NRC Health (NRC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Operator Instructions] Also, as a reminder, please complete the post-webinar survey. After the webinar has concluded, you will receive a prompt that will have you click continue to that survey. And again, thank you, everyone, for joining today's webinar, Building Brands with an Emotional Connection in Healthcare. Today's presenter is A.K. Singh, who is the Vice President, Brand and Marketing Strategy at WellStar Health system. A.K. has over 17 years of experience across the hospitality, consumer packaged goods and health care industries, with companies such as WellStar Health System, Georgia-Pacific, Hershey's, Aramark and Wyndham Hotels. Over the course of his career, A.K. has held roles with increasing responsibility focused on brand strategy, communication strategy, research and analytics and general management. He currently leads the strategy, knowledge and insights team at WellStar. At WellStar, A.K. has leveraged qualitative and quantitative consumer research to build the brand foundation, including the brand positioning, the new brand visual identity system and the insights fueling the new WellStar brand campaign. A.K. has been married to his college sweetheart Koel for over 20 years, and they have 2 rambunctious boys: Shaurya, who is 12; and Raj, who is 6. He is passionate about mentoring, gardening and public speaking. So thank you very much. Now I'll hand it over to A.K.

Thank you so much, Megan, for that kind introduction. One piece that I'll lay out transparently folks today before we get into this is, I don't claim to come in here with just over a year under my belt in the health care industry proclaiming that I am a health care marketing expert. But the intent today is to just share a few things from a newcomer's point of view that might spark different thoughts. And many of you might have come from similar backgrounds and industries that I've been in and might see similarities and perhaps the perspective that I share today, again, gives you a few new ways to think about things. So with that said, let's get right into the content. And one might ask, why bother with emotional connections whatsoever? What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with patient care and driving the business or demand in any way? What I would say is, as we are looking to drive preference for our brands as we think about consumers who need us in that hour of need and choosing us, emotional connections could matter more. When we think about campaigns that are focused on functional attributes, you can see a wide chasm in the level of engagement that they have with consumers versus others. So for example, let's look at a few images here. This is what a lot of soap advertising look like for a long time. For decades, this was a tried and tested formula along with the blue liquid test and many of the other things that many of us marketers are familiar with as far as the tools and tricks of the trade. But does this engage more? Or does this engage more? Dove transformed the landscape when it came to what a soap brand can do, getting into spaces that had been unthinkable up to that point. Body shaming, being a credible voice in a conversation related to such a sensitive issue, a soap brand couldn't have imagined stepping into that, but Dove did that. And if you look at their performance, if you look at their brand loyalty, it is incredible what they have achieved in a short period of time, and they are staying the course. The latest award for this campaign came in 2019. So it continues to be a strong campaign for them. Let's take another one from the soda category. And when we think about all of those blind taste tests that served Pepsi well for a good portion of the '90s, probably. In combination, let's admit, with a lot of celebrity influencers and endorsements that they brought to the table, they had a good time for a while. And then Coca-Cola came in, and they changed the game by introducing this campaign. How do you begin to compete with happiness? What kind of strategy do you have to develop to compete with happiness? It is near impossible to compete with emotional sentiments, emotional connections that are forged on these kinds of foundations, but we are all data-driven savvy marketers these days. And just a few images are not enough to change our opinion, and it shouldn't. What should change our opinion is the reams of data that now is already existing for many years, whether you do a quick Google search or you dive into any of the knowledge libraries that you might subscribe to, there's plenty of evidence, overwhelming evidence that this stuff works. Not just from an advertising standpoint, from a standpoint of building long-term brand loyalty, converting consumers into brand advocates and ultimately driving preference for the brands, their services, their products and driving the business. So with all that said, with this foundation now firmly in place within the marketing discipline and a lot of data backing it, what do we see in terms of health care? When we look at the current state in health care, we see a few things. And again, this is not the entirety of the industry, but majority of what we look at looks promising from a standpoint that if a soap brand -- if a soda brand is getting and earning that right to have those conversations, we certainly have the right to have that conversation. If you think about the deep emotional journeys that health care experiences can often be a question of life and death in some instances and a journey and partnership for ongoing health and well-being increasingly versus just the treatment of illnesses, where do we find ourselves as far as driving emotional connections against that? We find ourselves still often tending to focus on ourselves. And I hid some of the faces and the brand names here to protect the innocent. Nothing wrong with any of these ads. In fact, some of them might work very well for the folks that have started up. But we do tend to see quite a bit of focus on ourselves. The things we do that can often be presented in cold, sterile environments that are not necessarily warm and approachable, even if they might showcase expertise in a certain way. And we still do a lot of the routine and the mundane. We all have our websites and presence on the web with our social media channels, introducing perhaps the new things that we might be bringing to the market. New facilities, new providers. We might still send out those e-mails that often are focused on your routine back and forth appointment. And we