HSI (Health & Safety Institute)

INDUSTRY:  Emergency care training & continuing education

radii joins a roster of marketing firms

In 2012, a strategic consultant working with private equity firms referred us to Health & Safety Institute, a for-profit company based in Eugene, OR that offers emergency care certification training, continuing education, safety training and chemical compliance solutions. We joined HSI’s roster of marketing firms, working on campaign development, product branding, product catalogs, data sheets and annual conference materials.

Most of our clients come to us for single-source marketing, but we know how to be team players and work with legacy branding and positioning, and alongside other marketing firms. Our first assignment was to position HSI as a superior alternative to the emergency care training and continuing education resources offered by the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association.

Going up against the Red Cross and the AHA is tough. They’re well-entrenched brands and buying a training curriculum from either organization is always a safe move (the “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” syndrome).

In response, HSI offers expert-developed training materials, courses and programs for healthcare professionals, first responders, employees and the community. The company delivers these courses with an interactive online platform, backing them with administrative systems that allow their customers to spend more time training and less time on paperwork, with exceptional customer service and tech support.

Challenges

• Strong, established competition with well-known brands
• Market perception that HSI curricula fell short of AHA clinical standards

Solutions

We focused on HSI’s commitment to innovative, clinically rigorous training materials and key value-adds (flexible online interactive learning, superior administrative resources and personalized technical support and customer service).

We also targeted the weaknesses of HSI’s larger competitors — their complacency and indifference to individual customer concerns about excessive paperwork.

Results

HSI has grown substantially and continues to add safety and training brands to its portfolio. We’ve maintained our relationship during the company’s sale and re-acquisition by the private equity firm that owned HSI in 2012 , working with new management and marketing personnel.

Product Brand Development

OTIS

We named the company’s new online training platform OTIS (Online Training & Information System) and created the branding and all marketing materials.

PRISM

The Precision Interactive Skills Monitor (PRISM) helps students practice chest compressions as part of their CPR/AED training.

HOPE

HOPE is a free community CPR class providing Hands On Practical Experience in a simplified form of CPR using only chest compressions.

Tradeshow Support

HSI participates in various national and regional tradeshows. We create banner-ups and walls, drawing on our outdoor experience to simplify the company’s marketing message.

Collateral

HSI commissions data sheets, product catalogs and brochures by the carload. We established ourselves early on as a reliable resource for both fast-turn projects and assignments where we had the time to take a more collaborative, iterative approach to marketing materials.

Campaign Development

We develop and coordinate multi-media campaigns to reach HSI target markets, including direct marketing postcards supported by online ads, with Hubspot landing pages to measure response.

Annual Conference Marketing

We help develop the themes and art for HSI annual conferences, creating all of the conference orientation and training materials, including collateral, direct marketing and sponsorships.

In 2016, we helped rename and rebrand the conference as “Spark.”