• by Les Luchter , March 26, 2025

Last year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce placed the blame for an ongoing nursing shortage on “burnout from the pandemic, an aging population, inadequate nursing school capacity, and prolonged delays in employment-based immigration [emphasis ours].” So we may expect the problem to worsen.

At individual health systems across the country, however, the nursing staff crisis can get more personal, as highlighted in a new campaign from Hallmark Health Care Solutions, a seller of workforce management technology.

Take nurse manager Randall. In a :30 spot, he’s literally in a pickle (wearing a giant green costume) caused by one nurse out on maternity leave, another whose dog has had puppies, and a third who, if he asks her to help out again, “might just lose it.” In another spot, nurse manager Linda has her hair on fire because she’s short-staffed and "can’t find a contract nurse who fits in.” In a third, chief nursing officer (CNO) Andrea finds herself between a rock and a hard place. While she “needs five nurses stat, her budget is dry as a bone.”

The three spots offer a solution: use Hallmark’s Einstein II product to “don’t just outsource -- insource,” empowering hospitals to build their own flexible internal workforce pools instead of relying on costly external contract labor.

The first major brand campaign in Hallmark’s 15-year history is using connected TV, social media and industry-specific digital channels to “hyper-target the ads based on specific buyer personas within hospitals and health systems,” CMO Matt Resteghini tells Marketing Daily. “We are primarily targeting CNOs and chief human resources officers, but more broadly, C-suite executives.

“The campaign is designed to challenge the outdated staffing models that many hospitals still rely on,” Resteghini explains, “especially the heavy dependence on costly contract labor.”

Hallmark cites its own recent survey of 1,200 senior health executives in which “flexibility ranked equal to, or higher than, pay in importance for attracting and retaining nurses.”

The commercials are part of a larger initiative to drive home the message that’s also using such vehicles as white papers, case studies and speaking engagements -- such as a recent webinar with Becker’s Healthcare and an upcoming session at the AONL (American Organization for Nursing Leadership) conference in Boston (March 30 – April 2.)

Hallmark, itself based in the Boston area, will also bring its pickle character to AONL for photo opps as well as offering “CNO confession booths…for nursing executives to share their most challenging staffing dilemmas.”

Resteghini credits AI for bringing the new commercials to life.

“Producing the visuals and animations through traditional methods would’ve cost seven to eight times more than our budget allowed,” he explains.

The ads, which will run at least through Q3, are just starting on connected TV but have been running digitally since early this month, and Resteghini says they’ve already proven effective: “We’ve seen click-through-rates 80% to 85% above our prior benchmarks, and daily traffic to our website has increased by 50% to 70%.”

Perhaps the British-accented voiceover helps? “There wasn’t a deeply strategic reason behind [that],” Resteghini reveals, but “something about it just made the metaphors feel a bit more memorable – and even a little funnier.”

Two Boston-based agencies have worked with Hallmark on the campaign: Strategy by Sheehan for market research that helped develop brand positioning and a creative brief, and Ideasicle X, which handled creative and production.