often send out tips and tricks as far as health and wellness and the usual things that consumers would expect from us. And they probably recognize some of those efforts. And in today's climate, when survey after survey has shown that consumers are highly reliant on health care providers and have the highest trust among many other entities, insurance plans, the government and other bodies, to get their facts from health care providers, we have an even bigger opportunity to continue to do these things. But when it comes to brand building, how do we break out of the status quo that we have today? And I will share just a few thoughts as we get into this section. One, it has to start with an objective assessment that is data-driven. In today's day and age, we can't be subjective about this stuff. And just by virtue of the fact that all of you who are here on this webinar, I will assume that most of you are actively using the data that this wonderful organization brings to our doorsteps. All of the standard stuff we can, of course, look at, but one piece I'll call out, and you might call this a plug for NRC, but I generally has seen value in this, is just spending a little bit more and getting some custom questions at it can further add richness to all of the wonderful information NRC gives you in the Market Insights platform to begin with. So take advantage of that. If there is a question that is not answered well with what you see, add those questions. But we all know, data only takes us so far, and especially standardized longitudinal data. If you want to get into the richness of insights, then you have to do a deep dive. And for me, the way I have been trained in the consumer packaged goods industry, it's always qualitative, where you have those one-on-one conversations and interviews and understanding what is behind the answer that is being given on the surveys that sparks those insights. And then once you have those insights, you go back through the quantitative research land and you validate that. But that protocol really helps go beyond what might be on the surface. Now I know that focus groups, in particular, get a bad name, but you can do one-on-one interviews, you can just do more in-depth rounding when you're walking around with leadership and operational leadership and clinical leadership in your purviews. But let's come back to focused rooms. I think one of the reasons they get a bad rap is that they are conducted poorly. The discussions guides are stacked. We try to answer our way too many questions in some of those forums, and it is often conducted with moderators who are not adept at finding those moments when they can go deeper by asking the 5 whys because rule of thumb and that is not set in stone, but until we ask that why 3, 4, 5 times, rarely do we see critical pieces emerge. So let's look at one example that might get us into it. This is completely fictitious, but definitely inspired by true events. It could be something simple as having a conversation with a patient or consumer that might have utilized your urgent care services and we asked that question, and we get a very functional question -- functional answer back. This was a physical need that I needed help with. You might ask a follow-up question and ask, hey, what exactly were you feeling when you came in? And suddenly, this begins to change the conversation right there because this is no longer about that functional attribute. It is about that emotional space that we are getting into. Now still, this is not adding a lot of value for us because if you have spent $30,000, $40,000 for a focus group and if you leave with, yes, when they come in and they're hard, they feel anxious and stressed, that might elicit a laughable response from maybe the other counterparts at the table. But if we continue with this line of questioning and we tease other things out, hey, how did you pick the location, where you were seeking care, and again, nothing too insightful about the fact that, increasingly, consumers are looking at ratings and reviews when they choose things. But if we continue with that line of questioning, if we keep the consumer comfortable in that setting and then get into that deeper stuff again, hey, why was that important to you? And now if an answer comes back and they say, hey, I wanted to be confident that they will treat me well, but you still don't let them go. And you ask that why yet another time. Why is that important? And when done well, at this stage, some richer insight should be coming in, where you get to see exactly what that emotional space is that the consumer is looking to fill up with the relationship that they're forging with us. And in this instance is that emotional piece around needing to feel secure in a moment of vulnerability. And when we think about things from this lens, it just completely changes the game because suddenly, it is not about us constantly communicating we can patch you up. It can also transition into a much more engaging space of, how can I help make my patients, my consumers feel secure? How can my brand carry that as an attribute as we made progress on our brand journey? Again, all of that is good, but I cannot stress enough the importance of qualitative findings being validated quantitatively. If there's one thing in my short journey here still within the health care industry that I recognized is physicians are trained to recognize research that has quantitative basis. All their lives, they've been trained to look at research that has statistical significance. So when we show up with statistical significance, and this is definitely from a lot of first-hand experience at WellStar. When I have shown up and people have asked me, hey, what was the end size for that study? And I've said, it's a quantitatively readable base size, 200, 800, whatever might be, depending on the study. And they have said, "Hey, what is the confidence interval on this finding and this data point that you're showing me? Is that statistically significant? Is that readable, not readable? Is it 90%, 95%? When we answer those questions, it gets us a seat at the table. It gets us credibility, and it also removes a veneer from the face of marketing where a lot of people still carry these stereotypes about marketing being foo-foo stuff that is driven by gut and emotions. Increasingly, there isn't an art and science to it, but that science has gotten so much more advanced. And we have the ability in all of these conversations when talking about the brand to lead from that standpoint. So are we done at that point? Of course, not. We still have