Communications Strategy for Lion gates Hospital
Student name,
CMNS 360
Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to increase the awareness of children, young people and parents in regards to mental health related problems on behalf of Lions Gate Hospital(LGH) in Canada. It is indisputable that LGH has sophisticated medical facilities, doctors, and provided promising medical services to patients. It earns a brand popularity for providing excellent acute care and palliative care to the elder group. However, very few notices that LGH is also providing very good youth mental health care services. Lions Gate Hospital Foundation is a powerful fund-raising charity to allow LGH to purchase advanced medical equipment, facilities and build medical centers for patients. It is also ranked the 4th busiest hospital in Canada. More information about LGH foundation could be referred to the its homepage (https://www.lghfoundation.com/).
Facebook account, to my surprise, it had only 162 likes. It is significantly lagging behind other major competitors in this business despite that LGH has better medical staffs and facilities. Then I realize that LGH is like of online social media presence. Recently LGH foundation has successfully raised 5 million dollars and helped LGH to build a Carlile Youth Concurrent Disorder center, but it still has not received patients to reach its full capacity. I have also conducted a desktop research through citing the secondary data from Youth Mental Health Canada (YMHC). I find that children, students, younger people and parents have not realized the seriousness of mental problems and diseases. Hence, there is a need for us to promote LGH’s mental health care services and various youth mental health-related problems to reach more target audiences. Hence, a detailed communication strategies including media channels, activities, timeline, budget and evaluation has been proposed accordingly in this report.
Introduction
I am a CMNS student who is currently studied at XXX University. This marketing communication mix strategy is devised on behalf of Lion Gates Hospital in order to raise awareness of youth mental health problem in Canada. Lion Gates Hospital (LGH) provides a full-range of general and specialized acute care services for patients mainly above 50 years. It also provides palliative care for the elderly group. However, recently it starts to expand its health care services for younger group especially in the psychological field. It is because the younger group may equally have health problems just as the elderly. Each year, do you realize that millions of youth in Canada is suffering mental problems?
Communication Objectives/Goals
Recently, LGH foundation successfully raised 5 million dollars to build the Carlile Youth Concurrent Disorder center. The new ten-bed unit is mainly focusing on assessing and stabilizing young patients’ mental status with short stay ranged from 15 to 20 days. The mental health service center also has a higher staff ratio than an adult unit. Instead of traditional hospital setting, Carlile Youth Concurrent Disorder center is more like a safe place for young patients to make friends and chat with each other. The medical center is designed in a way to suit the tastes of youth. For instance, private bedrooms, recreational areas, lounges and other facilities are provided for them.
So far, many children and young people desperately need mental health care services but very few of them could receive proper treatment. Besides, some youth may have not yet realized that they have mental problems or are at higher risks of having them. In fact, suicidal youth are in pain. They do not necessarily die but they perceive death as a kind of deliberation from acute pain. Their ability to cope has also reached their body and mental limits so death is their own way to put an end to their pain. To raise awareness among youth and their guardians is highly relevant and meaningful as it could save thousands of lives in Canada. On the other hand, currently, it is true that LGH has built its new youth mental health care center but it lacks essential online media exposure. Thus, there is a need to implement effective communication strategy to reach the target audiences and increase their awareness about available mental care services in LGH.
Facebook, for instance, is the largest online social media platform especially for youth to exchange their ideas, chat, share photos, upload videos and musics, make friends and so on. Not only limiting to youth, in fact, theres is a tendency for all aged groups in Canada to communicate and interact through online social media channels because it does not have time constraints and geographical limitations. People can access their social media accounts anytime and anywhere. However, by Nov 26th 2018, LGH only has 162 likes and 173 follows in its Facebook homepage. It shows that LGH does not pay a great effort on maintaining and updating its social media accounts. Hence, the major goal of our campaign is to raise awareness by 100%. It could be described through a SMART goal model as follows,
Ø Specific: To increase the overall awareness among target audiences about youth mental health problems by 100%
Ø Measurable: It could be measured by total number of “likes” increase in the Facebook. Currently there is only 162 likes. After conducting the campaign, this number is expected to be exceeding 324 after three month.
Ø Achievable: As LGH is so far the Canada’s fourth busiest hospital. It also has a very famous brand reputation among patients. Other similar hotel such as Victoria General Hospital has a total number of “likes” above 700 (accessed on Nov 26th 2018). So it expected that LGH should have similar numbers. 364 likes is thus is highly achievable.
