Dear Ace: plenty of billboards offer up worthy reading material as I toot around town. However, the one on High Street, near the Riverside, that says something like “Does Martha know too much?” is the one that really leaves me puzzled. Is the advertiser taking a jab at the hard-working hospital named for Mrs. TJ? What exactly does this advertisement mean?—Adman Smarts
Well, Adman, Ace sure hopes you’re not paying more attention to those billboards than you are to the road! (Ace always advises driver safety and keeps both hands on the wheel and two eyes on the road when he’s touring in the Acemobile.) Admonishments aside, the sign (which, incidentally, was taken down recently when its contract ran out), advertised the local company Health Data Services. It featured a demure looking Martha Jefferson and asked drivers, “Does Martha know too much about your practice?” Unfamiliar with this company, this small bit of billboard propaganda left Ace, like you Adman, scratching his head.
But never fear, the telephone is near, and a quick call to billboard mastermind and Health Data Services president Dan Brody, cleared up all confusion. Yes, says Brody, the sign does indeed refer to Martha Jefferson Hospital, located on the corner of E. High Street and Locust Avenue, just up the road from the billboard’s former location. But put your hackles down, Brody says: It was all meant in good fun, thanks to the joys of a competitive marketplace.
See, both Martha Jefferson and Health Data Services offer doctors medical practice management services such as patient billing and insurance claims software. With its billboard, Brody says, Health Data Services was merely reminding doctors who work at the hospital in addition to their own offices that they don’t need to use Martha Jefferson’s billing services for their private practices. Health Data Services’ “privacy benefit” was all that the billboard intended to highlight.
“The medical services that [Martha Jefferson] provides, I have nothing but great things to say them,” says Brody. “Heck, I’m going to be a patient there one day,” and he sure doesn’t want to get on their bad side.
While to the layman, the billboard might as well have been written in Greek, the doctors it targeted didn’t need no Rosetta Stone to translate it. Brody says he got a positive response from clients who thought it was worth a giggle and he even snagged one convert.
“It wasn’t intended as hard-hitting,” he says. “We didn’t expect we would be barraged with phone calls.”