a lot ahead of us. Now whether you might have a fancy agency that is based out of any of the fine cities where agencies tend to be or you have an internal agency and you bootstrap and -- or frugal outfit that just creates all of their own stuff, I strongly recommend still take the time to work on your foundational elements, work on the brand positioning. Work on their equity tree brief, and there are various tools here and the templates can vary depending on where you look. But having these pieces, even if you're doing all your work internally, is essential. And certainly, when you take it to any external agency, it will get you so much more respect in the relationship because here's a secret from the advertising industry side, right? And many of you might have experienced this. When they come in to pitch the account, they certainly bring the A-team. And then often we wonder, how do I get stuck with the intern writing my social media post right after that A-team has left the building. But in reality, what happens is after the initial rah-rah-rah and everybody getting together and celebrating the start of a new relationship and possibly a wonderful advertising journey, when the brief shows up from the client side and when the information starts showing up from the client side and the client behaviors become visible on the agency side. Those folks, they also want to choose the A talent within the agencies. They want to work with those clients that inspire them. And there's very little information when the client shows up without a good brand foundation, when the client shows up with perhaps a lot of holes in how they have articulated their view of their patients, their consumers and the audiences that they are looking to go after. When we do disciplined work and then we take that disciplined work to build these foundations, it earns respect also from the agency side. It also inspires the agency. And you can then expect good talent to come support your account and see fantastic work because they are in the advertising business to do phenomenal advertising. So it's not like the motivation is missing. It's just whether your account is the account that will give them the opportunity to do that. Wow, get out that soap box and get out of the way, right? Once you've done that, once you've done all of the due diligence, then let those world-class partners come in, internal or external, and let them do their thing. Let the creative team be inspired by what you have produced from a discipline standpoint and let them take that forward. Some of you might be thinking right now perhaps I exist in a universe that is disjointed from the realities that we are facing. And yes, I'm cognizant of the fact that many of us are dealing with extremely challenging financial situations right now. Many of us are dealing with budget cuts. Many of us are dealing with frozen positions and constrained resources. So yes, all of this can sound nice and expensive, but it doesn't have to be that way. And I think if we search inside of ourselves, we can hear that voice that reminds us, there's always a way to listen to the consumers' voice. And if we have a core value of always being led by that voice of the consumer, that we shall find a way to get it done, whether it is combing through the patient experience surveys and the verbatims, the hundred to thousands of them that often are not read by many of us within brand and communications or monitoring more closely the social media chatter as overwhelming as that can get sometimes or once COVID is done at least, which, hopefully, in the next 6 to 8 months after the vaccine is deployed, we have safe situations again where we can just do those intercepts. We can grab those clipboards, have a few questions and go have conversations with people who are in the lobby areas of the various facilities that we all might have within our care umbrellas. So if we show commitment to this, a way will always emerge. That is my thought of optimism associated with all of this. So again, I will progress us towards the end of this presentation. The goal was not to inundate all of you with too much information and leave a lot of time for conversation, but there are a few things I do want to share before I complete this presentation part. One is a quick wrap up. Just to recap what we talked about a little bit today. One, tremendous opportunity for health care brands, and there is not a better time to dive into this if we haven't already. Because the trust is there, the consumers' eyes are trained on us right now. They are looking at our industry to do more. And this is the time to continue to earn that trust, forge those connections for the long term for our brands and create and unlock value for our organizations. The journey always starts with the voice of the consumer. And often, when we are moving fast and we might be impacted by hubris or this notion that we have now understood and there's enough that we understand that can continue to guide our effort. We always have to take a step back. The consumer is always changing. The landscapes are always changing. Never hurts to continuously listen for those fresh insights. Using knowledge and data to build brand foundations are a key element in the recipe. And whether we are using internal or external shops, goes without saying these things are worth their rate in gold when we do -- when we want to do solid work. Again, if you can, invest in quality research, invest in quality partners when it comes to creative development because that will pay back in spades. And you can always ask for a pilot. You can always ask for test and learn. If budgets don't allow, build that confidence, showcase success, and then you can come back and be given more. And finally, even if you are resource-trapped, find a way to work around it. There's always a way. So we talked a lot about emotional connections. We talked a lot about perhaps how to get there, and you heard some of my soapbox commentary on some of those pieces. This presentation would be incomplete if you do not leave with at least a few pieces of copy that might inspire us. And full disclosure. I'm going to start with a WellStar ad and open to any feedback, constructive criticism or sarcasm later on as you react to it. But there are a few other pieces of copy because I'm so inspired to see that this transformation has started in our industry, and there are brands who are taking more risk and who are taking bold steps to get into this space. So without further ado, let's watch some of this copy, and then we'll come back for Q&A. [Presentation]