Ø Realistic: As the above-mentioned, other famous hotels in Canada has more followers than LGH. It is because other hospitals are fully aware of the importance of social media marketing. But LGH’s brand reputation is sound. It is also financially backed by LGH foundation, a reputable charity in Canada. Hence, it is also realistic to set this goal.
Ø Time-based: without deadline and milestones, it is easy to put goals off. There is very clear of this market communication campaign. It will last for 3 months and ends at Feb 26th 2019.
Key Messages
The first key message in this market communication campaign is to help children and youth to learn more about mental problems such as bipolar disease, depression, depressive disorder and so on. The possible negative consequences of various mental problems such as suicide will be conveyed to target audiences. It is possible for our target groups to identify whether they have or are the risk of having mental disease. If not, the campaign itself will introduce precautionary measures to prevent potential mental problems among children, students and other young people. If students are identified to have mental problems, LGH’s mental health services will also be elaborated in details for them to seek for proper treatment. Key message: Do you know that you are also at risk of having mental disease?
The second key message aims to target the parents or guardians of children and young people. In Canada, only 1 out 5 children receives proper mental health service or treatment. It shows that their parents are not fully aware of the negative outcomes associated with negative mental status or mental problems. Hence, this key message aims to tell parents that they have to take the responsibility to take care of their children both physically and mentally. Key message: Your children are in danger of getting mental problems. They should be mentally and emotionally happier!
Communications Assessment
Let’s look at some statistics published by Youth Mental Health Canada (YMHC). The total number of 12 to 19 year old teenagers are at risk for developing depression is astonishingly 3.2 million. It is estimated that around 10% to 20% of Canadian youth are affected by a mental illness or disorder. Suicide accounts for 24% of deaths among youth aged from 15 to 24. All of the above-mentioned shows that not only the elderly should receive health, young people should be equally targeted. However, the truth is that only 1 out 5 children who needs mental health services receives them. Youth is ranked the 1st place in terms of high risk population for suicide. Canada’s youth suicide rate is ranked the 3rd place in the industrialized world. Hence, it seems that the situation is quite urgent in Canada. Without receiving proper mental health services, Canadian children and youth are potentially at risk of having mental problems. Besides, the extreme case is that they may commit suicide.
Target Audiences
Our marketing team will mainly deliver our key messages and communication goals to two target audience groups as follows.
Elementary, High school and University Students
As the aforementioned, one major target group is children and young people aged from 8 to 25. they are most likely to be elementary, high school and university students. We are going to convey the messages and information about various mental diseases, negative effective of mental problems, and LGH’s mental health services to them. It is always better for us to have a face-to-face interaction with the target group. So far, we decide to set up booths in elementary school, high school and local universities to propagate essential knowledge about mental health care. Face-to-face interaction, distribution of flyers and brochures and booths are recognized as effectively direct marketing tool in market communication mix. It will be effective for us to raise awareness among children and students to inform them more about the importance of maintaining mental health. Besides, we will send marketers to maintain our social media accounts regularly. They should be responsible for answering questions online.
Parents and Guardians
The second target group is identified to be parents and guardians of the children and young people. Demographically, they are aged above 30 years old. They are staying with their children so it is highly possible for them to figure out whether their children may be at risk of having mental problems or already having them. If so, they should not ignore it. In fact, mental health is equally important as physical health. As mentioned in the communication assessment section, young people may choose to commit suicide in extreme cases. They are not necessarily to die but they perceive death as a way to put an end to their acute pain. As parents and guardians, it is advisable to provide basic mental consoling for their children. If their children are identified to have mental problems, it is very important for them to receive treatment as soon as possible. Parents and guardians will also be approached through online social media. We will invite experts in psychology to conduct regular talks with parents and guardians about how to help children keep mentally and emotionally healthy.
Media
In order to facilitate the effectiveness of our Youth Mental Health Care campaign, both traditional advertising and social advertising channels will be utilized. Traditional advertising tools include TV and newspaper will be employed in our campaign. The potential advantage of TV advertising is that both residents from the urban and rural area could be approached. Some parents may still have habits of watching TV so they could approach in this way. CFTV-DT is popular English TV channel in Canada. We will broadcast the youth mental health-related topics and our campaign materials to target audiences. The advertising power of Newspaper is weaker than TV advertising but it is cheap in nature. It could facilitate the effectiveness of TV advertising.
Besides, as more and more people are used to online social media platform. Majority of them will access online social media accounts almost every day to communicate with others or access news through their Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts. Hence, social media advertising is expected to reach a wider range of target audiences. The underlying advantage of social advertising is that it almost incurs no cost. In addition, people also access the campaign information and mental related issues without time and geographical barriers. They could also know more updated about our upcoming campaign event through our social media accounts and websites.
