The Pink Glove Dance

At the beginning of the last month I wrote a post called ‘What do you mean no to cancer?’ about a Saudi campaign promoting cancer awareness. My main point was that campaign slogan was lame and not only that; it was a bit offensive.

Now, I want you to compare that campaign with the one carried out by the staff of the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, USA. The breast cancer awareness programs usually encourage participants to wear those little pink ribbons so whoever sees them will be reminded of the cause. However, those staff decided to change the rules of the game and go out and dance … literally!

The video showing more than 200 of the hospital staff dancing made a surprising success. It was posted online around the beginning of Nov. and it is passing 2,000,000 hits by now on Youtube. Although the success of the video was beyond the hospital staff expectations, the surprising success goes even further to include the cancer patients themselves. The simplicity, fun, heartwarming feelings surrounding the video made it appealing to patients to relate to the video, to feel it. Reportedly, many patients celebrated the video, and sometimes with tears, and found it so passionate in delivering the message about their disease. Now watch the video:

 

 

It worth mentioning here that the idea was originally created by the company that actually produced those pink gloves to remind people of the cause whenever they see them. Of course that before the hospital took it a bit further by their dancing video. Now the company is donating part of its pink gloves profits to support women who cannot afford mammograms checks payments.

So we have three goals scored by one ball; a company advertised its product, a hospital contributed to a noble awareness campaign, and … can you guess the third goal?

Let me put this way, don’t you just want to go there and shake hands with those hospital staff? Carrying out that dance throughout the hospital own rooms and being happy and acting ‘goofy’ on the same time gave the impression that this is a happy place to be around. Yes, it is a hospital, we know, it is usually associated with pain and sickness, but this place! It seems everybody is having fun so there is a huge chance that I might find a good treatment over there! Let me end with the comment from one of the cancer patients after seeing the video: ‘laughter is the ultimate medicine’ …

Read Full Post »

A Hospital Customer

[picapp src=”f/7/1/a/Swine_Flu_Threat_ee3a.jpg?adImageId=7063630&imageId=4696877″ width=”380″ height=”253″ /]

 

Visiting a hospital is an emotional experience. Let’s face it, nobody wants to be there. Just take a moment and think about what the word hospital will provoke in your mind; I am sure things like (pain, sickness, needles, and blood) should’ve come across your mind! From a marketing point of view, this is a disastrous situation.

So to overcome this internal image we all perceive about hospitals, many studies have been discussing the importance of servicescape design in changing such perception. Feel free to argue with me that hospitals are not only buildings and I will agree with you, they are not ONLY buildings, but a hospital building is a major part of the whole therapeutic experience.

A servicescape is a well known concept in the service businesses. Developed by Booms and Bitner back in the 80s, it refers to the physical environment where the service is taking place. They’ve argued that such environment should be designed in a way to facilitate the service encounter and improve the service delivery process. And by doing so, customers satisfaction with the provided service will increase.

Now let’s go local, I will be talking about my city; Jeddah. First and foremost, we have to admit that we have, up to some level, a pretty good healthcare. We have good doctors, state of the art medical equipments, and reasonable medical education in the country. But when we talk servicescape … mmm… sorry, not so much.

Most of the hospitals operating in Jeddah right now have been built decades ago, and from time to time, they are renovated by repainting the walls and rearranging the chairs! I can confidently argue that none of them have been designed with any psychological effects calculated. That’s why when visiting any hospital, you feel tensioned and under stress. Just look around you in the waiting room and check, a lot of people are nervous and frustrated; not only because of pain, but because they faced a hard time finding a parking spot outside, the receptionist was working as a robot, they could not find the clinic they are looking for and had to ask about directions several times. Or have you ever been admitted to a hospital or even visited a friend or a family member and tried to open the windows? How did you like the traffic noise? Or the empty land view with cats partying all night long?

I was talking about private hospitals above … public ones, do not get me started!! Now, have a look at the below video just to have a glimpse of how your mode might change in a ‘different’ designed environment (please note that I am not related to Hudas Designs in any way, I just liked their video!!)

Read Full Post »