Recent marketing literature suggests that brand orientation is an alternative concept for the public health because it is believed to address the shortcomings of market orientation. Brand orientation is specifically of interest to the sector of healthcare, due to the complex nature of the sector. The purpose of the study described in this paper was to find out what the possibilities are of brand orientation for local healthcare providers. The study shows that brand orientation is relevant for physical therapy primary healthcare organizations (PTPHOs), but is not always adopted effectively. PTPHOs are strongly focused on the patient as the only stakeholder. A more powerful option would be to choose a brand positioning strategy for all relevant stakeholders. PTPHOs have to design integrated marketing activities to encourage consumers directly to use our products/services, and to encourage suppliers, distributors, and other key stakeholders to promote our products/services to consumers. In order to safeguard their role and position in the context of community care for the future, the PTPHO is challenged to become more active and more visible, and must collaborate more with other (healthcare) professionals in the community, broaden their services, and focus more on the (future) needs of the citizen.
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he reorientation of the public sector along market lines has led to the paradigm of New Public Management (NPM): the assumption that the public sector can be improved by management principles and techniques traditionally associated with the private sector. However, market orientation has also become associated with a number of problems, particularly in the public sector. Recent literature suggests that brand orientation can serve as an alternative to market orientation. Our chapter reviews the concept of brand orientation in the healthcare sector, the extent to which Dutch hospitals are currently managed as brands and the key issues in implementing brand management principles in Dutch hospitals.
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This study will examine how branded games in the LEGO Ninjago franchise communicate the brand narrative through their mechanical, semiotic and referential design. Digital games as communicative tools facilitate a new paradigm of marketing focusing on experience creation through integrated marketing communication plans. The LEGO brand creates highly successful games that communicate the brand effectively. To explore the possibilities and counteract the simplistic use of branded games, this study introduces an innovative framework to formally analyze branded games and their communication of a brand narrative through mechanical, semiotic and referential layers. This framework introduces formal game design to advertising studies, while dragging game studies into branded ecosystems. Using the framework, we analyze LEGO Ninjago the Movie – The Videogame, to identify how this paid digital game expands the Ninjago universe and fulfills specific marketing purposes oriented to LEGO toy sets. Our analysis shows that on a mechanical and semiotic layer, the game presents a standalone experience catering to the universe of the Ninjago movie and the values of the Ninjago brand narrative. However, by framing the whole game as LEGO – in its materiality and interactable objects – the LEGO brand narrative of creative construction informs the act of play. The referential design in these games makes use of playful disruption of rules to instill additive comprehension in the player related to purchasable sets and content.
