Paging Dr. Anne

MOST COMPANIES with well-known brands tend to capitalize on that notoriety when they launch a Web presence. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts did exactly the opposite when promoting A Healthy Me, its health and medical information site.

Instead, the Bay State insurer featured the enigmatic Dr. Anne Meneghetti, a columnist on the site who became Blue Cross’ surprise breakout Web star.

Anne Marie Kling, Massachusetts Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s in-house Internet consultant, says she knew from the start the company should downplay its identity on the site (www.ahealthyme.com), which was designed with two goals: to drive brand awareness and enrollment decisions.

“If [consumers] saw the name, they’d say `Oh, an insurer,’ and they don’t want to deal with that,” she says.

The site, which debuted in August 1999, was developed in conjunction with Consumer Health Interactive. Boston-based Web firms Partners and Simons and Hook Media were hired to drive traffic to the site.

“It’s designed to create a lifestyle relationship with people,” says Kling.

But an “If you build it, they will come” philosophy doesn’t necessarily fly online. People have to know you’re out there in the big virtual world.

During the summer, the site – promoted only by a meager direct mail effort – received 2,000 to 3,000 visits per week, occasionally spiking at 1,000 hits a day.

That changed last October, when the general media effort started – not coincidentally, just in time for open enrollment.

The campaign centered around television spots and banners strategically placed on sites that could effectively “geotarget” Massachusetts residents.

Visits doubled as soon as the television ads began, and traffic swelled to 15,000 to 18,000 hits per week thanks to the initial wave of banners.

But HookMedia soon discovered that people responding to generic banner ads seldom explored the site beyond the home page. However, visitors who’d arrived via a link touting a specific feature of A Healthy Me delved deeper, and were more likely to sign up for an e-mail newsletter.

That’s where “Dr. Anne” comes in. A pulmonary and critical care specialist and head of medical policy for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Meneghetti writes a Q&A column for the site. Realizing her star potential, HookMedia and the insurer reconfigured the banner campaign, all but hanging it on her image. Visits to the site quickly topped 30,000 a week and subscriptions to the newsletter began to number in the tens of thousands.

Television spots for the site featuring the warm and friendly doctor were also filmed. In the ads, she good-naturedly tells viewers that her family was excited about the chance to e-mail her questions. Why, she asked, since they could just ask her in person? “We’d rather click on your face,” they said.

To Kling, capitalizing on the Web’s accountability was a new adventure.

“I’ve done Web advertising, but not serious Web tracking,” she notes. “The Internet is the first medium outside of direct mail that [allows you to] hear what’s happened today and what you can do to adapt your creative to improve the campaign’s performance.”

Dr. Anne wasn’t the only surprise in the insurer’s Web tracking experiment, Kling adds. The campaigns localized banner placement strategy isn’t as simple as it may seem, for example.

“Buying only in Massachusetts was not as easy as buying for a national campaign where you can buy anything anywhere,” she says.

But it can be done. She cites Weather.com, which she wasn’t quite sure would be a good fit. But thanks perhaps to New Englanders’ practical Yankee fascination with when its going to rain or snow, responses “went through the roof.”

The Boston Globe’s site Boston.com and a localized version of ivillage also worked well for Blue Cross.

“Buying interactive media is different than offline,” says Evan Grossman, vice president of HookMedia, which specializes in Web media-buy consulting.

“The media buy is only 30% or 40% of the effort,” he says. “The rest is managing the campaign, canceling what doesn’t work or changing the rotation.

“Contextual targeting” – a.k.a. placement within sites, whether geographic or demographic – is a major consideration, feels Grossman. For example, someone buying banners on Weather.com might want to promote tents only during favorable camping weather and skis during snow season.

In Blue Cross’ case, Grossman looked for sites that reached within the insurer’s service area, especially ones that attracted younger people. In addition to Boston.com and Weather.com, those included MyYahoo! logged onto from within New England; Infobeat; and Broadcast.com.

The popularity of Dr. Anne – whose smiling face also ended up on buses and billboards – was a valuable lesson for 60-year-old Blue Cross.

“It’s an example of what you learn from the Web influencing what you do with other media,” Grossman says.