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Connections That Matter

Power of Play

Posted by Brijesh P., August 22, 2011

The newest weapon in the healthcare arsenal isn’t a blockbuster drug or a billion dollar machine — it’s actually gaming. The same concept that has millions of people slinging bird heads at wooden posts and shooting peas at zombies is now being tapped to improve health & wellness. Commercial and research institutions are exploiting the power of interactivity, feedback, immersiveness, compelling characters, and simulations innate to video games to take on some of the biggest healthcare challenges.

The rapid adoption of newer technologies such as 3D, accelerometers, and gesture-control is enticing researchers to explore how this new generation of gaming devices can be used to improve clinical outcomes for the likes of neurological and mental health disorders, medication dosage, self-esteem, biofeedback, pain & anxiety management, and physical therapies:

  • Columbia University is testing Lit 2 Quit, an ingenious game in which smokers trying to quit can puff into an iPhone microphone instead of a cigarette and use either a “rush” or a “relax” form of breathing to help reduce cravings
  • Indiana University executed an alternative reality game named “Skeleton Chase” that was designed to promote physical activity and health lifestyles among college freshmen. The interactive, mystery game took eight weeks to solve, and included a set of real world physical and mental challenges (relayed across a variety of media) that players must surmount to gather clues
  • University of Washington is performing a study that tests the impact of educational video games on improving glycemic control in patients with Type 2 Diabetes. The games have been designed to help players attain better blood sugar control by improving their ability to estimate carbohydrates and calories in food portions and by improving their eating habits

While the clinical benefits of pure gaming are yet to be seen (based on the results of these studies), many companies are taking to ‘gamifying’ the health & wellness space, that is, applying the mechanics of gaming to nongame activities to change people’s behaviors. Game mechanics, such as points, levels, challenges, virtual goods & spaces, leaderboards, gifts, charities, etc., and game dynamics, such as reward, status, achievement, competition, altruism, etc. — taken together create a compelling, engaging user experience that is apt for healthcare.

Gabe Zichermann, the author of Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges, and Contests, says, “I don’t presume to think that we can make having cancer into a purely fun experience. But, we have data to show that when we give cancer patients gamified experiences to help them manage their drug prescriptions and manage chemotherapy, we improve their emotional state and also their adherence to their protocol.” (Mashable, 2011).

And, of course, ‘social’ has a big role in gamification. Keas, for example, is a new social game designed to use peer pressure to promote healthy behavior at the office. Adam Bosworth, co-founder and CTO of Keas, said, “We took the two things today that really get people involved and hooked—games and social networking— and created a social game that is something like FarmVille-plus-Facebook-meets-health. Now, getting healthy can be fun and social, people really get into it, and the end result is healthier, happier, and more productive employees.”

For marketers, gaming deserves serious attention as the underlying mechanics, dynamics, and technologies have the potential to help tackle some of the lifestyle, behavioral, and emotional issues (e.g. adherence slippages, emotional state, etc.) that cause/worsen diseases. Keep in mind though—improving experiences and outcomes through gaming isn’t through a ‘bolt-on’ approach where you stick on a ‘badge’, give some points, open up some rewards and call it a day. Start with a strategy that’s fit for purpose and then let the creative & UX minds build on that strategy from the ground-up to really get your game on.

ACCU-CHEK® Global Marketing

Platform for Localization & CRM

Patient|Medical Device

ACCU-CHEK® Global Marketing
The Challenge

Unify and align the international online presence of Roche's ACCU-CHEK® diabetes brand across more than 50 international websites, as well as develop a 3-year strategy to move digital marketing to the center of operational focus, including areas for growth in digital investments, resources and technology systems. Additionally, develop global Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) standards to improve customer communications and retention.

The Work

LBi Health worked closely with a core international marketing team of approximately 24 stakeholders in 15 countries to create a streamlined global user interface and a compelling graphic platform flexible enough to allow for the localization of content. By leveraging a single common design and variable information architecture, a consistent, comprehensive global platform was developed capable of accommodating the unique needs of individual markets. LBi Health also produced a series of videos demonstrating product use in a variety of authentic scenarios for multiple countries.

The Result

In January 2011, we began implementing the
3-year digital marketing strategy according to the roadmap created in 2010. The redesigned ACCU-CHEK® global platform was successfully launched and provided scalability and targeting that exceeded client expectations. Brand guidelines were supported and strictly adhered to while offering increased opportunities for localization and greater product insight across multiple media.

