THE trouble with most ad agencies is that whenever you give them a problem, all they come back with ...is an ad. Those are tough words to hear from a client, but that’s exactly what Ike Herbert told me when he was director of marketing at Coca-Cola.

He felt that marketing communications was changing from what it had been ­ the world of the generalist ­ to a highly specialized business that would demand areas of intense expertise from agencies. He was right on the money.
Agencies all over the country are developing new zones of competence with niche-market savvy.

By definition, new growth industries are rife with companies that are pioneers in everything but selling themselves.
California abounds with shops that offer marketing smarts to computer start-ups. And in almost every case, the old rules of exclusivity don’t seem to apply. Even when the clients of those agencies are somewhat competitive, they seem to huddle together to weather the storm outside.
The agency with a zone of competence is that strong an attraction.
Healthcare is in the eye of a similar hurricane. And when you consider the exponential growth this sector of the economy has had, it has nowhere to go but up, up and away.

Computers and healthcare have a lot in common. They’re both new every day. They’re both service-oriented. And they’re both driven by brilliant individuals who are so confident of their abilities that they tend to marketing arrogance.
That’s why these fields not only demand technical understanding, but a background of solid accomplishment that can put the agency on a peer level.
That’s what Creative Alliance has built in Louisville. The nucleus of their healthcare team is Margaret Horlander, who got her combat training as a marketing director for hospitals and as an account management player at agencies that worked in the field. She’s as close to medicine as an ER intern and as management-minded as Steve Jobs.

Horlander can talk health marketing on a peer basis with any of her clients. And she manages several accounts including Alternative Health and Alliant Health System. Alternative is an insurance company affiliated with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. On paper, they look like any other insurance company. That was the problem.

The solution, however, was not an ad. It was a marketing idea that created a genuine customer benefit that could be demonstrated in advertising, PR and all the way to the bank.
It was a tangible invention. A 24-hour call-in line, with a personal health advisor to guide people through their health crises. What? An insurance company, dispensing TLC? It makes perfect win-win sense.
The system gives the caller a knowledgeable person to lean on, while it lessens the risk of expensive ER overuse. The campaign addresses benefits for patients as well as the real customers ­ the employers who buy the coverage. As for the ad part, CA’s creative people came up with the lean and potent tag line, "Got Problems? We’re listening. Imagine that ­ a health insurance company that helps instead of hinders.

Probably the most difficult problem in the industry is keeping the doctors out of the ads. As clients, doctors are a lot like car dealers. They love to see themselves on television. They have to be carefully taught by their agencies that advertising is about customers, not the people in the factory.
And the big Band-Aid does it at a glance. This wonderful board says more to a parent than a dozen docs in scrubs ever could. And it does it in one second flat. This is the kind of stuff they don’t teach in med school.