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PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. says its $20 million advertising campaign is paying off.
Awareness of the Cypress-based healthcare plan provider among non-members in California has grown from 8% in April 2002-before the company's touchy-feely, black-and-white TV spots started airing-to 14% by November 2002, according to the company.
Among members, PacifiCare's awareness grew from 36% to 52% during the same period.
Moreover, PacifiCare's commercial membership-workers enrolling in plans via their employers-grew by 6,500 in the third quarter from the second quarter.
The advertising campaign, which seeks to portray PacifiCare as a caring, responsive health plan provider, is a factor in the company's enrollment growth, according to Edmund Kroll, an analyst with SG Cowen Securities Corp.
"It has helped, certainly," he said. "This is a tough environment for health plan companies to grow enrollment because of the jobless recovery the economy's in."
PacifiCare launched the advertising campaign last year in a bid to burnish its image after it and other health maintenance organizations took a hit in 2000.
Back then, hospitals and other healthcare providers split ranks with HMOs, saying they weren't paying enough to treat their members.
In OC, the issue played out with Orange-based St. Joseph Health System ending ties with PacifiCare. Last month, St. Joseph, Orange County's largest hospital operator, said its three local facilities would rejoin PacifiCare's HMO and preferred provider organization networks.
"That really helps them," Karen Nixon, a Newport Beach health insurance broker, said of PacifiCare.
The company's ad campaign, which is dominated by commercials and includes print and billboard ads, marks PacifiCare's return to advertising after a five-year absence.
The company is spending about twice what rivals Aetna Inc. and WellPoint Health Networks Inc. are expected to spend this year and...