What needs to inform Atlantic City’s new master plan is a brand vision.  What image of the resort does it want to conjure?  What promise will it make to visitors?

Until the late 1950s, Atlantic City was known as the Queen of Resorts and the Playground of the World. It promised the ocean by day, the boardwalk by evening, great seafood restaurants and a vibrant nightlife. It was a consistent package.

From Promised Land to Never Never Land
This all went into a tailspin in the 1960s. By the early 70s — having failed to reinvest and compete with newer destinations — the town was down and out.  Casino Gaming was seen as the panacea when New Jersey voters approved it in a 1976 referendum.

Local residents and business owners thought they could eventually rival Las Vegas because, in addition to casinos, Atlantic City had an ocean, beautiful beaches and 60 million people within 300 miles.

But they had no clue what was in store for them. The casino operators were never interested in the ocean or in catering to families.  The opposite was true. Each casino sought to become a self-contained entertainment enclave with its own shops, restaurants and hotel rooms.  Only one property — Playboy — even allowed gamblers to see the ocean from the casino.

An Eco-system of Attractions Extinguished
This altered the resort’s “eco-system” of attractions. The Boardwalk deteriorated and local restaurateurs went out of business, while busloads of day-trippers were lured with free rolls of quarters.

The package unwrapped. In the minds of vacationers, Atlantic City moved to the back of the bus. Casinos may have added year-round jobs and helped the economy but they altered the resort’s brand for a generation.

A Failure to Imagine
Today’s “solutions” show a failure of imagination: Expansion of slot parlors? Legalization of internet gaming websites? Really? Atlantic City planners need to be more like Walt Disney envisioning Disney World before the first footing was poured.

If Atlantic City wants to get serious about revitalization, it must determine:

• What promise does it hold for visitors, conventioneers and vacation planners? Does it want to remain a gambling mecca for day-trippers? Or would it like to market extended packages for people with broader interests?
• How will it achieve this vision?  What attractions need to be developed to make it a reality?
• Once conceived, who champions the brand to make sure the promise is kept?  Who ensures that all the stakeholders understand the value of a modern resort that people want to spend time in?

Beginnings are good.  Atlantic City has had many of them. One more won’t hurt but hopefully this one will be built around a grand vision … something worthy of the Queen of Resorts or the Playground of the World.

Even with a history of backfires — like Coca Cola using, then dumping Michael Vick, and the embarrassment of a Tiger Woods (the list is quite long) — celebrity endorsements continue because they work.

Still, in the face of the re-investigation of Natalie Wood’s death in 1981, Urban Financial Group’s continued use of her former husband Robert Wagner to pitch reverse mortgages to senior citizens, is puzzling.

Such endorsements are intended to build trust. Since Wagner’s role in his wife’s death is once again being alleged and investigated, wouldn’t you expect Urban Financial to shelve its TV commercial until the investigation is concluded?

Think about it.  Urban’s target audience is people aged 65 and older.  They were in their 30s and 40s when Natalie Wood died.  How can they put their trust in Wagner now when he is being accused of lying about his wife’s death?

Wittingly or not, Urban Financial Group is disrespecting Natalie, knocking on Wood, so to speak, and apparently contradicting the promise of trust it intends to convey.  It’s like watching an oxymoron unfold in front of you. And what happens to the Urban brand if Wagner is found culpable in Wood’s death after 30 years?

Celebrity endorsements can help sell products but the relevance and context must support the brand’s underlying promise.  When that is called into question, the assumption of trust is broken and the investment is lost.

Why should businesses that have a website also have a Facebook page? Your website is your company’s encyclopedia, where visitors can find what they’re looking for because of intuitive navigation.  Facebook offers a different experience, more timely updates and interactive communication.

And the numbers are compelling
In addition to the oft-quoted 500 kajillion members, the number of daily fan page “likes” has doubled in the past year, to 100 million a day. When a visitor “Likes” or better yet, “Shares” something on your page, it then appears on their own page and is visible to all of their friends as well.

In addition, a business Facebook page offers connections with customers, prospects and other stakeholders:

• It allows real conversations to take place between any or all of your stakeholders.
• It provides authenticity, allowing people to identify themselves and speak candidly about their experiences.
• It provides an immediacy that websites generally don’t achieve.
• The cumulative effect of its “friends-of-friends” feature offers an online reach that rivals other media.
• It supports all other media programs.

