United Healthcare injects humor into healthcare marketing

Stephen Whiteside

This event report details how United Healthcare, the healthcare provider, has used humor to engage with its target audience in new ways.

United Healthcare's engagement strategy, in large part, rests on tickling the funny bone of consumers.

Since 2015, the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based healthcare company's "Ways In" program – the first brand campaign in the organization's 40-year history – has featured a series of light-hearted TV spots, each of which is premised around a humorous injury, and has a pay-off that includes the related medical code as evidence of how United provides assistance, no matter what the cause of a bump, scrape or broken bone.

Andrew Mackenzie, CMO, United Healthcare

"What you really get is 22 seconds of entertainment for eight seconds of...

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