Fourth season of Brand Baloney on a $45 million Kaiser roll

[kaiserthrive.org editor’s note: Yeah, everyone is ‘Thrive’-ing at Kaiser Permanente…unless you need a kidney transplant, or have pneumonia, or cancer, or a past due pregnancy, or a consumer complaint, or need a prescription, or, or, or…

Thrive has been so “successful” that nationally Kaiser membership has remained mostly flat since the campaign began, and the Hawaii region has lost 16,000 members. Note the correction at the bottom of the article, where thanks to muddy language the impression is created that Kaiser has only spent $40-$45 million on the entire multi-year campaign. Not so, according to this article from 2005, which reports the 2nd phase of the campaign’s cost at an additional $40 million on top of the initial $40 million investment (that’s $80 million for the mathematically challenged). Do they really want you to believe the 3rd and 4th years were free? Apparently so, since “an exact dollar figure” is conveniently unavailable.

According to Kaiser’s PRBS release, the fourth season of Thrive ads will target your children, as well as the issue of personal empowerment in health care. Kaiser has never denied that the purpose of the Thrive campaign is to change negative public perception about Kaiser, which leads one to assume that despite three years of very expensive attempted brainwashing, people continue to perceive Kaiser members as powerless over their health care. We believe there is a reason for that: because it’s true!]

From San Francisco Business Times:

Kaiser launches fourth season of Thrive ads

by Chris Rauber

Correction at bottom of article

Kaiser Permanente has launched the fourth season of its Thrive advertising campaign, a roughly $45 million, multi-year television, radio and print effort to boost Kaiser’s image and brand awareness.

The new TV ads, which will focus on child health and dealing with serious illness, will emphasize “personal power over health,” the giant Oakland-based health-care system said Aug. 23. New TV commercials will run this year in seven of Kaiser’s eight operating regions: Northern and Southern California, Oregon/Washington state, Colorado, Georgia, Ohio and Hawaii. Kaiser’s Mid-Atlantic region is not running the new TV commercials, but will run print and radio versions, said Oakland-based spokeswoman Sybil Kelly-Wartenberg.

The first ads rolled out in 2004. Kaiser created the successful campaign with help from Campbell-Ewald, a Warren, Mich.-based advertising agency.

Last year, when Kaiser was in the midst of PR fallout regarding its troubled Northern California kidney-transplant unit, since shuttered, it upped the campaign’s budget to $45 million.

“Obviously, the kidney thing hurts, but we believe the brand is very strong and that this investment is an investment in the future,” Debbie Cantu, Kaiser’s vice president of brand marketing and advertising, said at the time.

Further details about this year’s campaign, including publications and stations where it will run, were not immediately available.

Correction:
Officials at Kaiser Permanente specified that the Thrive campaign’s latest ads are part of a multi-year campaign, but did not say how long it will last. An exact dollar figure wasn’t immediately available. In September 2006, Kaiser officials said the multi-year total had jumped from $40 million to $45 million.