K-Y Social Media and Website

Making Love Better

Consumer|OTC

K-Y Social Media and Website
The Challenge

Redesign the K-Y website to educate consumers about their products and drive purchase. Everyone knows what K-Y is, but not everyone knows that K-Y makes a range of other products besides basic lubricant to foster healthy intimacy. Additionally, although an earlier campaign had created a community of 30,000 on Facebook, their activity had grown stagnant, and K-Y tasked LBi Health with reactivating its community.

The Work

To highlight all of the different K-Y products, LBi Health came up with the idea of a streamlined site that features couples who fall into "types" that correspond with a certain product. For example, "the newlyweds" use K-Y Brand KISSABLE SENSATIONS to make every night as exciting as their wedding night. By creating personas to go with the products, it makes choosing a product easier and more engaging. To revive their Facebook presence, we created K-Y's Couples Place page, featuring a new brand tonality, compelling content, promotions and giveaways.

The Result

The new K-Y.com was created at record speed and went live ahead of schedule, just in time for Valentine's Day, the brand's "Super Bowl." In its first 4 weeks, the new site was visited over 300,000 times. On Facebook, the number of 'Likes' increased by 500% in less than 2 months, with interaction rates that were significantly above average. The K-Y brand now has 150,000 enthusiastically engaged advocates on Facebook, and that number only continues to grow.

Galvus Prelaunch Education

Conditioning the Market

Healthcare Professional|Pharma

Galvus Prelaunch Education
The Challenge

Prepare the market for the arrival of a new diabetes treatment (Vildagliptin), within a new class of diabetes medicines called incretin mimetics. Educate healthcare providers about incretins, the medicinee' role in lowering blood sugar, as well as Vildagliptin's promising Phase III clinical trial results.

The Work

LBi Health created a series of online advisory boards consisting of groups of regional opinion leaders. Advisors from different locations were able to review slides and then engage in a remote live discussions with a national opinion leader through a proprietary online meeting platform. LBi Health also partnered with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to publish "Incretin eForum," a monthly CME-accredited newsletter designed to educate endocrinologists on incretins. An editorial board of opinion leaders oversaw the newsletters, and each issue was written by a rotating board of regional opinion leaders.

The Result

The online advisory tactic earned 97% top-box satisfaction rates and captured over 10 hours of interaction time. Additionally, the online advisory tactic lowered cost/consultant by 34% vs offline ad boards. The "Incretin eForum"newsletter enrolled over 3,000 endocrinologists, sustained 50% open rates and scored 90% top-box satisfaction rates.

FibroTogether

Building a Support System Online

Patient|Pharma

FibroTogether
The Challenge

Create awareness and show a true understanding of Fibromyalgia, a condition that is largely misunderstood although 4 to 6 million people in the United States have it. Forest Labs, the maker of SAVELLA - one of only 3 FDA-approved treatments - wanted to reach out and connect this underserved population and provide ongoing education and support, as well as build a database to communicate about the brand and ultimately drive doctor discussions.

The Work

For sufferers of Fibromyalgia, the only thing worse than the chronic pain, memory issues and feelings of despair is the fact that patients are regularly told, "It's all in your head." Based on this insight, LBi Health created FibroTogether, a robust Fibromyalgia community rich with user-generated resources, information and social tools to empower patients and provide a platform for sharing stories, demystifying and de-stigmatizing the condition. FibroTogether offered a complete support system, including a Relationship Marketing program with practical help and tips from patients and medical professionals.

The Result

Today, the FibroTogether community has thousands of registrants and continues to grow. Users are exchanging tips and learning about SAVELLA and other non-prescription treatments. Best of all, sufferers are taking back control of their lives, with the knowledge that they're not alone anymore.

NHS Map of Medicine

Point-of-Care Evidence-based Medicine

Healthcare Professional|Provider

NHS Map of Medicine
The Challenge

Supply a community of diverse clinicians, with
up-to-date, accurate, best practice treatment guidelines at the point of care. These clinicians are part of the National Health Service (NHS), the publicly funded health system in the UK, and a long-time client of LBi Health.

The Work

LBi Health developed an interactive "Map of Medicine," which provided healthcare professionals with easy and fast access to specialty-focused medical information through an intuitive web-based interface. At the heart of the Map of Medicine was evidence-based clinical information that drew on best practices for over 1200 treatment pathways. Clinicians across the UK were able to modify and add content to their version of the Map to better reflect their specific healthcare economies. LBi Health led both user experience and systems integration for this complex and important initiative.

The Result

Over 40% of clinicians within the NHS now have access to the Map of Medicine at the point of care. The success of the web-based Map of Medicine led to the development of additional products for clinicians to use on mobile devices, including PDAs.

