What will actually shift patient behavior and brand preference in healthcare marketing?
As marketers and agency teams, we need approaches that respect regulation, build trust, and deliver measurable growth.
Below, you will find eight widely known campaigns, along with their strengths and the tactics you would reuse.
What’s Inside
Why Healthcare Marketing Requires a Unique Approach
Healthcare is unlike any other industry when it comes to marketing.
As outlined in the article The Origin and Evolution of Marketing in Healthcare, traditional & default marketing techniques cannot be simply transferred into this field.
Health services are complex, demand is unpredictable, and often the end user is not the sole decision maker.
What’s more?
Healthcare services are harder to market than goods.
Unlike most industries, healthcare marketing strategies revolve around services that are deeply intertwined with goods and procedures. A single patient journey involves doctors, facilities, pharmaceuticals, and multiple billing codes.
Demand is unpredictable.
Aside from chronic care, most health episodes are rare and unexpected. This unpredictability means healthcare marketing agencies must focus on readiness, awareness, and trust-building long before patients actually need care.
The end user isn’t always the decision maker.
A unique challenge in healthcare is that patients may not decide where they receive care, nor are they always responsible for paying. Insurers, physicians, and family members play critical roles in decisions.
Not all patients are equally viable from a business standpoint.
While providers have an ethical duty to care for everyone, reimbursement structures mean that certain patients may be more financially sustainable than others. Marketers must balance business needs without creating the perception of cherry-picking profitable patients.
Outcomes are difficult to measure.
Healthcare content marketing often promotes expertise and quality of care. However, real outcomes are influenced by many uncontrollable factors. A single adverse event can distort perceptions, even if overall care quality is strong.
Attribution is complex.
Perhaps the biggest challenge is proving ROI. A rise in patient volume or revenue might follow a campaign, but it’s rarely clear how much of that change came from marketing versus physician referrals, insurance plan steering, or seasonal demand shifts. This forces healthcare marketers & healthcare marketing agencies to adopt a long-term, multi-channel view of impact.
Successful Healthcare Marketing Campaigns
Bold healthcare marketing campaigns prioritize short-form, physician-approved social content that answers one question at a time and helps patients act with confidence, no doubt.
According to the Journal of Medicine and Life’s article titled “The adaptation of health care marketing to the digital era,” media platforms influence clinic choice at scale: in a 22-month study of 126 first-time patients, 78.57% said Internet promotions affected which clinic they chose.
For marketing teams managing budgets, social and email are cheaper than direct marketing and give precise targeting by location, age, and interests. Taken together, these facts make social the practical place to educate, segment, and convert while keeping clinical accuracy and compliance front and center.
Let’s examine healthcare campaigns that incorporate these essential marketing elements.
ALS Association — Ice Bucket Challenge
Pfizer — Science Will Win
Cleveland Clinic — Empathy: The Human Connection
Kaiser Permanente — Thrive Your Way
CVS Health — We Quit Selling Tobacco
NewYork-Presbyterian — Amazing Things Are Happening Here
SickKids Foundation — “SickKids VS”
Mayo Clinic — Sharing Mayo Clinic
Johnson & Johnson — For All You Love
ALS Association — Ice Bucket Challenge
Remember the times famous names poured a bucket of ice water over their head? This is still one of the most cited examples when we talk about successful healthcare marketing campaigns.
The Ice Bucket Challenge is actually a global social movement that paired a simple action with peer-to-peer challenges and personal stories, dramatically raising awareness and donations.
The action was simple, memorable, and easy to replicate, which fueled adoption.
The campaign raised over $220 million globally, funding breakthrough ALS research and treatments. For a healthcare cause, it remains one of the best healthcare marketing campaigns because it linked awareness to measurable health outcomes.
Pfizer — Science Will Win
Here is a prime example of how a healthcare brand can use authority, transparency, and storytelling to strengthen trust during a time of global uncertainty.
Source:
Launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pfizer campaign positioned the well-known brand as both a pharmaceutical company and a science-first organization committed to solving humanity’s biggest health challenges.
We proudly stand with our scientists who work tirelessly in the pursuit of treatments that save and extend lives. #ScienceWillWin
By showing the scientists, processes, and real-world impact behind vaccine development and other treatments, the campaign addressed what patients care about most.
Cleveland Clinic — Empathy: The Human Connection
A hallmark content series that reframed patient care through everyday moments of empathy. It remains a reference for human-centered storytelling in hospitals.
Although the Cleveland Clinic’s video lacks modern digital marketing elements, it’s a good example of storytelling in the healthcare industry.
It turns clinical care into relatable, human stories that match what patients actually notice and talk about.
The best part? The campaign aligns with what healthcare consumers value most: convenience, responsiveness, and participation. Which means empathy-first creative does more than inspire; it supports real decisions and follow-through on care.
