Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Terry Guests on "White Coat, Black Art" with Dr. Brian Goldman

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

We're dropping an interview I recently did with Dr. Brian Goldman, host of White Coat, Black Art, an excellent CBC radio show and podcast into our feed. We're chatting about hospital advertising. And because they rely on fundraising, we discuss how effective hospital advertising is. We thought you might find this topic interesting.Enjoy.We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, I'm Callie. I'm a co-founder of Apostrophe Podcasts alongside Terry, Debbie, and Sydney. We're a family business that brings you a family of podcasts. We also have a subscription option, where you can listen ad-free, hear bonus episodes like my sit-down with Terry to ask him burning questions, or extended versions of Under the Influence episodes. Just visit the link in the description to subscribe. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. We thought we'd drop an interesting episode of White, Coat, Black, Black, art into our feed this week. It's hosted by Dr. Brian Goldman at such an excellent CBC show and podcast. And Dr. Goldman invited me onto his show to talk about hospital advertising because lately the University Hospital Network here in Canada was named the number two hospital in the

world. And because hospitals rely on fundraising, they all have to do marketing. And that marketing tries to get people to donate money to the hospitals. So in this episode, we discuss how effective hospital advertising is. Enjoy. I'm Dr. Brian Goldman. This is White Co. Blackheart. UHN has just been named the number two best hospital in the world. Hi, I'm Julie Kenville, CEO at UHN Foundation. Creating the very best care for our community is at the heart of everything we do. Get involved today at UHNFoundation.ca. When Newsweek named University Health Network the number two hospital in the world, it flooded private radio with ads like that.

It's what many hospitals and Canada need to do these days. Provincial deficits mean fewer public dollars for hospitals and a lot more fundraising. And that means pitching to Canadians. I'm Terry O'Reilly. I am the host of Under the Influence on CBC and I am a 40-plus-year ad man. As a 40-plus-year ad exec and friend of White Coat Black Art, Terry O'Reilly has seen a lot of hospital ad campaigns. Good and not so good. Terry O'Reilly, welcome back to White Coe Black Art.

Well, thanks for having me. Always great to be here. Before we get started, here's one example of UHN's latest radio ads. University Health Network has been named the number two hospital in the world. I'm Kevin Smith, president and CEO of UHN. I want to say thank you to our whole team, United States. to create the best care, education, and research. Visit UHNFoundation.ca.

What do you think of that ad? Well, it's pretty straight ahead. It could not be more straight ahead. And he's telling it like it is. There's no creativity there or persuasion per se. He's really delivering a straight ahead message. It's interesting, you know, with your encyclopedic knowledge of ads through the decades, he's not the first CEO to speak on behalf of the company in a pitch.

That's for sure. I'm thinking of Victor Kayam. Hello, I'm Victor Kayam. I used to be a dedicated wet shaver until my wife bought me this Remington M3 electric shaver. I was delighted and impressed. So impressed. I bought the company?

Yeah, Lee Ayacocca. Well, it's here. Time for me to step down and retire as chairman of Chrysler. And anybody that goes out wants to go out with a bang. You know, I got to tell you, when it's your last turn at bat, it sure is nice to hit a home run. It doesn't happen a lot. I mean, CEOs do get into their own advertising occasional.

The interesting little quick story, I was doing the work for the Hudson Bay Company when Bonnie Brooks was the president. She was embarking on a big turnaround of that big old company, and she felt nobody would believe her unless they heard it from her. So all of our ads featured Bonnie Brooks as the spokesperson. Hi, I'm Bonnie Brooks. At the Bay, we launch an incredible 50 new... And is there evidence that it is persuasive to have a CEO speak for the company? I think it is because it puts the CEO square in the crosshairs of the public. In other words, they have put it all on the line personally. So they are going to have to either come through or take all the brickbats if it doesn't.

So they're really putting themselves out there, which I think gives it some credibility, their message. When you're in the number two position, which UHN seems to be gleefully proclaiming, you know, there's different ways to frame it. UHN uses second to none. I'm thinking about Avis, the rent-a-car company, that famously said, what, we're number two, we try harder? Mr. King, about your Plymouth... Now, when you reserve one car with Avis, it's almost like reserving two.

