University of Iowa spends $3.7 million to promote new children’s hospital

IOWA CITY - The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is spending more than $3.7 million on a campaign featuring a faux kids' news station to promote the new Stead Family Children's Hospital.

Hospital officials said the 'once-in-a-generation” opening of the $360 million hospital warranted a big splash to get the attention of families across Iowa and into parts of Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin who may choose to bring their children to Iowa City for health care.

'There's a great deal of self-direction in choosing health care and health care providers,” said Cheryl Hodgson, Children's Hospital marketing director. 'The purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of the services we provide.”

The Children's Hospital, a 14-floor, state-of-the-art hospital under construction since 2012, was projected to be completed this month. But officials last week delayed the opening until January or February because work isn't completed.

Lewis Communications, a Birmingham, Ala., branding company, came up with the idea to promote the new hospital with videos, ads and a website featuring children pretending to be news anchors and reporters for a fictional station, Aktion News.

Costs for the campaign include nearly $1.3 million for producing the Aktion News videos and photos of child actors, $41,000 for an Aktion News website that says it provides 'local news that's not super boring,” and $1.7 million on TV ads airing across Iowa and north-central Illinois, as well as on Pandora, Facebook and Twitter, according to documents reviewed by The Gazette through an open records request.

Aktion News videos show Stormy Fairweather stomping in a puddle by a fence around the Children's Hospital and Aiden Coltrane talking with a 'doctor” about hand-washing.

The website blends real and pretend news. One article talks about the UI's highly-popular - and very real - Kid Captain program, in which a Children's Hospital patient gets to be an honorary Hawkeye at a home football team. Another Aktion News blurb says the Children's Hospital 'becomes the most popular Halloween costume for 2016.”

Ads featuring the Aktion News team started airing in September, but as many of the commercials said the hospital would open in December, they were pulled after the announced delay, Hodgson said. A fresh slate of ads, already recorded, will air once the hospital opens, she added.

'The feedback we've heard so far is a lot of excitement and enthusiasm,” Hodgson said about the campaign.

Competition for pediatric patients has increased in recent years because of health care mergers, according to Modern Healthcare, an online and print publication owned by Crain Communications that focuses on health care business, policy, research and trends.

'We're seeing a number of regional systems that want to build their pediatric capabilities even in areas where there's an established children's hospital,” Mark Grube, managing director at consulting firm Kaufman Hall, told Modern Healthcare. 'They want to keep more services in-network.”

The UI is the only hospital in Iowa nationally ranked in pediatric care, according to UI officials, with eight specialties ranked in the top 50 across the county by U.S. News & World Report. But there also are children's hospitals in Des Moines, Omaha, Neb., Peoria, Ill., St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis and Rochester, Minn.

The UI campaign is targeted mostly at parents, but a secondary audience is local health care providers, Hodgson said.

'Sometimes that (choosing a hospital) is done in consultation with local providers,” she said. 'Sometimes it's done based on the service they might need, if it's an emergency or something they have time to be able to research.”

The UI Stead Family Children's Hospital is being paid for with revenue bond proceeds, UIHC building usage funds and designated gifts. UI officials announced in December 2015 they would name the hospital after Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, who have given nearly $54 million to the university, including a $25 million gift to children's medicine in 2013.

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