February Nomination: Company Nurse’s Digital Diagnosis

Imagine you’re a salesperson for a large IT company, and just like any typical week, you’re driving around the city, visiting clients, making sure business stays hunky-dory. As you get out of the car along the street of your favorite customer, you trip and put your hand to the ground -- right into a patch of broken glass. A crimson rush emerges from the ensuing gash; it looks deep. And it hurts. As you’re reaching for the spare napkins you keep in your glovebox, you wonder if this will require stitches. Will this get infected? You’re no doctor. Think quickly. What do you do next?

If your organization employs Company Nurse, an injury management firm, your answer is simple: send a text message. In the scenario above, you can text the word "cut" (one of Company Nurse’s many registered "TextID" words) to Company Nurse’s registered number -- then, via a return message, you’d get treatment instructions for your laceration. You’d bloody up your phone, of course, but it’s an acceptable (and cleanable) tradeoff to losing your thumb to gangrene.

TextID is facilitated by Digital Holdings, which launched the service in 2008. Company Nurse recently embraced the program as a way to extend its services out to its clients’ employees that are often out of the office, in the field. Taking further the concept of instantaneous, anywhere-in-the-country communication, the company plans to grow its pool of recognized TextID keywords to transmit other marketing information, from business card info to links to online promotional materials, directly to those requesting it -- instantly and on demand.

Realizing that communication channels need not be relegated to the typical email, snail mail, phone call or fax, Company Nurse CEO Paul Binsfield says, "I like what the use of texting says about our company. We’re entrepreneurial in nature. When it comes down to it, it’s about getting useful information to all the stakeholders as soon as possible."

The Oddy Awards feels that Company Nurse and its new text campaign pushes all the right buttons. If you have a far-reaching marketing tactic that has the power to buzz your customers’ pockets, drop us a line at theoddy.com.

Company Nurse’s February nomination wraps up the first year of Oddy Award nominations; be sure to stay tuned for our announcement of the winner on Monday, March 16th! We start fresh with new nominations for the Second Annual Oddy Awards that month as well. Is it possible for Year Two to top the first? We think so. Prove us right.