Internet’s Residency Exam
Regina Maria Healthcare Network
Issue 52 | September 2019
Agency
McCann Bucharest, McCann PR
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer: Ca?ta?lin Dobre Group Creative Director: Ruxandra Papuc Creative Director & Copywriter: Jonay Sosa Art Directors: Maria Carrillo, Lia Bira Copywriters: Mike Rincones, Dragos? Barda
Production Team
Producers: Oana Ioan, Alexandru Platon Vice: Journalist: Mihai Popescu Copywriter: Diana Mitrica Producer: Madalina Manea
Other Credits
Business Director: Ruxandra Vasilescu Account Executive: Sabina Iancu Account Managers: Ana Poiana, Silvia Parpala? Creative Excellence Executive: Andreea S?pilca
Date
June 2019
Background
Regina Maria is one of the leading players in the Romanian healthcare market with 100 medical facilities and over 2,300 doctors. The problem was that antibiotics were sold over the counter without a prescription in Romania until 2005. 3 out of 4 Romanians self-diagnose and consequently self medicate. This can lead to serious medical situations.
The task was to encourage people to get a check-up from a doctor rather than from Google
Idea
If people trust the internet so much, the idea was to test its medical credentials. Partnering with Vice, on the day that trainee doctors took the national residency exam, journalist Mihai Popescu also sat down to answer the 200 questions.
Unlike all the other doctors, though, he had unlimited access to the internet and used search in order to answer the questions. The journalist failed brilliantly, scoring 36 correct answers out of 200.
Then the challenge was opened up to everyone. Visitors to Regina Maria’s website were invited to sit the exam as well. If they failed, which they did, then they were sent a certificate of failure, which doubled up as a voucher.
Results
A 43.29% increase in doctor’s appointments at Regina Maria clinics.
11% of the vouchers were turned into visits to a doctor and there were 229,000 new visitors to the company’s website.
Our Thoughts
I tried to put myself in the minds of the creative team here, when they were given a simple brief. Get more people to visit a real doctor if they don’t feel well. It may cost them a lot less than self-medicating.
The instinctive response might be to come up with horrifying tales of how people completely misunderstood their symptoms and made themselves even more ill.
But, for me, one of the first principles of advertising today is, how can you get people to become active participants in your idea? McCann Romania has been consistently brilliant at it, from their great work for ROM (rebranding it as an American chocolate bar) through to this. It’s the detail I admire.For instance, when people went online to search for the most common medical problems, Regina Maria was there at the top of the search results to say, ‘Ask a real doctor’.