Pershing Yoakley & Associates

Pershing Yoakely & Associates (PYA), one of the nation’s top 20 healthcare management consulting firms, challenged Bluegill to strengthen their brand and market share on a national level.

Healthcare management is an alphabet soup of MCOs, HMOs, PCPs and the regulations accompanying them. It’s a world of tangents and “what if”s. There are few absolutes in this world, few black and whites.

Bluegill’s first step (and it was a big one) was to learn – a lot. We dove in, listened, listened more, asked a ton of questions, and over time began to get a sense of the players, the issues, and the opportunities. It’s been a long-term process – a process that began in 2003 and continues today, resulting in a very close relationship with PYA.

We’ve come to recognize a couple of key points about PYA. First, they’ll usually be the smartest guys in the room. There’s simply nobody better at what they do, and nobody with an

equivalent compass of ethical and professional standards to guide their clients through the maze of healthcare issues.

Second, the world in which they thrive, this big gray area, is not likely to change, particularly with healthcare reform on the horizon. Messy and complicated, it isn’t black and white, it never will be, and there’s nobody better at maneuvering in that environment.

These points became the key messages of PYA’s integrated marketing and communications plans, central to all of the firm’s marketing communications including national advertising.

In the end, Bluegill did for PYA what PYA does for its clients, take the time to listen and learn, understand the big picture, then develop and execute a strategy based on goals.

How do you communicate a complex message in a consistently changing environment? First you have to learn the environment yourself. First you have to “get it.”