As any oncologist or medical expert will tell you, the best cancer is a dead one.

St. Joseph Hospital has excitedly announced the opening of their new Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment, located in Orange, California.

The public opening next month is the result of a years long effort to bring cancer care to the forefront of this locally respected institution.

The hospital is part of the St. Joseph’s Health System, a ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.

Yet, rather than dead, at St. Joseph’s new Cancer Center, cancer is arguably ALIVE, as seen in this newspaper insert.

While the decision makers at St. Joseph Hospital might be given the benefit of the doubt—with what one may only assume is an unintended outcome at “branding” their new Center—nevertheless the good Sisters of St. Joseph may wish to ask their hospital’s leadership what in God’s name they were thinking.

The St. Joseph’s ALIVE campaign serves as another illustration of how often organizations may say they want branding, but are often unable to think beyond advertising, and ad agencies.

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If in New York City today, you might want to head over to Columbus Circle at 5:00 PM for your free gift:

Staying safe in New York City just got even sexier. The Health Department today unveiled a brand new look for the NYC Condom and launched a cutting-edge media campaign to encourage New Yorkers to “get some.” …street teams will meet commuters at busy crossroads around the city – including Union Square in Manhattan, the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn, and 149th Street and Grand Concourse in the Bronx – to hand out the new NYC Condom for Valentine’s Day.

New York City’s branded condom just got a package redesign, and a series of new public service announcements.

Read more and get some here.

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A new report from McKinsey indicates “US patients and physicians are more likely to base their choice of hospital on nonclinical aspects of a visit…”

As with any business category, consumers are influenced by how they feel as a result of an experience, whether for a hospital stay or in purchasing a latte.

We previously asked the rhetorical question of whether the CEOs of hospitals possess the fearlessness needed to find their respective brands.

As McKinsey suggests, they often do not:

[F]ew hospitals have the marketing skills, the organizational structure, or the operating approach needed to deliver a distinctive experience in the way that retailing and hospitality companies do.

As competition for commercially insured patients heats up, US hospitals will have to invest in the capabilities needed to learn what these patients want and to deliver an experience that could attract them. Hospitals that succeed should gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

Until hospital CEOs and their marketing staffs begin to understand the traditional approach of a new ad campaign, or a PR push for press mentions, does not deliver the competitive advantages of effective brand strategy—the differences illustrated here—they and their in-house marketing team will miss the competitive advantage that comes with owning the health care conversation within their respective markets.

And, for some, the job insecurity of hospital CEOs will continue.

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For hospital leaders and decision makers, finding your brand and building your reputation takes guts, as discussed here.

It takes guts, courage, a fearlessness, when a hospital leadership team seeks to engineer a market breakthrough and develop an unforgettable reputation.

If you are a leader in charge of your hospital brand, what are you going to do about it?

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Trinidad & Tobago’s Newsday offers this:

Great brands are built by consistently delivering on the brand promise. And that promise is not just for the external public and the consumers who buy the company’s products and services… [T]hose in the trenches, know that just as important are the company’s employees.

We agree. As shared before on these pages, your brand is your promise. How you keep that promise means everything, to every audience you seek to influence.

Recognizing that good branding is not only for consumers, the New York Times also offers a story of how human resource professionals see the opportunity in sharing the brand promise of their organization to cultivate the reputation of their company as an employer of choice.

The focus of this story, Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare, made up of four healthcare entities in three states, decided to use it’s brand promise to reach out to job seekers.

‘’As an employer, you can’t just say, ‘We’re a great employer, so people should want to work here,’ ‘’ [Wheaton’s director of recruitment] said. ‘’You ought to be able to tell people why.'’

…Human resources officers…find themselves courting interviewees who want, and even demand, a good reason to come on board.

Which is not unlike the key question asked by any audience a brand seeks to attract: Why should I care about you?

Companies that use their brand right…will have the most applicants, thereby creating what the industry calls a pipeline — many people who know that their way of life aligns with your brand. ‘’You get the pick of the crop.'’

Good branding works for any audience an organization seeks to reach and convert, whether employee, consumer, or other stakeholder. And for employers, the payoff?

‘’The most effective…branding is word of mouth — what people say at parties, on weekends — when they get asked, How do you like working there?'’… ‘’That spreads like crazy.'’

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We are fans.

Mark Ritson brings a pull no punches quality to his writing on brands and brand strategy that we appreciate. His latest offers an example of the tension between brand promise and business profit:

The British Airways pilot sounded calm, but he urgently needed a decision. Shortly after taking off from LAX one of the four engines on his Boeing 747, had exploded. With 5000 miles to fly and 351 passengers on board, should he return to Los Angeles or continue the flight to Heathrow?

Senior BA managers on the ground faced a crossroads. If they considered BA’s brand values, the direction was clear: the airline that defined itself as ‘reliable’ and ‘reassuring’ would obviously advise the pilot to turn the plane around and head back to LA. But if the management team started to look at the financial implications, the decision became more difficult.

Turning the plane around would cost the airline upward of £100,000 in reimbursement costs. Should they take the brand path or the profit path?

At 29,000 ft somewhere over Northern California the pilot’s radio crackled into life and his orders were conveyed. Continue on to London. The pilot was probably not surprised. In 15 engine failures since 2001, BA had made the same decision. For all the fine identity work, advertising and PR, when a pile of money is put on the table, brand values cease to be relevant.

A brand promise is little more than words on a wall. It is how those words are embraced and lived daily which says much more to consumers, and employees, about the values of a company and its leadership.

In contrast to British Airways, look at a company that takes its brand promise seriously, such as Johnson & Johnson. The Johnson & Johnson brand promise is a one-page credo, written over 60 years ago.

Look at any one of Johnson & Johnson’s business crises — Tylenol laced with cyanide in 1982, Zomax, a pain medicine withdrawn from the market in 1983 after patients died from using it, and counterfeit versions of the anemia drug Procrit in 2003. In each case, J&J executives credit the company’s brand promise with guiding their decision making. Rather than simply talking about it, Johnson & Johnson lives their brand.

Whether Johnson & Johnson, or British Airways, the brand of any organization is only as good as those who lead it.

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