Fallon believes that the biggest challenge will be to reach a target audience that is largely unfamiliar with health insurance,
has little or no experience with it and—in some cases—has been resistant. "A sizeable segment of our uninsured population
consists of young, healthy males, the invincibles," she says. Clive Riddle, president and founder of MCOL, a business-to-business health management and managed care resource company, says
that another challenge is trying to connect with the lowest income brackets that the Commonwealth Connector is mandated to
reach. "Commonwealth Connector might need to almost develop an entirely separate campaign using different vehicles and outreach,"
Riddle says. AETNA When Aetna adopted a new brand positioning in 2003, in many ways its "We want you to know" campaign was analogous to the changes
that took place with employee pension plans over the past two decades.
Dave Mahder, Aetna's senior vice president of strategic marketing and consumer insights, explains. "In the old world of getting
a pension, the employee didn't really need to think about it," he says. "Money just accumulated, and they didn't have any
investments to make. But we all know that people need to pay a lot of attention to their 401(k), their investment levels and
investment choices." Consumerism definitely has found its way to the healthcare industry. While it took 10 to 15 years for consumers to embrace
401(k) plans and all the options they afforded, Mahder believes that it will only require three to five years for the transition
to take place in healthcare. That's why it's so important to arm consumers with more information for making sound choices
in healthcare. "That's really what the essence of 'We want you to know' stands for," Mahder says. "We have a lot of new tools
and new information sources including our new Personal Health Record; the introduction of quality and price transparency in
several markets; and the [public education campaign] Plan for Your Health program, that we've been building out over the past
few years," he says. Aetna's medical membership increased by 678,000 in 2006 to 15.43 million, an increase of 5% over 2005. While Mahder won't
attribute this positive growth entirely to the "We want you to know" campaign, it certainly has made an impact. "I'm sure
[the campaign] helps, but there are a lot of positive things going on, including market expansion, the rapid growth of our
retiree and individual businesses, and the introduction of new products in all market segments," he says. Aetna has invested significantly to understand the varying needs of different segments of the consumer population, as well.
"That has enabled us to develop communication programs, products and services that best fit those needs. This is another dimension
of marketing that is coming into its own in the health insurance industry," Mahder says. Will of this information create loyalty? "One way to generate loyalty in any business is to create preference for a brand,"
he says. "Once people see the brand works for them, they know it's a brand they can trust. Branding is going to be even more
critical in the future." BLUE SHIELD OF CALIFORNIA In October 2006, Blue Shield of California, San Francisco, launched its first ad campaign in six years to try to address consumer
frustrations with the health insurance industry and distinguish itself from competitors.
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