I'll give a quick shout-out to my close colleague, Leanne Cook, who leads the consumer engagement team at WellStar who worked in close collaboration with the agency, [indiscernible], to come up with this campaign. We are thrilled to have it in our market, but let's continue to watch a few other pieces of copy here. [Presentation]

And the last but not the least. [Presentation]

So once again, it's so refreshing and so inspiring to see this work that is so focused on patients and consumers and the storytelling. So with that, we're at the end of the presentation, and we'll be happy to take any questions and comments from the team.

Thank you very much, A.K., and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We do have time for some questions. [Operator Instructions] It looks like we do already have a couple. So we'll go ahead and get started with those. A.K., you had mentioned the patient experience surveys as one area to be able to get feedback from. How do you partner with your patient experience team to gain some insights for branding purposes?

Great question. One, of course, the -- all the standard reporting that we have, whenever we had surveys that have open-ended questions, we see if we can import that data from that team, and then we try to manipulate it using word clouds or other tools that might exist. So that is one good one. But then we are also customers of -- this is an unprompted, uncompensated endorsement of NRC's real-time tool. We utilize the NRC real-time tool for patient experience tracking. And one of the things that allows us to do is create patient panels. So within that, we can reach out to consumers that might be open to joining panels for continued conversations. And then you can take ideas and questions to those panels, have like many focus groups with those audiences, and these are real patients. Now that you have curated into panels, so you get the best, most relevant feedback versus having to recruit and fish in the marketplace, in the broader marketplace for audiences that might actually be familiar with your brand or might have had an experience with you. So those are a few ways that we've done that.

Perfect. Another question is, which I think you're kind of alluding to there was asking about the custom questions. You had mentioned adding custom questions if you would like to NRC. How do you get that information then from the custom question that you add to be able to like kind of next steps of what do you do with that question and that information once you have it?

So what you do with the information, obviously, is something that we always decide at the front end. So for example, I'll get into a very specific question related to unaided awareness. So without being prompted with a list of health systems, one of the questions that is asked is for top-of-mind hospital. And people can look at that question and just answer whatever name might come to mind. When we were looking at the brand awareness KPI for WellStar, we wanted to get deeper into that question. We wanted to make sure that we went past just the aspect of hospital because we have over 300 care locations that are doctors' offices and various types of settings, including some that have imaging, some that have lab. We also have a concept called Health Park, and we have 5 of those with some of the most commonly needed upstream and downstream services in a very convenient setting under 1 umbrella. And that question being so focused on hospitals, we felt that we needed to do more. So we asked a custom question. We did other surveys and research outside of the NRC partnership as well to make sure that we got the most objective understanding for what was our true awareness, not just for hospitals, but the entire health system. So in that instance, that was truly to inform how much spending should we bring to the marketplace to raise our awareness. And if we would not have been clear as to what the starting point was, it becomes a very different conversation if your awareness is 10% versus 30%. So those kinds of things really helped us narrow in on those actions at the back end of the study.

