech! 

He explained that this isn’t free to message whatever a company wants. It was explained that this is why we see Coke cans and Nike shoes upfront in movies. Advertisements aren’t hidden in the background as an attempt to trick people. Having permanent brand in the background messes with people’s minds, he advised as we just sat. And it is illegal to place that kind of imagery in the background as a permanent mind message. It’s also wrong to call it advertising, because the company isn’t upfront and sharing the message earnestly. They are, for lack of better term, trying to brainwash through mental imagery. 

He did report it, and I never saw that faded number in the background again. 

I use Twitter for sports superstitions. Now, I also for it communication and response. I have tried to be careful not to send the wrong message without writing clear words. The memory of subliminal messaging, false advertising and harm to the public remains a lasting education. 

Social media affected my health positively. It is fun when we make it fun. And it is important to stay connected, to let everyone know you are well in life. That’s why I have Facebook. Originally to confidently answer the nasty behavior of that toxic workplace, I use it now to stay connected. 

It’s extremely disheartening that people use technology harmfully, especially when we’re there on Facebook under the blanket with loved ones.

Facebook and other platforms allow false advertisers, false information and foreign interference in lies, and they are wrong. I’m not sure why the public hasn’t been championed here, when subliminal messaging was championed for decades in other media. I’m not sure why laws haven’t been enacted. 

We enjoy Forrest Gump’s table tennis advertisement because it is explicit and, like a sweet coaster, upfront. It’s not doing anyone any harm. Facebook does harm.

I don’t enjoy watching the public look into the Fun House mirror through a deluge of Facebook nonsense. I don’t enjoy watching the public tell themselves this is who they really are, this odd shaped mirror image. I don’t enjoy watching foreign actors, nor domestic jaded groups, tell our United States that the angry disunion of violence, prejudice and hopeless bullying is who we are, the only option we voted for, the only reflection of ourselves. 

And I don’t enjoy watching leadership tell our children to keep watching the subliminal messaging on Facebook, no one’s going to call it in.

This is a crisis that affects public health. Public health must been meet the realities of social media where it is: unregulated and bratty. Public health has been doing a great job, and private health must partner. False information needs to be acknowledged and addressed. Even as we sit with blankets, hoping for leadership to demand the subliminal messaging laws.

There are people who celebrate and encourage the scrambling of minds for their own personal profit. For personal gain. When leadership in technology networking doesn't care, and even enjoys kinship in self-centeredness, it is up to public safeguarding to protect.

I don’t enjoy watching my country, nor my global community, in the Fun House of wheeled and dealed, VC funded Facebook. I don't enjoy watching the consumption of messaging that messes with their minds. There is no break through, no genius, no respect in this.

I advocate strong, honest healthcare advertising and marketing, as well as stronger health messaging. I hope that great modeling makes all the difference. I reject the Fun House. 

Save the Scrambler ride for the park.

Quit with the false messaging on unregulated monopolistic platforms; it’s messing with everyone’s minds. 

E.

“Hospital lawyers will do anything to win,” she said.    

 They had set my new colleague next to me, advised that I was to work where they stationed me. The continuous repeating of my private communications continued. I wore headphones so I didn’t have to hear it, until HR advised I was obligated to listen to the mocking by way of headphone restriction. 

Well, the truth is the truth and facts just are, my paraphrased reply hit back. Doing anything to win implied everything to win. 

All of this spoke against community health and hospital trust anyway. I decided. Plus, the culture shift in healthcare meant acceptance of mistakes, not denial of mistakes. Unfortunately, this new culture is more about safety metrics. It is less respectful when law comes in. 

“They will lie.”

“They can’t lie in court,” I replied.

“Everybody lies on the witness stand,” she replied, exactly.

It’s unfortunate when healthcare doesn’t admit mistakes, nor imperfections. This culture persists, much of it for marketing and advertising. If people know about errors, they’ll choose another’s care. And unless healthcare is all on the same page, the honesty distribution will be uneven.