Kaiser Permanente — Thrive Your Way
Kaiser Permanente is one of the largest not-for-profit healthcare providers in the United States, serving over 12 million members.
Unlike many competitors, Kaiser controls both the insurance and care delivery sides. Preventive care, digital innovation, and patient engagement under one unified brand strategy.
Its flagship campaign, Thrive Your Way, is a natural fit for this model, emphasizing wellness, preventive care, and lifestyle support rather than focusing solely on treatment.
The campaign highlights Kaiser’s strength in whole-person care, addressing both physical and mental health while reinforcing its reputation as a community-first health system.
CVS Health — We Quit Selling Tobacco
Here is a bold move for the healthcare industry.
This move was more than a corporate decision for CVS Health, which is one of the largest retail pharmacy chains in the United States; it was a marketing campaign that redefined CVS’s brand purpose and positioned it as a credible player in healthcare rather than just retail.
The campaign also emphasizes that traditional forms of healthcare advertising, such as TV commercials and social media promotion, are not the only options.
And, after 10 years, CVS has released a second video regarding the campaign:
NewYork-Presbyterian — Amazing Things Are Happening Here
As you already know, NewYork-Presbyterian is one of the most recognized academic medical centers in the U.S.
That center’s healthcare ad is one of the most successful ones in the industry since it frames innovation around real outcomes and personal experiences instead of overwhelming audiences with technical health details.
Research confirms that patients focus on communication quality and emotional connection when evaluating healthcare providers, not just technical expertise.
What’s more, healthcare is unique in that the “end user may not be the decision maker” — physicians, insurers, and family often shape choices. By focusing on credibility and consistent messaging, the campaign reassures multiple stakeholders simultaneously.
SickKids Foundation — “SickKids VS”
It’s time to focus on a campaign that is one of the boldest and most celebrated healthcare marketing efforts in recent years: SickKids VS.
Unlike traditional hospital ads that lean on sympathy or quiet storytelling, SickKids positioned children battling illness as fighters, heroes, and resilient warriors, reframing their narrative with energy, grit, and determination.
At SickKids, we’re not on the sidelines, we’re on the front line. Taking the fight to the greatest challenges in child health. And we are winning.
As we stated above, instead of portraying children as passive patients, the campaign cast them as protagonists in a fight. This approach resonated with audiences because, as healthcare research shows, what patients and families value most is communication that reflects compassion, strength, and respect.
What’s more, “SickKids VS” became more than one campaign; it turned into a long-term creative platform that evolved with new executions, keeping the brand top-of-mind and sustaining fundraising momentum year after year.
Mayo Clinic — Sharing Mayo Clinic
As you already know, Mayo Clinic began as a blog and information center and has now expanded into a multi-channel platform.
Sharing Mayo Clinic functions as a digital ecosystem where new stories are continuously published, keeping audiences engaged year-round. It features staff viewpoints, patient experiences, and behind-the-scenes tales that humanize and make one of the most prestigious hospitals in the world feel approachable.
Instead of positioning Mayo as the hero, the campaign (always-on platform) amplifies the voices of patients and their families.
Johnson & Johnson — For All You Love
Not recent, but a powerful corporate brand campaign.
For All You Lovee is a healthcare marketing campaign that reframed J&J as more than a pharmaceutical and consumer health company.
Rather than that, it positioned the brand as a universal symbol of care, compassion, and everyday trust. By weaving together stories across its consumer products, medical devices, and pharmaceutical arms, the campaign reminded audiences that Johnson & Johnson exists at the center of their daily lives and critical health moments.
Why Did We Choose These Healthcare Campaigns?
They balance empathy with evidence.
Short, credible content on social channels helps real people act.
They fit healthcare’s decision reality.
Health episodes are unpredictable and rare for many people, which makes continuous education and reminders more productive than one-off campaigns.
They respect regulation.
Creative is built around claims that can stand MLR review. “Continued oversight by various regulatory agencies can be expected,” so education-first campaigns reduce risk and improve clarity.
They prove impact is scalable.
From SickKids Foundation’s emotionally charged SickKids VS to CVS Health’s values-driven We Quit Selling Tobacco, these initiatives showed that when purpose and creativity are aligned, healthcare marketing can achieve global reach and measurable health outcomes.
They reflect patient values.
Research shows that compassion, empathy, and communication quality are key drivers of perceived healthcare quality.
How to Adapt These in 2025
Build a micro-education series with clinical sign-off and weekly themes. Pair with precise targeting, since electronic media allows segmentation by age, location, and interests at a lower cost than direct marketing.
Turn service lines into story lines. Hospitals that marketed obstetrics, outpatient care, and similar services directly to consumers gained revenue and share, which is still true today when you structure the funnel end-to-end.
Keep multi-audience tracks. Consumers, clinicians, and payers need different messages and proof points, often in parallel.
Need more suggestions regarding the best healthcare practices? Check out our healthcare digital marketing guide packed with experts’ insights.