The One Thing That Apple Can't Include Inside the Product Package
If your healthcare marketing materials were as easily created and remarkably beautiful as an Apple product demonstration, you would never need professional design or writing services again. Ever.
Apple’s advertising is powerfully compelling. Creative materials—books, photos, videos—appear intuitively simple to do, and some people are mesmerized into believing that do-it-yourself (DIY) is a short cut to success. But tragically, D-I-Y usually spells disaster.
Whether or not you are an outright fan of Apple, Inc. (iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad), the consumer electronics company is widely regarded—and generally admired—as having one of the most successful marketing personas on the planet. (And for the record, we are Apple-product owners.)
Outstanding quality is infused in every Designed by Apple in California product, along with an almost-magical demonstration of ease-of-use, with wonderful, colorful, and professional appearing results. For example, ask yourself if this description sounds a little too good.
“Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All you need is an idea and a Mac… And before you know it, you’re a published author.”
Editing and producing do-it-yourself videos are Spielberg-perfect. Self-made publications are colorful, stunning and clearly Pulitzer (if not Nobel) candidates. And the GarageBand app will surely vault you to the big concert stage. (Roadies not included.)
But seriously…it’s all too easy to assume that anyone can be a successful advertising “do-it-yourselfer.” We encounter this problem so often that we’ve labeled it Advertising Mistake #5. The D-I-Y solution (or delegating physician marketing or medical advertising to a staff member without professional experience) wastes time and money and produces poor (if any) results.
With great respect to Apple’s outstanding product line, there are no hardware or software shortcuts here.
What Apple doesn’t include in the box is the expertise needed to produce professional quality materials and a bottom-line return on investment. It is simply a risky proposition to entrust a medical practice or hospital advertising budget to anyone other than a trained specialist.
Read more in this related article, Pretty Poison: When Graphics Kill Your Healthcare Marketing Message. And, have the right specialists managing your healthcare marketing and advertising program.
