Brand Valuation

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 17, 2005

The American Medical Association Thursday launched a three-year brand campaign designed to increase membership and showcase the AMA as a powerful group in touch with everyday needs of physicians and their patients.

The Chicago-based national doctor group plans to change the way it spends its $20 million for marketing each year, hoping that a new mix of print, TV and radio spots as well as marketing videos will bring more physicians into the group.

A high membership count is central to ensuring the group's clout, but both have slipped in the last decade or so.

AMA membership has dropped 20 percent since 1993, and was down to 244,530 as of the end of 2004, representing less than 30 percent of the more than 800,000 doctors in the United States.

The AMA hopes its new image will help reverse the decline.

The group updated its logo of the staff of Asclepius, the Greek symbol of medicine, to a more contemporary design that uses purple, jettisoning the 14-year-old teal backdrop on AMA documents.

It is launching a new ad featuring doctors and patients that will carry the taglines, "Together we are stronger" and "Helping doctors help patients." The ads will feature stories from physicians and their patients highlighting successes and challenges doctors face each day.

The AMA said it will use doctors and patients in more aggressive issue ads designed to build consumer and medical professionals' support of lobbying efforts such as malpractice reform and reversal of Medicare payment cuts to physicians.

The first print ads debut this weekend, coinciding with the AMA's annual meeting, which begins Saturday and runs through Wednesday at the Chicago Hilton and Towers.

"This is not just a little wrinkle at the AMA," said its president, Dr. John Nelson, a Utah obstetrician. He called the campaign "very aggressive and hard-hitting. This campaign highlights the AMA's commitment to unify all physicians and shape the future of health care."

In the past, the AMA admits, its message was not always unified, and the group's credibility took several hits, particularly after an embarrassing marketing deal with Sunbeam Corp. in the late 1990s gave the organization a black eye and fueled an exodus of members.

That deal, in which Sunbeam would have paid the AMA to endorse certain products, ended with the AMA paying the consumer-products firm $10 million to extract itself from the deal.

Membership also suffered because of factors that were not self-inflicted, such as apathy by doctors toward associations and the rise in popularity of specialty medical societies, which physicians increasingly chose instead of paying full membership dues of $420 a year to the AMA.

Because of Sunbeam and other distractions, critics maintain that the AMA has been too inwardly focused and has not concentrated on how to keep membership intact. They cite lost battles in Washington such as over managed-care reform and the ability of doctors to bargain collectively with health plans.

Having lots of members is important to the AMA's clout with Congress and the White House, particularly because rival lobbies like the health insurance industry have in the past pointed out the group's deteriorating doctor membership in recent years, questioning whether the group indeed does represent the nation's doctors.

"There may be an aspect of this that tries to emphasize how crucial doctors are and how innovative they are, positioning the AMA for some of the biggest [lobbying] battles ahead," said James Unland, president of Health Capital Group, a Chicago health-care consulting firm that works with doctors and their practices. "Some of the biggest battles inside health care are going to be between doctors and hospitals."

Advertisements will seek to demonstrate, among other things, how the AMA works with doctors to change policy such as by increasing Medicare payments that will keep doctors in certain areas of the country where access to physicians is threatened. Other ads emphasize patient care and science, referring to doctors as "everyday heroes."

"Physicians feel beleaguered," said Dr. Michael Maves, the AMA's executive vice president and chief executive officer. "This is a way to extend our brand and get it better known."

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune