An interview with
Andy Burtis
Senior Vice President, Marketing & Communications
McKesson Corporation
Interview by Sam Narisi
The best marketing creates value for customers, says Andy Burtis, senior vice president of marketing and communications at McKesson. His organization has tried to move beyond pushing promotional content and become a “convener of stature” and key player in the improvement of healthcare. A key part of that strategy is McKesson’s Better Health Tour, a series of events in different cities designed to facilitate exchanges among experts in the health sector.
Following Andy’s presentation at the 15th Anniversary MARKETING WORLD 2015: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, we spoke with him about the tour and his efforts at McKesson to unite the entire organization under a unified brand message and rallying cry: “For Better Health.”
One of the things you talked about in your presentation is taking charge of how the company is seen rather than letting the market decide, which led to the idea of “For Better Health.” What are some things you’ve done to accomplish that?
Prior to this effort, each division of the company was very focused on how they wanted the market to perceive their business, but we had not created a unifying big idea that would bring cohesion to how the market would view the corporation as a whole. We decided to take a step back and get very intentional at the master brand level rather than just viewing the way the divisions told our story as the de facto McKesson story.
As we went through our process, we came to appreciate the importance of focusing on our purpose as a business— “why” we exist—versus focusing on “what” we do. You only get so far by explaining your products and services. The best way to build your brand is to stand for something and then communicate that stand through tangible action that leaves an impression with your audience. The Better Health Tour that we’ve been doing is a great example. This initiative brings together a cross-section of healthcare leaders in key cities across North America for strategic conversations that are really about helping our customers achieve a healthier future, as opposed to being about McKesson.
McKesson is a big company with a lot of units. What did it take to get everyone on board across those divisions?
We engaged leaders from each division in a process of co-creation so they were all involved in formulating and giving birth to the idea. For any large company, it doesn’t go well if something is invented by corporate and imposed on the business units. So we had representatives from all the divisions involved in the creative process, and they really helped us to get to the heart of what is it that we stand for as a business. We also made sure the idea resonated with the CEO and that it became the expression of his own views on why our company exists. He became our chief evangelist and incorporated the idea into his communications to all audiences, including employees, customers, suppliers, investors, and policy makers.
The next important part was engaging our employees and giving them a way to see their own role in helping our customers and the patients they serve achieve better health. We have an internal employee engagement campaign where we photograph employees at every level of the company sharing their own stories and make videos that celebrate the role our employees play. It’s been really important to make sure employees feel a sense of connection and ownership.
Around the same time as the brand transformation, we were overhauling our employee benefits program. So we worked very closely with HR to make sure all of the messaging and program design around that was consistent with our commitment to better health. For example, we have a program that allows employees to earn credits for healthy behavior. So we talked about the way we’re working as a business to bring better health to our customers while at the same time working to bring better health to our own employees. That became a real catalyst for getting people excited about our purpose as a company.
We also created an extremely detailed and comprehensive book of brand guidelines to disseminate to all of the marketing and communications teams across our divisions. Our brand team worked very closely to train all of those teams on the guidelines and consult with them on the implementation. We’re going through a comprehensive audit right now where we’re planning to meet with all of the marketing VPs in the various divisions and give them a scorecard for how they’re doing. For any items that score below a B, they’ll have to put a correction plan in place. That kind of governance is really important and we’re continuing to work on that.
It can be difficult for organizations to get the content they need with the resources available. Was that a challenge for McKesson?
In the early days, it was a big challenge. At the corporate level we tried to produce defining content that would show the business units what we thought good content looked like—for example, a brand inspiration video that all of the business units could use. We were really focused on quality as opposed to quantity and we were counting on the business units to develop the quantity of content. Our corporate team probably only did 10% of the content, and the divisions were responsible for the rest. That was a positive because it was less expensive and more distributed, but it also created challenges because people will often apply their own filter to the brand, and if you’re not careful, you end up creating a level of diffusion in your brand expression that defeats the purpose.
It seems like that’s where the governance plan you mentioned really comes into play.
It does and I would just emphasize that this is a journey. I wouldn’t want to suggest that we’ve hung the “Mission Accomplished” flag and we’re done. Taking care of the brand is like taking care of a garden. You plant it, you water it carefully, and it begins to sprout. Then you’ve got weeds and you have to pick them. It’s a never-ending process of tending to the garden and caring for it in an on-going way. That’s the way I look at what we’re doing. We’ve got a really good start to a garden that has tremendous potential. And with the Better Health Tour, we’re now trying to expand the garden beyond our own company.
How did the Better Health Tour come about?
Our view was we have a unique perspective on what better health looks like for the individual players, including pharmacies, physician practices, health plans, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers and others. We also have a unique perspective on what better health looks like for the ecosystem as a whole. So we thought: Why don’t we convene these healthcare leaders in different cities for a strategic conversation about how we, as an ecosystem, can work together more effectively? We’ve done Portland, the Twin Cities, and Boston, and we’re going to Toronto at the end of October.
The tour is a full day event where we try to bring together senior level influencers from across the care delivery system, including public health officials, administrators, clinicians, etc. We talk about the current state of health in that particular region and start to figure out the greatest opportunities for the players to build a healthier business ecosystem and create better population health in the region.
From a marketing perspective, what effects have you seen?
We’ve seen a significant uptick in media impressions, which has been terrific for us. We’ve also seen a significant increase in social media activity. We have a LinkedIn group related to the tour where we continue the conversation after visiting a city. We’ve also seen the door open to a lot of terrific new business relationships. As we go through these summits, attendees come away with a much-expanded view of McKesson and we pepper these events with our clinical and business thought leaders. More often than not, through the conversations that take place, new connections will be formed that lead to expanded opportunities for us.
What do you have planned for the tour in the future?
Our goal really is to scale this initiative and take it to many more cities. We’re still working through the proposal to do that. Our hope is that, if we can run these strategic summits around the globe, we will be in a position to function as a knowledge broker between cities and stakeholders across borders. We want to be at the center of facilitating that worldwide knowledge exchange, all in the name of Better Health. Nothing could be better from a brand and business development perspective.
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