For its first national brand campaign, healthcare payer-provider GreenShield is reintroducing itself to a marketplace in which it is the first of its kind.

Called “The Reverse Waiting Room,” the campaign sells Canadians on the brand’s core premise: that it is “the only truly integrated payer-provider in Canada,” says Mandy Mail, who joined the not-for-profit in June 2022 as its SVP of marketing and communications. “In real talk, that means we’re the only company that offers insurance and administers benefits, while also offering health services such as mental health, pharmacy and telemedicine. That means we can offer coverage and care in the same place, and the benefit of that model is you can get timely access to quality care that also integrates with your benefits so processing your claims is effortless.”

That integration is a key value proposition for the brand, as it targets an important pain point for Canadians. According to its own research, Canadians are spending more than twice the time navigating their benefits than they actually spend with their doctors. They also spend 60% more time after the appointment completing additional tasks, such as filling prescriptions, making follow-up appointments and submitting insurance forms. GreenShield aims to eliminate that difficulty, putting everything in a single place.

“The payoff is true to our ethos of better health for all: you can spend more time on your health and wellbeing, instead of on navigating a complex system,” Mail elaborates.

The campaign was developed with AOR Broken Heart Love Affair (BHLA), and is anchored by a 30-second hero spot that turns a satirical lens on the typical waiting room experience. In the spot, the waiting room is filled with health care practitioners, rather than patients, who await the arrival of those they are set to treat. “The healthcare practitioners are seen experiencing easily recognizable, real-life situations you have likely experienced in a waiting room,” says Mail.

The spot, along with several cutdowns and a longer version, are airing across Canada in both English and French on TV, social and YouTube, supported by paid editorial, influencer marketing and PR, as well as paid Google search.

“It really is a reintroduction to GreenShield. The company spent 65 years, the vast majority of our history, being an innovative player in health and dental benefits. But over the past couple of years, we’ve completely transitioned, knowing that Canadians’ needs have really changed and there’s an opportunity for us. We’ve acquired eight companies, integrated them, introduced a platform that really makes it all seamless, and that’s something from a repositioning perspective that no competitor is doing,” explains Mail. “This isn’t a matter of saying, ‘Hey, this is who we are.’ It really is about helping people to understand the pain point and see that there is an innovative solution.”

The campaign will be in market through to the end of 2023, with a second flight running in the first half of 2024. Along with BHLA on creative, Heads + Tales handled PR, Sklar Wilton managed research and Epitaph handled the media buy.