The Medical City Wins Bronze at the 2009 Tambuli Awards

The Medical City's (TMC) landmark "Talk to Doc" campaign garnered the Bronze prize for "Best Innovative and Integrated Media Campaign" at this year's Tambuli Awards.  The Awards, juried by prominent advertising and client company executives, praise creative marketing campaigns from the Philippines and the rest of Asia that are spread across multiple media platforms an which have had a positive impact on society.

The Value of Empowerment

Created and launched in 2008 by Adformatix, the "Talk to Doc" series encouraged patients and doctors to engage with each other on equal footing when it comes to discussing and pursuing patients' health options.

At the heart of the campaign is the concept of empowerment - the desire to engage patients as doctors' partners in restoring and maintaining their own health.  Doctors, it holds, must learn about their patients' lives, promote dialogue, and encourage those under their care to take an active role in their own treatment and recovery by asking questions and telling their life stories.

The concept stems from the Medical City's pioneering thrust to deliver health-care on a patient partnership platform.  Through print, TV and cinema placements, the Internet, patient-focused educational initiatives of TMC's Center for Patient Partnership and its Medical Services Group's "TMC's Brand of Physicians" programs, the "Talk to Doc" campaign has further elevated TMC's reputation as one of the country's prime tertiary health care institutes.

Meeting the Challenge, Staying the Course

Especially pleased by the award is TMC's President and CEO, Dr. Alfredo R.A. Bengzon, whose personal philosophy birthed the hospitals value proposition, "Where patients are partners."  His vast experience as a medical expert in both private and public sectors has led him to observe a certain imbalance in the typical patient-doctor relationship, wherein doctors dispense medical advise and patients permit themselves to be mere passive recipients of their doctor's directives.  Dr. Bengzon's desire to create a more personal patient-doctor relationship, wherein the two cooperated as equals, has become the cornerstone of TMC's drive for excellence, and has set the hospital apart by promoting itself beyond the usual marketing slant of having a highly-skilled staff and state-of-the-art technology.  He also notes that the recent win at the Tambuli Awards makes one realize that what is needed is the ability to stay the course, to live the philosophy out in order to capture the full promise of the Proposition.

"This award is truly somthing to be proud of," Dr. Bengzon shares cordially, "It has takens us four decades of discovery and self-reflection to mold TMC's unique brand of healthcare, and "Talk to Doc's" Success is a testimony to the dedication of the entire TMC family to our patient-partnership drive.  We have challenged ourselves to go against the grain, to make people rethink their idea of what superior healthcare is, and we have been rewarded for it.  This should inspire us to take patient-partnership to the next level, to better embrace it for an even brighter future."

The Medical City's "Talk to Doc" campaign joins other award-winning case studies which will be published to allow client companies, advertising agancies, and the academe to learn from thos who have valued both business results and responsible integrated marketing communications.

The Tambuli Awards 2009 is organized by the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) in partnership with the Marketing and Opinion Research Society of the Philippines (MORES) and BusinessWorld.