In our personal lives, we find people even more perfect for us when they have imperfections. Something’s seriously wrong when someone is the best at everything. When they’ve never made a mistake. When they are so presidentially amazing...the likes of which we’ve never seen before. We all know this is the last type to trust. 

Even with new coaster engineering physics, physics the likes of which we’ve never seen before, a solid best friend will gives the heads up on sticky coaster points. Rides aren’t perfect, you know. There’s that jerky turn after the first drop, I’m told. Prepare for smoothest Raging Bull ride, also the longest, I’m told, we just gotta get through that first drop. Keep your eyes open on The Batman, the experience may be short and you’ll want to see it through to the very end, I’m told. 

Upfront marketing. It’s a solid best friend’s brand.

Imperfections are normal. Imperfections are perfect for the public. Flawless campaigns of industry create lasting distrust. This is healthcare’s primary marketing problem. We cannot fix it until we fix the culture and mission.

In this, we look to law’s example. Law drives our regulatory. Law decides how autonomous physicians are, how off the record their mistakes are. Law even determines if healthcare organizations are immune to how they’ve treated employees. 

If lawyers are educated to win, they aren’t educated on how to lose. They aren’t educated on how to discuss failure or mistakes. Before we know it, mistakes and failure become unacceptable. 

This is even true in public law. Mistakes on the part of the government disappear….in part because uneducated legal teams can’t take it. They don’t know how to take it. 

And before we know it, mistakes in surveillance, wiretapping and other intrusions on fellow Americans become just part of the deal. Part of the system. Part of the legal right of the government. 

Perhaps in this fifth and final example, healthcare and law can mature their cultures together. Perhaps this is a marketing industry opportunity for both. These two industries can look to one another, pals on the journey toward improved public trust. 

And the way toward public trust lies in embracing the perfection of imperfection. Learn how to fail, learn to accept and discuss mistakes, learn that intrusion on the public or patient’s life is not justified. Once undertaken, the intrusion should always end with an upfront discussion. These are consequences to actions, even for lawyers in Justice, and we wouldn’t want to mess with anyone’s minds anyway. Like a study wooden legal Eagle, we can help lawyers in Justice create a better world, by demanding accountability to intrusion. You are accountable to your actions, period.

Create a marketing culture that mirrors this new legal culture. Get out of the Fun House of winning at all costs. Step away from the mirror that requires flawless lead. Market healthcare honestly, by changing the legal culture.

Those old Fun House mirrors aren’t who law once was, nor who they need to permanently morph into. We have Great American opportunity to watch private law and public Justice Departments pack up the local carnivals in favor of major outdoor coasters.

As fans, we have the opportunity to wildly scream while the Justice Departments favor the Ticket to Ride.  

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These are just five examples of ways in which healthcare marketing can steer away from alternative industry branding, opting instead for public trust. Perhaps the buddy system will champion all away from Fun House mirrors, in time.

In marketing, images matter. It's important that we understand where we are coming from, even in blogs. As an example, I was coming from a place of personal love in 2015, when writing my red, white and blue gladiola LinkedIn work on addiction medicine. I was coming from a place of familial addiction to alcohol, honoring his love for the flag. Simultaneously, I thought about my own generation's choices with drugs. I chose to avoid them, others didn't, and these choices introduced themselves around the same time as the Strokes. I had always appreciated that I was much more into Julian Casablanca's talent. I still remain so impressed by him, and I still advocate for best health policies in substance abuse.

May our future White House always understand the red flags of drugs. After all, our red, white and blue public deserves the very best in affordable healthcare delivery.

For now and always, I promote the public's health. The angry, disillusioned, depressed and fractured public isn’t who we are. The slick, flawless Wall Street executive table isn’t true healthcare.   

Let’s commit to the protection, to the advocacy of public health, with upfront marketing and messaging right at the starting gates. 

Let’s champion calling it in, so no one messes with the public’s mind. 

Even if it takes a Shockwave Mockingjay to make the case.