Communication Mechanisms
First, in order to approach the group 1 target audiences, namely children and young people, we will set up panels, posters and distribute brochures in elementary, high school and universities. 5 to 10 volunteers will be recruited as volunteers and facilitators during campaign. In our booth, three critical information will be critically delivered to target audiences. First, students are expected to be cognizant of the negative outcome of depressed or other mental illness. The second information is to identify whether they have a certain degree of mental problems. This could be done through attempting psychological tests. If students are identified with mental problems or diseases such as bipolar disease, they are advised to seek for mental health care service in LGH.
Besides, details about LGH’s mission, vision and values will also be conveyed to target audiences. Students might not be fully aware that LGH is actually providing mental health care services. LGH previous is more known as a good acute care or palliative care for senior citizens. In fact, it also pays a great attention and invests huge amount of money and resources to provide mental care services for the younger group. Students will be informed with how to receive proper mental care treatment as written in our brochures distributed.
Through TV, newspaper and social media advertising, a wider target group, including parents and guardians will be effectively approaches. Very similarly, negative consequences associated with youth mental problems will be either written or broadcast in details. Parents and guardians will know more about youth mental problems and how to help them receive proper treatment. In social media and website maintenance, two volunteers will be in charge of updating relevant information about campaign progress. They will report to our team weekly about the numbers of hits, visits and mostly important “likes” in our social media homepage.
Timeline and Budget
Table 1: Timeline for Youth Mental Health Care Campaign
Media |
Nov |
Dec |
Jan |
Feb |
Campaign |
Selected |
Selected |
Selected |
|
|
TV (CFTV-DT) |
Selected |
|||
Newspaper |
Newspaper |
|||
Social media |
Selected |
Selected |
Selected |
Selected |
Online website |
Selected |
Selected |
Selected |
Selected |
The campaign will last for three months as shown in the table 1 above. Before campaign started, social media accounts and LGH’s homepage websites should be created and updated with our campaign events. Hence, from Nov 26th to Nov 30th, the preparation work may include social media account creation, campaign homepage design. From Dec 1st to Feb 26th , social media accounts and homepage website should be updated regularly and frequently about our campaign events and progress. Photos, posters and interesting videos including interviews will uploaded and shared through our social media account.
The formal campaign will start at Dec 1st by setting up booth and panels in local elementary school. We will visit school by school to promote mental health-related issues, consequences and proper health care services till the end of February. From Jan 1st onward, we will start to advertise our events through TV and Newspaper. It will facilitate the process of raising awareness among parents and guardians of children. The campaign will end at Feb 26th But one key milestone will be set at Dec 31st and Jan 30th respectively in order to investigate the percentage of awareness which has been raised as an evaluation process. For instance, if 80% of awareness has been created in the second milestone, it implies that our goal is high achievable by the end of February.
Majority of our marketing members are identified to be volunteers so there will be no additional employment cost charged in our event. However, it might be costly for use to employ TV and newspaper advertising. The advertising fees are estimated to be $10,000 and $5,000 respectively. Social media advertising and homepage design will not incur any cost. But we need to prepare goodie bags for students, printing out panels, posters, flyers and so on. The net cost is about $10,000. No rental fees are expected even though we are using school’s spaces to set up booths. We will talk with respective schools and make bookings in advance.
Evaluation
The timeline will be arranged in a Gantt Chart. Through setting milestones, it is feasible for our team to figure out whether there is problem in our campaign progress. At the first mile stone (Dec 31st ), the total number of “likes” of LGH’s Youth Mental Health Care campaign in Facebook should reach at least 50%. At the second mile stone, the overall awareness should increase by at least 80%. If let say, we miss the target at the first mile stone, more communication strategies may be introduced into the picture. For instance, we can write emails or make direct phone calls to reach target customers. Alternative, promotion tools such as goodie bags, movie ticket vouchers and other gifts may be distributed as incentives to attract target audiences’ attention but it may increase the additional cost. Our social media marketers will keep observing and reporting the number of “likes” and possibly the hits clicked into our websites weekly. However, our major interest is to increase the number of “likes” in Facebook. It is because when people click “likes”, it shows that they are awareness of youth mental health-related issues. It is also feasible for them to keep in track with our campaign progress as “likes” means that they have bookmarked about our campaign information.
Very important, post-campaign evaluation will also be done through qualitative research method. Both online questionnaire and face-to-face interview will be conducted after Feb 26th to know about the effectiveness of our campaign.
Reference
YMHC (2018). Youth Mental Health Stats in Canada. Retrieved from: https://ymhc.ngo/ymh-stats/