The Plymouth you asked for and the imperial you're hoping for. Oh, my, I have to give you an imperial. If you think Avis tries harder, you ain't seen nothing yet. That Avis campaign was a landmark campaign because no one had ever proclaimed or beat their chest about being number two in the marketplace ever. When it came out, the advertising industry thought they are committing suicide. But as it turned out, it was a brilliant move by Avis because they were basically saying things like, you won't have to be in a long line at our place, like you will it hurts,

or all our astrays will be cleaned in our cars because they have to be because we're trying to catch up to Hertz. It also interestingly inspired the Avis staff at all their thousands of locations to step up their game. So being number two is an interesting thing. With UHS, I think, UHN, rather, I think it's an important thing to say, even though you could scoff at being number two. But being number two in the world is really something worth talking about. Before UHN was named the number two hospital in the world, it was branding itself as Canada's number one hospital. with ads like this. The time is now for Canada to generate bold, homegrown strategies for economic growth.

And Canada's number one hospital is responding to the call with a pioneering strategy to harness and accelerate the biomedical research field and talent pool in this country. So what do you think of UHN branding itself as Canada's number one hospital from a marketing point of view? I think that's an interesting position to take in the marketplace. always whenever you have brand superiority in a market, it's always great to let the public know that. It's always how they back that kind of a statement up that determines for me whether it's a successful piece of communication or not. They don't give you a lot of background or a lot of what

we call reasons to believe in that app. But then again, it's probably only 30 seconds long. So is the we're number one approach an effective marketing tactic for a hospital compared to something like a car? I would say yes. Hospital marketing is a very interesting category for me because it's selling something nobody wants, but everybody needs. I find that is an incredibly difficult marketing task, Brian, because first of all, it has to compete with all other charities and public service announcements. And there are endless PSAs and charities out there that are marketing for fundraising, et cetera. Then it has to compete against other hospitals in the space, Sometimes, especially in the city like Toronto where you've got multiple hospitals.

So it is a very, very difficult task. Usually hospital marketing is looking for fundraising. So it tries to make a connection with you emotionally. And then it tries to take that emotion and ask you to literally get off your couch and make a donation. And getting people to actually move on something, that always takes emotion. What's the line between pride, which we want all the hospitals and the doctors and the other healthcare providers who work there to have pride in their work, but what's the difference between pride and boasting?

You know what? I think it's all tonality. I think the tone of that commercial you just played me was right. I never felt it was boasting or chest beating. It was just stating to me something that they believed in. And I'm assuming they can back that up, of course. But I always think it comes down to tone. It always comes down to tone.

And every brand has its own tone, even categories have their own tone. You know, for example, most car advertising has a similar tone. Most beer advertising has a tone. And hospital advertising has a tone. Hospital advertising is all about empathy. Empathy for whom? Empathy for the work they do. Empathy for the people that are in the hospitals that need care

and hoping to tap that empathetic gene that we all have, that we want to be part of the solution. Kevin Smith thinks he's floating all boats. Like this is a call to arms to other hospitals in Canada to follow the same approach, which is very different from my training. As a physician, I was acculturated to never brag about what I do and to never brag about what my hospital does because one day we may fail to live up to standards

and people will be saying nasty things about us instead. but Kevin Smith is espousing something very different here, isn't he? Well, that's a very Canadian point of view, right? I mean, American hospitals go all out in breaking about what they do and what their achievements are. I think there's nothing wrong with coming out and talking about why you do what you do well and what that means to people and what that means to patients and what that means to floating all the boats that, you know, all hospitals can aspire to that. I personally have no problem with that.

And they're talking about it a lot. I listen to a lot of private radio, sports radio. I know people who listen to music stations. And these ads, and it's not one, there's a whole suite of ads, several that are narrated by Kevin Smith. There are others. And when I hear these ads over and over again in heavy rotation with all their varieties, I'm thinking that's an expensive campaign, isn't it? Well, I don't know if that's true.

And I'll tell you why. When I was in the day-to-day business of advertising because I had a production company. So, you know, UHN would come to someone like me and say, could you produce these commercials or their advertising agency would? I would never charge to do that. That would be one of those occasions where I would donate my time and the studio time and not charge them anything. And I wonder they're probably getting a lot of free air time too. because they're nonprofit from radio stations. If you're hearing very heavy media weight on those, Brian, as you say you are,

they're probably buying media weight and getting free pro bono spots too. An important note, the ads were paid for by the UHN Foundation produced in-house. Bragging about your hospital's accomplishments is one way to deliver a message, but it's not the only one, especially when you have a celebrity pitchman like Ryan Reynolds. Congratulations, Ryan. A new fluffy maple butter glaze donut is an instant classic. People are going to be ordering this forever. Forever.

