Spinning to a new direction

According to Tersea Gouws, MD at Spindoctors, the company has re-looked the traditional healthcare and medical advertising agency model and has re-positioned itself as an agency that looks beyond the marketing of conventional pharmaceuticals and healthcare products or services, to the marketing of products and services that have a positive effect on mind, body and soul, in order to answer the needs of the consumer market, rather than those of marketers alone.

"People are not just made up of cells, blood and tissue. Health problems do not always stem purely from a physical disorder, while some disease cannot always be successfully treated with medication alone either. In order to create healthy consumers, we need to look at consumers holistically and take into account their mental, physical and "soul" state in order to ensure a healthy, balanced result," adds Gouws.

This innovative approach to marketing will greatly benefit healthcare clients since it adds more value to them and to consumers. "We deal with the well-being of people - they need to feel that marketers are seeing them as more than money in the bank. Consumers are also educating themselves, so the days of the doctor or pharmacist knowing best and the patient merely following orders, are rapidly changing. The media is playing a significant role in telling consumers that they should trust their own judgement and buy what's good for them," notes Gouws.

This strategy is virgin territory for SA marketers, according to Gouws: "This new direction which Spindoctors Advertising is taking differentiates it as an agency and will give it a tangible advantage. Lots of people talk well-being, but no-one has the knowledge and researched information to arm marketers to best advantage. Mind, body, soul marketing tells marketers what consumers want, not what marketers think is best for consumers. Spindoctors has researched the entire spectrum of healthcare, from conventional medicine through to the alternative and traditional healthcare markets and understands the driving forces that operate within each arena, the consumers who subscribe to the various disciplines relating to healthcare, the role players in those markets (including media) and the trends that are relevant to marketing.

"In a country like SA, where our social conscience is highly evolved - especially due to the role of the Internet and magazines, marketers need to know that there is an agency that is moving with the times and keeping abreast of the mindset of the country's people. In addition to that, it opens the doors for our existing pharmaceutical clients to extend their reach to areas that were traditionally beyond their reach by virtue of our inclusion of clients from other areas of healthcare," concludes Gouws.