CHEST: new offerings for health-care partners

The American College of Chest Physicians (which had recently rebranded as “CHEST”) retained Jell to assist with go-to-market strategies for new business-to-business ventures.

To generate new revenue streams for the association, CHEST had been exploring ways in which their expertise, insights, services, and technology could be offered to industry partners such as pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers. The assets were nearly ready, and the SVP of Market Growth was eager to launch. But she was committed to launching the right way.

We began by studying existing plans for rolling out the proposed offerings. In our initial engagement, we learned about the broad spectrum of knowledge products and services being developed by the Research and Analytics division, including: white papers on state-of-the-art clinical perspectives; topical surveys of their members; ethnography studies; a dashboard for analyzing the work of CHEST physicians; advanced analytics; customized research; and in-depth data on visitors to the annual conference.

Industry partners could optimize their R&D and communications efforts by utilizing insights from the real-world experiences of leading chest physicians—a win-win for all of chest medicine.

After conducting a roundtable workshop with key stakeholders and consultants and exploring the competitive landscape, we concluded that this was still a nascent area with only a few indirect competitors.

Given CHEST’s history in health care—83 years at the time, with more than 19,000 members representing over 100 countries—we saw an opportunity to define and dominate this emerging area of clinical knowledge and insights. We recommended that CHEST assume a position of strength and authority, simplify names and language, adopt a more narrative approach, and claim the mantle of leadership in “health-care intelligence.”

Our goal was to reinforce CHEST’s unique position in terms of subject matter expertise and to underscore the game-changing value of these strategic assets for industry partners.

The wide array of productized service options was both a strength and a challenge. It required a brand architecture that was both memorable and easily navigated. Collaborating with our partners at CHEST, we simplified the naming with clear, concise language, reorganizing all offerings into four easy-to-recall service lines—Data Lab, Deep Dives, View Points, and Booth IQ—each including its own subservices.

With consensus built around the architecture, positioning, and messaging, we helped CHEST launch the new brand (named “CHEST Analytics”) just in time for the American Thoracic Society Annual Meeting in San Diego.

CHEST soon invited us back to rebrand and launch another equally ambitious venture: courseware and learning events for pharma sales professionals, which had previously been dubbed “PREP” or “Industry Education.” These experiences ranged from daylong sessions taught by expert physicians at CHEST headquarters to remote options like webinars, e-Learning, virtual reality, games, cutting-edge simulations, and VPTs (virtual patient tours).

Through an R&D process similar to that used for CHEST Analytics, we developed “CHEST Immersion,” a streamlined system of “flexible continuous learning services” that offered “critical knowledge to stay a step ahead.”

As with CHEST Analytics, we organized the myriad options into a few, easy-to-remember service lines: Forum (daylong experiences led by expert physicians); Learning Space (self-guided, online experiences); and Encounters (brief, in-person opportunities for discovery). Our primary goal was to develop a simple, standardized language, but we also needed to communicate that the educators at CHEST were flexible and eager to tailor a transformative experience to fit the needs of any team.

We helped launch CHEST Immersion at CHEST 2018 with sales training, collateral, web direction, and PowerPoint support.