We're also seeing more unorthodox ad campaigns like the Ryan Reynolds' brady kids campaign for sick kids. Let's have a listen to that. Every parent knows that kids, while a magical gift from heaven, can kind of be . But it's hard for kids to be f***ks when they're sick. And that's why the work we do here at sick kids is so very important. very important.

Do you love you, Ryan? That's so sad. So what do you think of that? You know what? I have a lot of respect for Ryan Reynolds and what he does. He has his own advertising agency, one of the few celebrities that runs his own ad agency. I like what he's doing there. I mean, he's really coming in the back door on that whole idea. He's trying to say, when kids are healthy, they're brady.

So let's keep them healthy and let's keep them braddy. I mean, it's a very funny way in on that problem. to communicate that idea because you could have just gone straight with it. And I'm sure also speaking about money getting back to budget, I'm sure he donates all of his time and his agency's efforts to this. So God bless Ryan. I think it's a funny idea. Let's talk about another campaign.

The Love Scarborough campaign is in itself an unorthodox approach, playing up the underdog nature of Scarborough Health Network. Here's one example from that campaign. Scarborough. We live up the hill from Toronto, but it's always us fighting an uphill battle, forced to do more with less, to climb high regardless of how steep the ascent, but we fight on. What do you think of that? That is an interesting strategy to take. I mean, you talk about being number two as a tough sell.

I think it's a brave approach when I think about it, because it is the underduring. dog position they're taking. I think Canada loves an underdog because I think Canada is an underdog. So I think there's a lot to be said for that idea because it's one of those ones that people will start rooting for you. I'm sure at the end of that ad, although we didn't get to hear the end that they're asking for donations, I would imagine. I mean, an underdog willing to fight to dig their heels in and still deliver a great product by doing more with less. I mean, there's a lot to be said for tugging at the heartstrings. Another thing that's interesting about this is that the times have changed,

and a lot of hospitals are cash strapped. A lot of provincial budgets are cutting back on health care or not increasing health care expenditures commensurate with the population. Maybe an ad like this will play better in tough times. I think so. And we are definitely in tough, dark times. I think that's probably a big part of why they decided to put that message out, Brian at this moment in time. I think they want people to know that it's a struggle and they're trying

the best they can to deliver the best medical practice that they can and they need help. And an underdog is a very attractive position to take in a time like this. You're listening to White Coat Blackguard. This week, I'm talking to ad man, Terry O'Reilly, about hospital commercials. As a doctor, I know that hospitals may boast but don't make ads that diss the competition. It's something famous consumer brands are also reluctant to do. Coke never says it's better than Pepsi, although I do recall that famous ad campaign in which blinded taste testers said, I picked the Pepsi. And the fact is nationwide, more people prefer the taste of Pepsi over Coca-Cola. Pepsi. Pepsi. I like Pepsi a lot better.

Pepsi. Taste better. What are some of the unwritten rules when it comes to implicitly slagging competitors? It goes category by category. It's a case-by-case basis. Funny thing about the Coke and Pepsi thing, which really was one of the most high-profile instances of that strategy, Brian, was that Coke couldn't see Pepsi in its rearview mirror. That's how far back Pepsi was in the race. You have to be scrappy as a brand if you're willing to call out your competitor in the ad. Like you've got to be prepared for a fight. Most times they won't sit there quiet. they'll come right back at you.

So you have to be scrappy and you have to be up for the fight if you're going to do that. Do the rules that you've just talked about apply to hospitals? From the outside, being an outsider in that category, I never look at hospitals as being competitive because they're not for profit, as they are in the States, for example. But I guess when you scratch the surface, they are competing for donations. They are competing for presence in the community, meaning just general awareness.

So there is a level of competition. It's not cut throat. There's not blood on the floor. So I don't think they would call each other out in the advertising. But I do think you've made me think about this now. They are competing for donations. I think that's the biggest thing because people only have so much money to give. Even when charity's knock on our door,

I'll turn most of them away because there's three charities that we donate to as much as we can. and they're the three that mean the most to us. And that's all we can do. It's almost like podcasts, Brian. People only keep five podcasts on their phone. And so if you want to be one of the five, you've got to kick one of the other five out of there so your show can slip in. It's a tough sell.

