meet the rushings: a uf health orthopedics and sports medicine institute campaign
The client—our ortho marketing coordinator—presented convincing data that UF Health needed to market its ortho services uniquely to better compete with its regional competitors, who were using bolder and more clever messages to tout their expertise. I and my team got to work, directed by these fundamental questions:
What sets our ortho services apart?
How can we creatively tell our story to break through the clutter?
behind the scenes
We reviewed key competitors’ ads and learned that we needed to be as bold—if not more bold—in our expression. We needed to be different, not only to connect with our audience, but to separate our ortho message from other UF Health messages in the market. Levity, we decided, was the right approach.
My creative director and I invented the Rushing family, whose over-the-top competitive fire led to injuries both minor and serious, ultimately driving them to seek ortho care at UF Health. This gave us the opportunity to showcase a few distinct service line attributes: sports medicine; our after hours clinic; and gait testing. We created profiles for each family member: mom the runner; son the baseball player; and grandpa the golfer. Dad, unfortunately, was athletically disinclined, but nonetheless invested in his family’s athletic success. (Note the dog’s cameo at the end! Even she had a backstory.) From there, I wrote the script, which my creative director and I refined together until it hit all the right notes and zingers. We had to balance things just so … we couldn’t stray too far afield with sarcasm or insults. After all, we had to maintain UF Health’s reputation, and at the end of the day, we’re bound by brand guidelines.
For this one, we had a budget to work with, so we hired a local video production company given that my team’s videographers were engaged in other projects at the time.
Armed with a treatment and script, I drew some crude storyboards and created a shot sheet for our production company. From there, we scouted locations to find the right home, golf course, baseball diamond and running trail. At the same time, my creative director and I began reviewing casting demo reels our production company fed us. The family needed to be diverse, but real. They also need a certain charisma to deliver their lines they way we intended. We selected our actors, and now it was time to shoot. Thankfully, our ortho marketing coordinator was a savvy production assistant who helped with all the scheduling and logistics. Many locations, many days of shooting.
Since we were producing a video AND and print/digital campaign, my creative director managed the still shots during production, while I directed the video components. The zingers needed to land, but not too hard. And the family had to show that they loved each other beneath all that competitive fire.
The production company handed the raw footage off to us, which one of my videographers edited. Aside from producing/directing this piece, I am also the narrator.
This was one of my most memorable and enjoyable projects. I’ve grown fond of the Rushings, and were they a real family, I’d have them over for dinner and board games, though I’d hate to think what injuries they’d suffer in my living room playing Pictionary!
Below are a couple of print ads we developed for this campaign.
