IBM Watson Health

The brief

IBM Watson Health appointed Silver Buck and Ogilvy to provide a messaging refresh across their four key European pillars – government, providers, life sciences and consulting. Following a number of acquisitions combined with branding that had largely been developed in the United States, the organisation required messaging that was anglicised, aligned, relevant and up to date. This would ensure that its core and emerging target audiences understood the value that IBM Watson Health could bring and how it could better support them.

Our approach

Silver Buck undertook a series of activities aimed at understanding the current perception of IBM Watson Health as well as taking the most relevant message to market for existing and future customers. This included:

• A pan-European industry survey of more than 40 influencers across primary, secondary and community care as well as insights from government and arms-length bodies to determine the current perception of IBM Watson Health.
• Detailed workshops with key internal stakeholders to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats across the marketplace.
• Customer research into experiences working with IBM Watson Health and establishing persona development.
• Detailed research into existing programmes of work where IBM Watson Health would have most relevance, synergy and application of market drivers, such as the Five Year Forward View, Topol Review, DHSC health secretary IT vision: the future of healthcare.
• A high-level roundtable with senior executives from across the NHS including CCIOs, CIOs, GPs, STP leads and NHS England transformation leads.

Our impact

Over a three month period, Silver Buck not only implemented a full messaging toolkit but also supported IBM Watson Health in building relationships with key stakeholders, many of which are still in place one year on. Outputs included:

• Introductions to senior influencers within the NHS resulting in a partnership development of product prototype.
• Elements of European messaging implemented across to the entire global brand.
• Detailed and comprehensive persona-led positioning, messaging and evidence assets distributed across sales and marketing teams, which aligned the entire team in their approach to the market.
• Application of core messages, including ‘Make your data, make the difference’ across events, collateral and websites.
• Production of battle cards to highlight unique value propositions that armed the team with the information they needed to compete more strongly in the marketplace.