WebMD Health Utilities

Innovative Tools for Better Health

Corporate|Health Media

WebMD Health Utilities
The Challenge

Design the next generation of health utilities for WebMD, the world's largest online consumer health destination, and create experiences that help people take charge of their health.

The Work

User experience and design teams from LBi Health worked with WebMD to transform consumer insights into several engaging online utilities. The Food and Fitness Planner is a behavior modifier that targets women and moms who wanted to lose weight. The Symptom Checker, WebMD's most trafficked tool, lets users select symptoms via an integrated body map, list or search function to create a possible self-diagnosis and facilitate conversations with their doctor. Questions and Answers uses the strength of community and the knowledge of experienced professionals to provide user-generated answers to health questions.

The Result

These forward-thinking utilities delivered on a core need for improved user experience and heightened design on the number one health media site, and made a measurable impact in WebMD's user experience Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including pages consumed, the source of WebMD's ad revenue.

MGH Institutional Redesign

Digital at the Heart of Medicine

Corporate|Provider

MGH Institutional Redesign
The Challenge

Consolidate and redesign Massachusetts General Hospital's website. Founded in 1811, MGH is the second-oldest hospital in America. It has consistently been ranked among the top 5 hospitals in the nation and was recently designated a Magnet hospital - the highest honor for nursing excellence. By all accounts MGH has a long and prestigious heritage. However, the hospital's broad and deep range of services, coupled with its decentralized culture and web publishing process, had led to a fragmented web presence that no longer represented the distinctive strengths of the institution.

The Work

LBi Health redesigned the MGH website from the ground up, paying particular attention to preserving MGH's heritage, and promoting its continued leadership in standard-setting medical care. Using best-in-class user experience, design, and editorial standards, we seamlessly integrated 50,000 discreet web pages across 50 different centers of excellence into one coherent site. LBi Health also developed several customer service features including Find a Doctor, Schedule an Appointment and faceted search tools. We also designed a centralized, automated publishing process and deployed a new Interwoven CMS.

The Result

The new website has been a tremendous success and has been recognized by the industry as one of the leading hospital sites. Our work has won multiple awards and, best of all, our lead clients praised us as "one of the best consultants they'd ever worked with."

VISINE Digital Media

Engaged Eyes Drive Sales

Consumer|OTC

VISINE Digital Media
The Challenge

Engage bleary-eyed, workaholic desk jockeys as well as till-the-break-of-dawn partiers with a clever campaign to use VISINE's two new premium eye drop formulas-"Tired Eye Relief" and "Maximum Redness Relief." These two distinct passion-pursuer market segments identified from market research are often apathetic about eye drops, but would surely benefit from the newly released products.

The Work

LBi Health created a unique campaign that emotionally connected VISINE to each consumer segment's specific lifestyle and needs. Copy and placements for provocative interactive banners targeted the consumers' specific interests based on browsing habits, while messaging in Facebook ads directly correlated to keywords in a user's status updates. Users also received coupons, promoting immediate sales. We further enhanced the campaign with a Twitter-based lifestyle analysis, the first of its kind. The application could scan a user's tweets for signs of too much work or too much fun, and recommend the right VISINE product for each person.

The Result

With average interaction rates upwards of 5% across the campaign, the banners defied expectations and, in many placements, exceeded benchmarks by over 300%. The campaign reengaged existing consumers and generated awareness of the new products, driving sales through brand interaction. The humble banner was elevated, and reminded bleary-eyed consumers everywhere of the difference a little drop can make.

AstraZeneca Global Redesign

Global Platform for Local Markets

Corporate|Pharma

AstraZeneca Global Redesign
The Challenge

Develop a new global corporate digital strategy based on AstraZeneca's new brand position, "Health Connects Us All" and apply it across the digital space. Redesign AstraZeneca's website with a CMS platform that allows for timely updates for global communications.

The Work

During the summer of 2010, LBi Health worked with stakeholders around the world to define AstraZeneca's Global Country Site Framework, delivering a platform for realizing the digital strategy globally and locally by providing a consistent portrayal of AstraZeneca around the world. LBi Health also provided AstraZeneca with a secure and robust hosting solution, including a new intranet solution and a publishing support team to offer around-the-clock support.

The Result

By working with LBi Health's global network, AstraZeneca was able to execute a digital plan, bring global consistency to the brand, and establish a digital infrastructure for the ongoing development of corporate and product communications.

Case Studies
ACCU-CHEK® Global Marketing K-Y Social Media and Website Galvus Prelaunch Education FibroTogether NHS Map of Medicine WebMD Health Utilities
MGH Institutional Redesign VISINE Digital Media AstraZeneca Global Redesign
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