So there's a message for other hospitals in Canada that they've got to get. What is the message for other hospitals in Canada looking at the UHN campaign? I think that they'll aspire to at least get on that list for starters. So you want to get not just on the list. That's probably just the basic table stakes, but you want to be in the top 25. So I think it'll hopefully get the hospitals to tighten up there, you know, what they deliver,

how they market, how they communicate, how they can elicit donations, I think, how they recruit. I think that's a big thing in this industry. If you've got the number two hospital network in the world in our country, that has to have a ripple effect. It's like the Jays winning the World Series. I mean, it's a huge, like we still talk about 92 and 93, right? I mean, it's a huge thing.

It's not to be dismissed or undervalue. It is a huge achievement. Well, not in 2025 when the Blue Jays were unfortunate runner-ups. The Dodgers have won the World Series. Maybe Terry's right when he suggests that it's Canadian to be surprised. enough by success to want to brag about it. He says the culture among hospitals in the U.S. is very different. Whenever I've tried to sell self-deprecating work to Americans, Brian, just out of interest,

they never buy it. Really? How come? I just don't think it's part of their DNA. I think Americans don't really, as a whole, and I'm generalizing here, don't really buy into the self-deprecating aspect of their country. They don't have the inferiority complex that a lot of Canadians have. Yeah, I guess you could say that. I think there's a lot of confidence of being self-deprecating.

And it always works in Canada. Whenever I've done that kind of advertising, it always works. And Ryan is picked up on that, obviously. He knows that self-deprecation is endearing. Terry, does the fact that the United States has a lot of private-for-profit hospitals factor into the ads that we see? Absolutely. When hospitals are competing for patients because of the different system down in the states

than here, I think that's why you see a lot much more aggressive. advertising coming from hospitals down there than up here. I think it's more, it's like a frenemies up here, and down there it's kind of enemies, and I'm using that as a loose term, but it's definitely more aggressive because of the medical system down there. But I have to tell you, I see probably more ads for St. Jude's, which is a not-for-profit than I see for almost any other hospital system. You are not only saving a child's life, you're breathing life back into that family. We have phenomenal research, outstanding clinical care, and the generosity of public, which allow us to treat patients regardless of what it takes. At St. Jude, families never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing, or food, because the only thing a family should worry about is helping their child live.

Because of you. Because of you. Because of you. There is St. Jude. That's interesting, too, isn't it? Because they spend a lot of money on marketing. Unless we're getting free public service announcements down there, I don't know if. if they are able to do that or not. Maybe because they're not for profit, they do. But that's also a great story, right, Brian, with Danny Thomas, being at a low point in his career, he goes into a church to pray. He prays to St. Jude and says, if you can help me out, I will build you a shrine.

And not long after, he starts to land a lot of jobs and movies and TV, and then he lands a big TV show. And then he literally built the St. Jude's Hospital, which is quite an amazing story. Let's take a step back a bit. Who is usually the target audience for these kinds of campaigns? That's a question that I'm always fascinated by. There was a great campaign, Brian, done by the New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York,

where they needed a fundraising. They targeted women 35 to 64 with a minimum $100,000 income. And that was interesting to me, like why women? And I guess I understand the $100,000 minimum because then they have discretionary or philanthropic money to spend. And the way they attracted their donations was they told amazing stories about patients who had amazing experiences at the hospital.

One commercial I vividly remember, it's a little girl. She had a baseball-sized tumor emmeshed in her organs and every hospital turned her down. Nobody wanted to tackle that kind of surgery. We went to all these hospitals. They just told us to go to different places. Then she went to New York Presbyterian

and a doctor there literally removed six of her organs out of her body to then take the tumor out and put the six organs back. He finally found the one place, New York Presbynteria. So Dr. Cato said that he took all my organs out and put the one that I needed back in. And I was better, and that's pretty much my story. Like it was an extraordinary story, and she tells the story. She's at 11 years old, tells the whole story.