New features expand Facebooks usefulness
Facebook’s latest updates bring it even closer to a website by allowing tabs … check out this example from the Alabama Vision Center using full tabs.  Closer to home, Summit Medical Group incorporates a less intrusive Welcome tab and Physician Finder tab in the left navigation column of its Facebook page.

It’s hard to think of a reason that Facebook should not be part of any core communications strategy.  Websites, local advertising, public relations, newsletters all still serve specific purposes and should not be ignored … tying it all together for a smooth brand experience is the goal.

If you’re going to add a Facebook page, don’t turn it over to already busy staff members and expect them to fit it into everything else they do.  This rarely works, as is witnessed by numbers of sites that display content that is painfully out of date.  Developing timely information that people want and building a fan base takes time.

Keep the page fresh by regularly posting news and helpful information. And if you need help, just send us a note and we’ll be glad to pitch in.

There is a back-story here that has significant implications for New Jersey’s hospital industry and maybe more so for the state’s health insurers.

The surface story (link provided below) is that Prime Healthcare Services Inc. of Ontario, Calif., is seeking to buy Christ Hospital and convert it to for-profit status.  Is it curious to anyone why a California company would skip over 48 other states and pick a hospital in Jersey City to invest in?

Prime has built a fortune for its controversial founder, cardiologist Dr. Prem Reddy,  the brother-in-law of Lex Reddy quoted in the Journal’s report.  Dr. Reddy has a track record of buying struggling hospitals and making them profitable.  It is the way he has done this that has raised eyebrows.

As of 2010, Prime owned and operated 14 hospitals in Southern California.  From its beginning with a single hospital in Victorville, Calif., Prime attracted attention immediately by canceling contracts with insurance companies, claiming that their low level of reimbursements were responsible for driving California hospitals out of business.  This defied conventional wisdom, because most hospitals believed they needed those contracts to maintain a steady flow of patients.

But Dr. Reddy saw it differently.  Because California law requires insurance companies to pay 100% of charges for any subscriber who enters an out-of-network hospital through its emergency room.  So if a patient comes to the emergency room with chest pains and is admitted, undergoes surgery and remains hospitalized for days, the entire hospital bill would be covered at 100%.  With a deal like that, why should the hospital negotiate lower-level reimbursements that would only pay a fraction of those charges?

There were other business strategies employed by Prime that all together resulted in substantial profitability and expansion.  Some of these other strategies, along with some of the personal beliefs expressed by Dr. Reddy, have made him a controversial figure.  At the same time, he has enabled many hospitals to stay open that otherwise would have failed.

And he has made a fortune in the process.  A glimpse into the lifestyle and personal wealth of Reddy was provided by the L.A. Times in a July 8, 2007 story (link provided below), which included this paragraph:

“Reddy’s 15,000-square-foot mansion, a local landmark, has become a way station for politicians. Valued at between $3 million and $5 million in estimates by local real estate agents, the Mediterranean-style house is in the former neighborhood of cowboy star Roy Rogers. It features gold-plated toilets and expensive collectibles such as a nearly 4-foot-long model of Cinderella’s horse and carriage made of expensive Spanish Lladro porcelain. Another home in Beverly Hills is valued at more than $9 million.”

California is only one of two states in the country that requires insurers to pay 100% of charges originating in the Emergency Room.  The other state is New Jersey.

Prime Healthcare Services’ success was not lost on the owners of the Bayonne Medical Center, who bought that failing hospital and converted it to for-profit status in 2008.  Shortly afterward, the owners cancelled insurance contracts because they failed to cover the cost of care. At the same time, the owners improved their Emergency Room and other services throughout the hospital.  Their success is evident in their current progress in buying Hoboken University Medical Center.

So it is not surprising that New Jersey, the only other state that can support its business model, would attract Prime Healthcare Services to Christ Hospital.

And what is the implication for health insurers in New Jersey if suddenly there were three for-profit hospitals — in Hudson County alone — that all canceled their insurance contracts?

My speculation is that: First, it would ramp up lobbying activity in Trenton to change the current law.  And second, it might even lead to more realistic reimbursement rates that are currently imposed on hospitals already struggling to provide quality care to their local communities.

Sources:

• From the Jersey Journal: Deal would put Jersey City hospital in hands of for-profit Calif. company
• From the Los Angeles Times: Hospital Group Rejects System and Cashes in.

