field notes

You don’t need a crystal ball to tell me what’s coming next in healthcare marketing. As most marketers here know, just look at B2B and B2C - you’ll see the tools and technologies coming into our industry. 

I have lots of conversations with hospital and healthcare leaders about patient empowerment. And for years, those conversations have centered on finding ways to help health systems offer educational, financial, and administrative resources through better digital experiences. In other words, using technology to give patients greater control over their own health experience. 

Shared resources almost always come before individual resources. 

Last week I saw a quote that resonated with me: 

 “All behavior makes sense with enough information.” 

It’s a simple way of illustrating the B2me approach we use at White Rhino. Behind every choice or belief is a person with a history of personal and emotional experiences. And the actions we take - no matter how they come across to other people - are a result of those experiences. 

Knowledge built on knowledge is what separates human beings from all other creatures on the planet. In large part, the current lives we enjoy are thanks to millenia of cumulative knowledge. 

Anytime you make a decision, or buy something, you travel along what we call “The Journey to Yes”. 

The journey, often subconscious, is both a psychological framework and marketing theory that drives much of our work and the success of our clients. 

You can see that journey below, but the truth is, buying a pack of gum when you’ve chewed gum a thousand times before is very different from buying something that represents a completely different way of doing things. 



While the key steps in the journey stay the same, reaching “Yes” varies for each audience. Bringing a groundbreaking idea to market requires a vastly different approach.

The ironic problem we see is that incredible innovators don’t always recognize that difference. They approach marketing as a generalized discipline rather than a specialized craft, assuming that marketing a lightbulb is the same as marketing an entirely new way to illuminate a room. 

But, when you take that traditional approach, here’s what happens: 

One of my favorite pieces of psych research is a 1999 study by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. 

Before I explain, you can experience the study by watching this video (it’s only 1 minute, 21 seconds). It’s important you watch before reading on, spoilers below. 

Habits are so essential to our survival that their behavioral patterns are imprinted into our subconscious neural pathways. And anything that is counter to those habits is seen as a potential threat to our stability and safety. 
But what happens when a brand needs their market to break free from these patterns?