“A while ago, the miracle doctors “against the ancestors” type of medical propaganda, has caused widespread concern. Today’s article comes from a former medical publicist who, after experiencing a variety of publicity schemes, discovered that behind the oddball marketing is naked interest.
Banning the middle of the road
I am a special northern drifting copywriter, and my job is to help certain hospitals write advertisements.
The first task I received when I came to this company was to write a case of vitiligo patient’s recovery, which was assigned to me by the team leader with QQ.
The actual fact is that you will find a lot of people who are not able to get a good deal on a lot of things. Of course, there will certainly be some exaggeration and exaggeration, either a little more or a little less, to figure out the proportion, I was a little nervous, afraid that I could not grasp.
I looked at QQ and waited for the team leader to pass on the patient’s information. Soon, two points of attention were sent over there: one to show the patient’s journey from illness to recovery; the other to highlight the hospital’s treatment technology.
Waiting further, the team leader did not say a word.
I thought the team leader had forgotten about me and cautiously probed to ask, but he answered me: “Write whatever you want”. I immediately understood that the team leader was asking me to make up a piece directly.
I was a little surprised and looked at my colleagues around me, all of whom were silently tapping on the keyboard, with their minds made up. I didn’t hesitate for long, and I also quickly got into the writing, probably subconsciously, I guessed that things might be like this: most things are made up. It just didn’t even have the patient as a person, which still struck me as a bit of a stretch.
Looking back, when I interviewed for the job, the receptionist was a bit confused about what the job entailed. She just asked me to write an article on the topic of “The Nightmare of a Young Girl”, with no limit on the number of words and time. My brain automatically filtered out the short stories printed in the men’s and gynecology advertising brochures, and combined with the nature of the company itself, I quickly wrote the copy and the director was satisfied. That’s how I got my first job in life. What concerned me at the time was that the job included food, housing, and benefits that matched my expectations perfectly.
When I wrote my first draft, I realized that it wasn’t that easy to make up a compelling story. To be precise, it looked easy, but it was difficult to write.
I say it was “easy” because the formula was ready-made. Everyone in the company has a booklet with the accumulated cases on it, the main characters have various identities, there are ordinary workers, there are bosses with a monthly income of a million, there are eighteen line of small actors, and athletes who have won various awards, the plot involves a light life, there are runaways, there are trying various prescriptions, and even revenge on society, in short, I can think of all kinds of life, almost in this I can think of all kinds of life, almost in this, and each story is a twist and turn, looks very “real”, full of details, rich in the journey of the heart. The longest one in it, I roughly estimated, has nearly 7,000 words.
And the end of those stories, all exactly the same: the main character unfortunately fell ill, traveled all over the place have not seen results, mentality once broken, accidentally learned about this hospital, with the attitude of trying to come here for treatment, and finally recovered and cured, regained their lives.
Looking at the brochure alone, the stories were more like interviews, but since they were made up, the situation was different, and I felt I had to figure out the “template” and make them I felt I had to figure out the “templates” and make them work for me. I studied them one by one and took notes, just like I did when I was a student reading a language textbook, and eventually I felt desperate: they had already made up all the plots they could, in the past and in the present, in heaven and on earth, so what else could I write about?
While torn, I still wrote a good article, to the group leader to look over. Sure enough, he was not satisfied at all, and gave me the comment that the story was too clichéd, the plot was not twisted enough, and there was no impulse for people to empathize and come to the hospital after reading it.
In the second draft, I used a lot of vocabulary and put as many literary techniques into the story as possible. The team leader thought it was just okay, ten stories, maybe pick one that would work.
He said: “The cases you wrote were already being written five years ago, and now people don’t like to see things that are in the middle of the road. It can ensure the point of view and enhance the credibility. Without these two points, what is written is soulless. “
“Soul.” I nodded, understanding what he meant. This word is really familiar, which language teachers will instruct students: your characters should have a soul.
A colleague becomes a “patient representative”
I couldn’t help but feel frustrated when the story was not well written. The director kept encouraging me that this was normal, and that as I learned more about the “industry”, I would be able to write like a god.
The actual fact is that you can find a lot of people who are not able to get a good deal on a lot of things. The company asked me to undertake the work of off-site camera.
The actual site of the event in a large conference center, a look serious and grand place, the participants are a few look like leaders, as well as some hospital director, vice president and chief physician. As for the audience on the stage, all available personnel of the company and the hospital were used.
The “leaders” made speeches, giving “full recognition” to the hospital’s technology and efficacy. “full affirmation”. I stood in front of the audience, numbly manipulating the camera in my hand, constantly switching between close up and far away to take a picture.
Near the end of the event, caught off guard, a familiar face came into view, a young girl recruited within a few days after I joined the company, I had a very simple impression of her, she just walked on stage in my eyes, shifted and took on a new identity: patient representative.
I looked at her standing on the stage in a dumbfounded way, so vocal and emotional that she even cried when she got excited, and if it wasn’t for the colleague relationship, I would have believed it.
After the speech, the “leader” also walked to the stage and gave her a special relief fund in a decent manner.
After the event, I wanted to follow the company’s car and rush back, but the director pulled me back and said, “I’m not done yet, I want to record a few more videos on the treatment method and treatment techniques.