Perfect. Another great question is how do you -- how do health care organizations break out of really the "sea of sameness," where it seems like a lot of campaigns you could just swap out system logos and the message seems very similar. So how do you kind of break out of that sea of sameness?

I would say it is a challenge that is not necessarily unique to our industry. Many industries face it and increasingly, this emotional connection bandwagon has appeared on many radars. You will see people trying to get on that bandwagon, but what will differentiate certain brands from others is, one, again, those that are the most solid foundations will distinguish themselves because they will have the best fodder for storytelling. The other pieces that I'll highlight and these can be concepts that can probably take hours on end by themselves. One piece that I'll put forth for the team's consideration today is this idea of conflict-driven storytelling. And there are many experts who have inspired me and taught me along my journey when it comes to this. Often, the most engaging stories -- not often, for any story to be engaging, there's an element of conflict. Think about last time any TV show or a movie that you watched and there was no conflict in it. And if there was none, you probably didn't watch much of it. All stories need a villain, all stories need a conflict in that resolution. Now historically, these things have been done with a lens that is, let's say, very superficial. So when you think about programming, let's think about television going back, usually, you go back to the shows and the characters could be easily identified as the good, bad and the ugly. And you could see the tensions very clearly and characters behaved in a certain way. So go back to one of my favorite shows from way back MacGyver, MacGyver was a good guy. I don't know that in one episode through all those seasons of MacGyver, I ever saw MacGyver do one bad thing. But now you see a show like Breaking Bad and the lead protagonist has so much internal conflict. And that is how the game has changed for storytelling in that industry. So when we think about ourselves, what are the conflicts that we find within ourselves, and how do we use [indiscernible] some richer stories? I think that would be one key element. And then the other thing, which is standard checkbox in the toolkit or on the list but we often forget is continuing to challenge ourselves and the agency partners or creative partners that we work with. It is easy to get things out and then get this sense of complacency still continuing to do a lot and taking a campaign platform and idea to put a lot of advertising and content out there, but competitors can be fast followers. So you constantly have to think about how you're going to keep that fresh lens and you constantly have to have your insights people. And if you have to be that insights person, be the insights person to fish for those insights and continue to feed those into your briefs so that your creative continues to be fresh, your creative continues to be groundbreaking and challenges the status quo that might evolve with competitors following. Hopefully, that helps.

Perfect. Thank you. Another question, which I think is great with your in and outside experience of health care is research suggests that consumers have higher expectations from health care organizations to meet or exceed their needs. When you see this against the opportunity to deepen emotional connections, what challenges do you think health care organizations face as they try to advance their consumerism agenda?

That's a fantastic question, and I couldn't agree more. The expectations can be sky-high and the rise of consumerism, there are so many forces shaping the space. We know being in the industry how much stress and how much burden our caregivers constantly operate under. And the million things that they have to take care of including all of the paperwork that is associated with all these interactions. And within that setting, they also are now increasingly expected to beat the bar that is set by the Starbucks Barista and beat the bar that is set by a 5-star hotel experience that somebody might have at a resort. So many of these industries and then the at your fingertips piece that has been given to us by all the Netflixes and Amazon Primes of the world, these things are definitely shaping, in some instances, unrealistic and unattainable bars for the industry. So what can we do? Well, obviously, we are not going to give up. But realistically, obviously and within reason, we have to continue to push ourselves to increase the bar, and that's where the advertising can never get in front or ahead of where operations are. We cannot overpromise because that will only lead to more disappointment. But to come back to the question on how you handle this within perhaps the creative side of things, one aspect that I would say, we've only started to begin to step our foots into -- step into is the aspect of better humanization of the provider. And up till this point, what -- at least again, as a newcomer, what I have seen is the provider is portrayed as this figure of authority. If you even look at some of the billboards and some of the things that we put out there, those physicians in their white coats with their arms crossed across their chest, looking down upon you driving past in your car and appearing very official and formal and authoritative, well, that doctor has a story beyond what's on that billboard. And if we can step into the humanization of some of our caregivers, that will also help develop empathy on the consumer end and on the patient end. So there will be more respect, not just for the profession, for the expertise but also respect and consideration and compassion for the individual that is caring for you. So just a few thoughts. Definitely a challenge we'll all continue to solve for the foreseeable future.

