Quality takes a back seat

This week’s BusinessWeek (5/22/06) has a small blurb in its UpFront section about the components of brand equity. The blurb quotes a research study published in Management Science that looked at the mobile phone market in South Korea. The study measured the relative value of three components of brand equity in that market: brand awareness, cachet and quality perception. According to the researchers, 53% of the value of brand equity came from awareness, 32% from cachet and 15% from quality.

From a healthcare branding perspective, we’re constantly trying to wean clients off the quality message, and this study is one more bullet in the ammo belt. The problem with quality in healthcare is that it’s assumed, for the most part, by patients, and most every provider claims to have it. Of course, the reality of the situation is quite different. The quality of care from one hospital to another, from one service line to another, from one doctor to another, can vary dramatically. But from a brand value perception, it’s very difficult to distinguish a healthcare organization based on quality in a competitive market.

Of course, the mobile phone market in South Korea is just a little different than the healthcare market here. It’s safe to assume consumers will pay more attention to quality in the care they receive than in the phones they buy, but that focus is really directed at quality that doesn’t meet expectations, or “bad quality.” It’s very hard to stand out on “good quality.” And when you look at the numbers in the study, it’s not too hard to find examples in healthcare where the theory holds up. Take the Mayo Clinic, perhaps the top healthcare-provider brand in the world. Everyone has heard of Mayo (there’s the awareness), and if you want to know what’s wrong health-wise, who better than Mayo (there’s the cachet). Not that Mayo doesn’t offer quality care, and it’s likely that in the beginning, their brand was built a great deal on that quality. But in today’s healthcare world, quality really takes a back seat branding-wise to many other assets.

Despite the cry from a few Internet techies that “brands are dead!,” in the end, brand awareness still plays a huge part in our world. (The power of Google is amazing, but there’s an obvious correlation between high click-through rates and popular brands. ) The more aware folks are of something, the more comfortable they are with it.