Employees are the lifeblood of a brand. They make it personal. Their passion — or lack of it — is what customers remember. And the key to passion is in understanding and embracing the brand’s purpose.

Purpose precedes Passion
Purpose involves “the big picture.”  It is something to believe in. Many companies call it a “mission.”  We call it a promise. For example:

• Disney’s employees would tell you their job is “to make  dreams come true.”
• Quest Diagnostics — whose biggest activity is performing routine blood tests — would say they “provide diagnostic insights” to guide medical decisions.
• Investors Savings Bank is in business to responsibly and ethically help its stakeholders prosper: employees, clients, stockholders and communities.
• And Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield employees, who process insurance claims,  are “Making healthcare work.”

Such beliefs imbue even the smallest task with a sense of purpose.  That’s because people care more about working for a cause than a company.

Keep the fire burning
Once aroused, passion must be sustained.  Here are some ways to do it.

• Let your employees know what your purpose — or promise — is.
• Explain what you’re out to achieve and what role they play in the achievement.
• Remind them on a daily basis.  Use your intranet or send a short email a day to reinforce why they are important.
• Let them know what you’re planning.  Involve them in your brainstorming.
• Always share advertising with them before it runs publically.

Use every communication and interaction to let them know they are valued. Employees are the lifeblood of your brand and how you continually inspire them will pay dividends for years to come.

But more and more companies and healthcare organizations are turning to “hybrid marketing” as they search for an optimal mix of online and offline communications.

According to a survey by Manhattan Research,  physicians doubled the amount of time they spent online for professional purposes between April 2008 to 2010.

Medical practitioners use the internet to research information, stay on top of industry news and satisfy CME requirements. Increasing reliance on smartphones and experimentation with Facebook in their personal time have further eased them along the digital-adoption curve.

Many companies know they should be using digital communications but aren’t sure where to begin, how to allocate funding or how to integrate new programs into their traditional marketing activities.

A well-optimized website or blog is a good beginning and can pay for itself simply by reducing or eliminating thousands of dollars a year in telephone directory advertising.  Other opportunities may be able to be funded out of existing programs that have produced questionable results.

Although experimentation is valuable, hybrid marketing requires an understanding of both traditional and social media. They are used differently and must be knowledgeably integrated to find the right mix and achieve an acceptable return.

Don’t rely on just natural selection to evolve your business. Explore the new world of digital opportunities, adapt your traditional programs, select the right team to guide your hybrid marketing and, above all, be one of the fittest to survive.

In a statement, Johnson & Johnson said it was one of 2,000 companies worldwide that “acquiesced to the Iraqi government’s demands, between 2001 and 2003, that they pay a 10 percent fee as a condition of importing humanitarian goods into the country.”

Social Networking Tools Not Reliable Source for Health Data, Study Finds – iHealthBeat.

It’s not a surprise really. The Internet, after all, is just a channel. One that’s profoundly changing our world, but still, garbage in/garbage out. If anything, the demise of newspapers and other reputable new outlets makes it media literacy – separating the wheat from the chaff – ever more important.

As marketers, we owe it to our viewers to vet our content, and present it in a fashion that befits its nature.

Imagine my dismay at seeing what has become of this storied brand. Go see for yourself – www.britannica.com.

Gone is the air of authority and absolute certainty. Gone is the feeling that their word is the final word on nearly any subject under the sun.

It’s a different age of course, and so am I for that matter. And it’s goes without saying that the information industry has been turned upside down by the eponymously named Information Age; Jimmy Wales probably doesn’t get a Christmas card from the folks at the Encyclopaedia. Still the brand experience that the site provides is totally Web 0.1, with a tired user interface, confusing layout, and advertising for everything from Vaseline to mass market furniture. While I understand the need to generate revenue in this dividend-hungry age, I would never have imagined advertising in the printed version.

By commoditizing themselves and wrapping their content in a unimpressive user experience, they have diminished the one thing that separated them from the pack – their brand.

Following in Snow’s great tradition, researchers are looking to see if self-reported statuses on Facebooks and other Social Networks to track the outbreak of the flu and other seasonal illnesses. “May you live in interesting times,” or so the saying goes…

Social Networks Could Track Epidemics, Offer Other Health Benefits – iHealthBeat.