Certainly. Another question was back to the focus groups. It says, well that you had mentioned. And the question is around with the time of kind of a year that was a whiplash for all of us with COVID happening and kind of the changes that had occurred in health care. How did getting feedback from your focus groups change during a time like with COVID, where you're not able to meet with them personally one-on-one at the hospital or together?

I'll be honest. It has been a challenge. Now very luckily for me, most of the foundational research work I had already completed to inform the brand strategy with some experts on our team internally here before the pandemic hit. But subsequently, what we have done is we definitely had over-reliance on these secondary sources of information and many of the industry experts that have been publishing white papers and whatnot. As far as the qualitative interactions, we have found a way to do things online. Now do you get that same connection and richness from a one-on-one interview online as you would get in a live setting? No. And so I realize that we are sacrificing some of that while this pandemic continues. But is it way better than not having the conversation at all? You bet. So most definitely, between online forums, Zoom meetings, whatever tools might be required for a particular interaction, we have continued with that, and that continues to give us invaluable learning in the efforts that we are advancing in the marketplace.

Great. Another question was back to the providers you mentioned in your previous answer. And it was -- what are some strategies that you've gained -- or that you've used to gain buy in with those providers, as many providers seem resistant to patient experience or marketing interventions?

Say that question one more time, Megan?

Yes. It says what are some strategies that you've used to gain buy in with those providers? Many providers seem resistant to patient experience or to marketing interventions.

I'll go back to 1 aspect of my presentation. Again, the fact that we showed up always with things grounded in the consumers' voice and in an indisputable way, be it secondary research, primary research, the fact that we had solid grounding in base sizes for any assertions that we were making, that got us the seat at the table. That got the other parties listening because it now suddenly changed the game, right? If you are historically, again, carrying stereotypes and were being serviced by an order taker marketing organization, now suddenly, it's harder to operate that way because, wow, these guys seem to be experts. And they seem to know this consumer and patient better and through more lenses than perhaps I have looked at them in the past. So that again is a key piece to start the conversation. And then beyond that, again, it's always 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. When you take those insights, you, of course, doing the overarching brand campaigns and whatnot is good. But as most of you are aware, providers tend to ask, hey, what's in it for me? And that's where I think the digital end of things becomes your biggest ally. Because now when I show up in conversation, I also showcase how we are using these insights to fuel our media strategy, our messaging strategy, communicating the right points of differences to the right audiences to move the needle. And we've combined it with solid measurement on the back end so that we can go back and say, this is where the KPI was before, be it awareness or preference, and this is where we are seeing the movement now. Now awareness and preference, we all know, 6 months, year, 2 years, it can take multiple years sometimes to move the needle. So you have to manage expectations there. But there are other things that are low-hanging fruit. So take things like search strategy. Can search strategy be influenced by all of these things? You bet. And then it's an ongoing learning mechanism that you put in place with any search agency or even if you're doing it yourself. And when we come back and we have the conversation stating, hey, we served so many impressions. These are the terms that consumers are looking for. So we have stopped wasting money against search terms that actually don't drive our business. When they click on these ads, this is where we are driving them. Take them all the way through the consumer journey aspect. This is what happened on the website. This is how many people clicked. This is how many people filled out the form for the appointment to get in line for urgent care. And then actually showcase what the return on the investment was. Sometimes the minds are just completely blown because, again, I think there are a lot of stereotypes around marketing being some foo-foo art. This is so much driven increasingly driven by the data side of things. So we've also brought in a lot of that data richness to just answer those questions and provide hard answers to hard questions so that people can see what it is that we are doing.

Great. Another question was what does success for WellStar's brand look like next year, and the year following? And what metrics or if you could share a metric that you use to measure that success?

