While hypothesized for some time, the recent announcement that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase are teaming up to form an independent healthcare company aimed at cutting costs and improving quality shook every corner of the industry. While details are still scarce—and the alliance is currently only confirmed to benefit its roughly one million combined […]

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Recently SPM published a blog piece about integration and collaboration within a single agency, and what to keep in mind when choosing a partner who will help you achieve your goals. Given my past experiences at large and small agencies, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. Some of it is clearly visible and some of […]

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The other day I was involved in a workshop that surfaced an intriguing question: While health systems want to play a larger role in people’s everyday lives – proving new value, contributing to population health goals, securing greater loyalty and new revenue – how much interest do people have in “going deeper” with health systems? […]

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Last week at SHSMD 2017, keynote speaker Dan Burrus challenged attendees of his address to focus on Hard Trends (based on future facts) and not opinions. Opinions run rampant in our social media-infused, 140-character, endlessly-analyzed news cycle. But Hard Trends – the things that should really fuel strategy – are more difficult to come by. […]

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A pair of news stories in recent weeks have typified healthcare strategists’ and marketers’ troubling struggle: Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-All bill sparked the most serious conversation around single-payer healthcare the U.S. has had since the Nixon administration. It was also recently revealed that Aetna and Apple are in conversations to bring the Apple Watch to millions […]

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Customer engagement lies at the heart of any marketing strategy. In healthcare, these customers come in many forms—consumers, patients, employees, partners, institutions—but the goal is always the same: they’re there, and we want to reach them. SPM recently had the chance to attend the 2017 Salesforce World Tour in Chicago. Salesforce is global cloud computing […]

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I’ve been working in and around the digital marketing landscape since its inception—as part of a digital and data-focused agency within an agency at Foote Cone & Belding when marketing and the internet first started to form a symbiotic relationship and later in 2004 as the co-manager of a digital group at JWT Chicago. Oddly […]

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As we know, any shift in communication—whether it’s letters to telegrams, telegrams to telephone calls, or calls to texts and emails—cultivates new marketing opportunities, and the emoji revolution has been no different. Using them the right way in your marketing could help you break through the clutter and resonate with consumers.

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