story. And I think the theme line was amazing things happen here. So they used emotion. They used people who had a really wonderful outcome. And the stories were interesting. It wasn't just that they tugged your heartstrings. And this is the key thing here. They were interesting stories. Another woman told a story about falling, I think she fell nine stories off the roof of a building. And she said that the New York Presbyterian Hospital literally put her back together again. She said they literally put Humpty Dumpty back together again. story was so fascinating that you riveted by it. Again, not just emotional, which it was, but fascinating. And that's how they drove donations. Now, let me just say one thing about the

Sick Kids versus campaign. This battle began in 1875. Sick kids have been fighting it for the last 142 years. An epic crusade against childhood illness, trauma, and disease. The front lines are advancing. We're winning. Cystic fibrosis is on the run, heart diseases are treating, answer is giving up ground. We aren't there yet. There are a lot of battles left to fight, and we can't afford to lose a single one. I think, yeah, here was the great thing about that campaign. Instead of using imagery of sick children, they went a different way, and it was radical.

They decided to position sick kids as a performance brand, not a charity. In other words, like Nike, they wanted to be. a kick-ass brand. And the way they expressed that creatively is they showed kids getting ready to go in for surgery or going in for heavy-duty treatment, but they positioned the kids as warriors. Because they needed $1.5 billion,

they knew it would take years. So what they had to do was try and get more men on board as donors, because women are always the predominant donors in hospital, and men are less likely to do that. So they needed men to come on board because they needed, you know, that dual male, female, donor base. Part of the warrior aspect of that campaign was to try and attract men to donate. And it was pretty powerful stuff.

It was so unusual in the hospital category, Brian, like provoked a reaction in people. And I think that is an incredible achievement. Can there be too much exposure? Yes, if it's the same message over and over and over again. I mean, the key to advertising, the toughest part of advertising, is, you know, Coke's message doesn't really change, and Nike's message, Nike's product doesn't really change. So as an advertising person, you have to find new ways of expressing the same old thing. And I think it's not that people hate advertising. They hate bad advertising. Unfortunately,

most advertising is bad. And I say that, I always say that on my show too, Brian, as you may know. I think the key is you have to freshen it up. You know, we would always back in the day do three to five commercials in a campaign because once you have three in a campaign and they start to rotate the ads, it feels like you've got 10. If you only got one and you're playing it over and over, like I'm a Blue Jays fanatic. My wife and I watched over 100 games this year. It's the same ads over and it just drives you crazy. It's an ice pick to the forehead. So I think the key is defreshing it up and you'll keep people engaged. If you don't, they'll tune out. Has anyone ever sued a hospital for false advertising? Yeah, I know. I've never heard that before. It's kind of like

political advertising, right, Brian? There's no rules, right? Have you ever heard of a campaign that backfired? A hospital campaign? I would say no. I'll say the reason probably is that when I do research on campaigns and hospital campaigns, because I've done an episode on that, I look for case studies. And case studies are usually only posted when they're successful. So it's hard to know when something didn't succeed because you're not given that information. I can only guess or surmise or I can read press reports to see what the reaction has been. But as a rule, I would say I have not seen a failed hospital campaign. Well, you've made me think of things that I haven't thought before when it comes to hospital ad campaigns. So I have to say this interview was successful.

Terry O'Reilly, thank you so much for speaking with us. My pleasure. With cash strap provinces, hospitals are sure to be looking for creative new ways to ask Canadians to give generously. An ad man like Terry O'Reilly will be watching. On next week's show, I visit the small community of Wembley in northwestern Alberta to meet the nurse practitioners who moved into the town's clinic after the family doctor moved away. The clinic's patients are thrilled. Do you see any reason why you need to go back to having a doctor instead? At this point, I don't, because in my own personal experience, I haven't found something they can't do.

Is this a model for other communities? I can't find a way how this couldn't work in other small towns. For wait times, for general care, that people are simply, especially up here in northern Alberta, unable to get. More next week about the town and the NPs that saved a clinic. That's our show this week. To comment, email us at whitecoat at cbc.com. Before we go, just a note about the ads, the UHN ads were provided by UHN. All the rest are from YouTube.

White Coat Black Art was produced this week by Samir Chabra, with help from Jennifer Warren and Andrea Belmere. Our digital producer is Philip Dross. Our senior producer is Colleen Ross. I'm Brian Goldman, and I'm proud to bring you stories from the Canadian side of the gurney. See you next week.