Yes. So it would be an absolute cop out if after sharing all of that I give you any answer less than statistically significant change in our awareness. So the awareness KPI is number one. We are committed to more than anything else driving that measure because when broad awareness goes up, that allows us to at least then start getting into those consideration sets when people think about care. So we have figured out where our awareness is now and how many points of awareness we have to grow for that to be statistically significant. That is a metric that we watch every month with NRC, and we also do additional work to make sure that we are measuring it as objectively as possible. Preference is another KPI that we look at. But again, we have to manage expectations here because all of us know that preference is not solely driven by advertising. We can drive some perceptions. So we can drive perceived preference, but real preference, as most of us know, comes from having experienced a product or a service. So true preference will still be driven by the experience that those millions of patients are having as they walk through WellStar Stores. So one, we have tried to frame it as such and done a lot of education so people understand, word of mouth is still incredibly important. Having real experiences that are satisfying and getting those 10 scores on your patient experience is still the number one thing that is going to drive preference measures. But yes, we can drive perceptions of expertise. We can drive perceptions of care, of warmth, and that can then allow for a perceived preference build that can give you a better shot at being picked in the preference set. So awareness reference too being there. And then for many of the other things that are more patient-acquisition focused, they are all the usual hard KPIs of how many people saw it, how many people clicked on it. Are we meeting, exceeding benchmarks on that? How many people then ultimately ended up converting as patients and calculating the ROI to the end? So our journey for the next year -- next 2 years, definitely, awareness and preference will continue to be key. Other KPIs will be very specific depending on what we are doing, which service line are we driving, what is it from a patient acquisition standpoint, from a business objective standpoint? And are we actually driving the business, the level of business, the level of leads, the level of conversions that anybody wants?

Another question is, do you have any tips for a hospital that's going through a merger acquisition?

Well, it's a tough time to think through all of these things, right? Because when those relationships are still in the offing, it can be hard to drive your destiny because you don't know what the merger of 2 brands might yield. There might be a story and a narrative and a brand foundation that might come from the partner side, and there's a story and a foundation that you might have from your side. But we are all facing this reality folks. And if there's one thing that is a given is, especially now with the pandemic, the pace of consolidation within the industry will only accelerate. So I always say, try to focus on what we can control, right? And what we can control is still within the resources we are given, doing the best job as far as uncovering those consumer insights, as far as doing justice to the marketing that we are putting out there every day, the most world-class messaging that we can put out. So if you are committed to that, that can actually put you in good stead from a few standpoints because, one, you might then bring your substantive insights and foundation to those conversations and the partner, even if you are being acquired might actually see value in that and say, "Hey, these guys are actually ahead when it comes to brand and communications. Let's actually adopt their playbook and let's see how we incorporate that thinking as we move forward. So that can be one instance. And if you are bringing in somebody else, it gives you a position of authority to speak with confidence as to what your brand strategy is, why you're doing what you're doing. And then it might be better from a change management and transition standpoint for those folks to come in and embrace and wrap their arms around the beautiful thing that you might have created. So just a few thoughts.

All right. And another question is about some advice from you. Are there any new books on consumerism and health care that you would recommend people to read?

There's actually not a new book, but an older one, but it is a phenomenal book that I urge any marketing leader and certainly business leaders to read is a book by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, and it is about thinking fast and slow. And not to betray the whole premise behind the book, but it truly challenges some conventions that we have as far as how we operate on a day-to-day basis and the mental models that we have to help us operate that way and how that can lead to catastrophically bad choices because we use the wrong type of thinking in the wrong moment and often end up relying on our gut when we should not be. So again, there's a place for when you do your thinking based on gut, and there's a place when you need to be objective. So once again, Daniel Kahneman Thinking, Fast and Slow, go read that, and I would urge you to send me a note on LinkedIn if you find anything of value in there.

Well, we're actually already had a couple of people comment saying it was a great book, and they read it. So it looks like a good book. Well, that was the last of our questions here that we had. So if there are further questions that you do have that we did not get to or you didn't put in the Q&A box, certainly, feel free to e-mail [email protected], and we will connect with A.K. and be able to get those responses for you. So again, thank you, everyone, for joining our webinar today. Please be sure to complete the post-webinar survey. And again, a recording of this wonderful webinar will be sent out in the next few business days. Thank you so much, and have a great day.

Thank you, Megan, and thank you, NRC team, and thank you to all the attendees.

Thank you.