I set up the camera in front of the banner at the entrance of the conference center. At the same time, the team leader brought me some TV station labels to put on the microphone. I was too embarrassed to ask the team leader directly, so I quietly asked the colleague next to me, “Where did this come from? “Colleagues told me from a treasure to find. Before the shooting, the team leader instructed me that the station label must be partly missed and partly hidden. I instantly reacted, the private purchase of the station logo has already violated the law, and if it is blatantly broadcast out, by the relevant television stations see, is designated to die.
For the sake of “news” timeliness, that night, we put the previously prepared text with pictures of the event site and published it on some websites and WeChat. The effect seemed to be quite good, attracting many patients to consult.
Everyone is an actor in a medical advertisement
Not long after, I received another assignment to go to a hospital to shoot a commercial to promote a medical program. On the way, the team leader told me that the doctor who recorded the video this time was actually an actor hired by the company. As expected, within a few minutes of our arrival, the doctor also arrived, a middle-aged man with a gentle-looking personality. During the chat, he told us that he was a worker before, and after he retired, he joined the industry because he loved acting, and started out as a group actor, and then slowly accumulated a certain foundation and became a featured actor.
Because of his wise and gentle appearance, he is more in line with the image of a doctor in the hearts of many people, so in addition to appearing as a doctor in TV dramas, in reality, there are many hospitals like ours that ask him to appear in the name of a doctor.
The first thing you need to do is to take out a clip of his appearance in “Surgery” and show it to us.
The shooting began, the man began to “surgery”. According to the previously prepared video script, the test tube and microscope were handled with ease in his hands, while the “patient” was played by our own people. I would have believed it was a hospital doctor talking about his research if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.
Just a short time ago, when I was just a viewer, I also saw a lot of medical commercials, which were inserted in TV programs at every turn, and I couldn’t get rid of them, so I had to take them for granted. But I never thought that they were filmed like this.
Looking at my astonished expression, my colleague slightly amused, “look at you that unseen kind, the post involving medical technology will be more refreshing, all by the post-production staff to play their own, the whole like a high-end technology projects. “
“So, does this project have a healing effect? ” I asked somewhat woodenly.
My colleague was blunt and cloudy: nine out of ten have no effect, there may be one with effect? It depends on luck.
Figure | Feedback from an online search
Finally met the patient
Gradually, I have become a half veteran, no longer confused by such things, but has not been able to get the appreciation of the team leader. The reason is still the same as before, my words lack real feelings, how can not reach the “soul”.
Privately, I always wanted to give him dislike back, imaginary story to have real feelings, it is too difficult, or you try to write it yourself? But this image I dare only in my heart secretly happy.
Every now and then, I always look forward to the opportunity to get in touch with real patients. For one thing, I’m extremely short of words to make up stories, so I’m looking forward to real life stories to trigger some inspiration; for another, I’m curious, we’ve written so many “patients”, what are the real patients like? What about real patients?
Finally, I waited for such an opportunity.
One day, the director approached me and said that there was a patient in the hospital and we needed to shoot an interview around her, and asked me to write an outline of the interview, focusing on the patient’s condition and the change of mind during treatment. The director also emphasized to me that the most important thing was to highlight the treatment effect and service level of the hospital.
According to her request, I spent nearly an hour to write eight outlines word by word, handed over the job, the director is quite satisfied, only on the basis of the original added one: highlight the hospital to the patient’s “public welfare “help.
On the day of the shoot, the director himself took me to the hospital early with him. The patient was a young mother from out of town, with a ponytail. Because her husband had to take care of her daughter, she was the only one hospitalized here.
At first, the mother’s emotions were relatively stable, but when talking about her daughter, she suddenly couldn’t help but shed tears. She told us that her body is sick in many places, especially her limbs, so even in summer, she almost never wears short sleeves or short skirts, because her daughter is afraid, and for this reason has been reluctant to come near her. She said, while rolling up her sleeves for us to see, I looked through the lens, indeed a little creepy.
During the interview, I went back and forth in my mind. Because it really felt like it was ripping open my mom’s wounds over and over again and forcing her to show them. But the team leader on the sidelines kept digging into the root of the matter, dissecting the layers, afraid to miss a particular nuance. His words were unquestionable journalism textbook theory: in any tiny piece of information, there is the potential to unearth a valuable story.
Towards the end of the shoot, the mother spoke gratefully to the camera: Thank you to the hospital for helping me waive some of my treatment costs at the most difficult time.
It dawned on me that one was using the camera to get free treatment, and the other was using free treatment to show their public spirit, each taking what they needed.
As we were leaving, the mother came up from behind and handed me the batteries I had left behind. When the two brushed shoulders, I curiously whispered a question: “What is the treatment effect in the end? “She forced a smile and told me that she didn’t see much yet. I wanted to comfort her with the words don’t feel bad, it will get better. The words were on my lips and I swallowed them back, I couldn’t and didn’t want to say them.
I remembered a conversation with the team leader, she said that the reason why our kind of hospital can survive is just human nature, the company knows too well the desperate mood of people in pain, but where there is a little hope, they want to try, in case they are the tenth of it? The “regular” hospital is unlikely to give this word, they will hold a chance to seek over. And our job is to place people’s optimistic imagination in seemingly authoritative evidence through propaganda and “spin”, who cares if it’s true or not? Even the patients don’t necessarily care, they need that little bit of hope too much.
Everything is in the hands of the company.
“There are many such things, what is this, you don’t do it, I don’t do it, there will always be someone to do it. ” the team leader said to me gently.
Yes, this kind of thing will be done by someone anyway.
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