APTA pulls a marketing coup!!!

APTA has pulled a coup I previously would not think could have happened...we recruited away the VP of the American Chiropractic Association (the best marketers in the health care business hands down), Felicity Clancy, to be the new Vice President of Communications at APTA!

Here is the announcement from APTA:

"I am pleased to announce that we have hired Felicity Feather as the new Vice President, Communications. Felicity starts at APTA on Monday, April 7. Felicity is currently the Vice President of Communications and Marketing at the American Chiropractic Association. She has held that position since 2001 and has been with the ACA since 1990. Before that Felicity worked for Express Newspapers in Gaithersburg, MD and at WJAC-TV News in Johnstown, PA. Felicity is a graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania where she earned a BA in Journalism. She also holds a Master of Public Administration from George Mason University. She is a member of the American Society of Association Executives and the Society of National Association Publications. She is also a member of the Metropolitan Chorus in Arlington, VA. Felicity resides with her husband and two daughters in Falls Church, Virginia."

Ok Felicity, first to air some years of pent up frustration at your success...it's hard seeing your name in all those chiro PR pieces, some of them directed against me!!!...but now that you have seen the light and left the dark side, we will quickly forgive you. In all seriousness, I appluad the effectiveness with which you did your job for 18 years...hands down outstanding work for the client you represented (while we unfortunately played dead most of the time). Felicity, if you can market chiropractic as legit, I assure you that you haven't seen anything yet when it comes to the untapped potential of pulling physical therapists out of the payer and consumer black hole into the limelight as experts in the non-surgical management of patients with musculoskeletal conditions.

I will keep being a cautious optimist until we see results, but I am starting to be a John Barnes fan more and more everyday. The EIM Team applauds the outstanding work from the Board of Directors, APTA staff, and anyone else involved in her recruitment.

Felicity, I know your last name is Clancy now, but you will always be Feather to us (please apologize in advance to your husband for the slight)...Felicity Feather just has a ring to it! Welcome to the best (and most misunderstood) health care profession on Earth!

Please join in via massive comments to this post welcoming Felcity to APTA. Also, if you've been on the sidelines about not joining APTA, let this be your catalyst to do so now...good things are in the midst and this is really a good day for our profession.

John

Comments

[Ben Hando]

Felicity-

Welcome to the APTA. We're very glad you're here!

Ben

[Mark F. Schwall, PT]

Well obviously John, I have to be a little quicker on the click for blogging as you beat me to the punch on this post.

First, I welcome Felicity as well and I also view it as a huge coup. I am also beginning to see the stirrings of a sea change at APTA and am beginning to share Dr. Child's cautious optimism.

Kudos to John (I really wish we could call him Jack) Barnes, APTA CEO, for this very positive move in the direction of active advocacy.

Felicity, again welcome to the organization which represents the best kept secret in health care. Hopefully the secret will soon be a secret no longer.

[Todd]

I would have to disagree. Why does the APTA need to assoicate with someone whose allegance has been to an association that would like to shut the physical therapy community down? Why don't we ask some of the PT's who have been sued by the ACA and get their thoughts. I'm sure there are many qualified candidates out there, why we would go in this direction is a mystery to me.

[Jess Brown]

My initial gut reaction was similar to Todd's - that we were sleeping with enemy, as it were. But, after thinking it over, and attempting to remove emotion from the scenario, I'm hedging toward John's point of view. If Felicity can succesfully market the psuedoscience that is chiropractic, how much more effective will she be when she's marketing a product with some substance.
And Felecity, if you're listening, I (along with many other readers of this blog) don't consider Blacberry thumb and children's backpacks to be the plauge of the healthcare environment. Let's put these rather silly marketing campaigns behind us, and start getting the word out about how our profeesion can positively effect a real epidemic, such as low back pain.

[Andrew Bennett]

Felicity, welcome aboard! I for one am thrilled to have you aboard and look forward to having you help put our profession in the public's dinner conversation in a way that your prior employer only hoped for. I agree John, best days are ahead of us.

ab

[John Ware]

Make no mistake about it, this is symbolic and emblematic of a sea change. Ms. Clancy has obviously made a big upward career move, and not, I'm sure, without some soul-searching. I don't doubt that she had an epiphany.

She very successfully marketed a LEGAL and widely utilized health profession for 18 years. She's not a clinical scientist, and shouldn't be held to standards of ethical practice. She did her job and did it well.

Felicity, welcome to the "light" where there's nothing to hide or be ashamed of.

[PaulS]

The transition should be easy for our new VEEP. Very easy.

Using PT generated research to promote the use of manipulation in acute low back pain is something she already has experience doing!

Welcome aboard.

[Todd]

QUOTE "She very successfully marketed a LEGAL and widely utilized health profession for 18 years. She's not a clinical scientist, and shouldn't be held to standards of ethical practice. She did her job and did it well." QUOTE

John, since this is an evidence based blog can you back this up somehow. I've searched and found very little info on her. I seen in a couple of posts stating how good chiro's are at marketing but have failed to see this in day to day life. Maybe I'm out of touch but cold calling and preying on the patient who suffers from poor mental health to me is far from marketing genious. I would like to know a little more about her before I declare this a coup. Just my 2 cents.

[John Childs]

Todd:

Search "Felicity" on the ACA website and have a look into their "Press Room". You will find a wealth of reasons to think this is a great day for PT. She has nothing to do with any underhanded techniques that chiros (or PTs for that matter) might employee to market their services on an individual basis. We're talking about professional advocacy in terms of informing public opinion.

I would encourage you to separate yourself from the emotions of chiropractors being the "enemy". They are not really the enemy per se. Chiro is a legal and licensed health profession regardless of what one thinks of its merit. Felicity represented her association's interests to the absolutely best of her ability, exactly as she should have. The ACA should have fired her if she wasn't. The fact that we got bloodied in the process is more a reflection of our defensiveness and unwillingness to set the record straight at any point along the way.

Thanks for expressing your concern though. I suspect there are many who might share initial reservations. We need to grow thick skin.

John

[Todd]

John,

No emotions involved here at all and I certainly don't think of chiro's as being the "enemy", they are what they are and we certainly have a few people in our profession that fit into that category. If the APTA had just hired John Barnes (of MFR fame) marketing director I would certainly question that and want to know more. After all, agree with him or not he's been very successfully marketed.

[Selena Horner]

Welcome aboard, Felicity. I hope you're up for a challenge! There can't be anything sweeter than basically starting from scratch and shaping public thoughts and views of a whole, diverse profession! Since you've been affiliated with the ACA, you are very well aware of the strengths of what our profession has to offer consumers.

Felicity, I hope you are able to have fun with this new endeavor, maintain your media connections, be a strong voice advocating physical therapists on topics that really matter to consumers and more than anything, please connect with Joe Schmoe so he knows when he needs a physical therapist AND is moved to pick up the phone to request our services!

Selena

[John Ware]

Todd,
John F. Barnes, the MFR guru, is a PT. He has an ethical obligation to utilize best evidence based on sound, plausible theory, which is precisely why I so vigorously criticize him and his ideas about MFR.

A marketing professional is not expected to uphold ethical practice of the profession they market. That's impossible. They assume rightly that the professional licensing boards and legal statutes are in place to ensure that.

I see the evidence of the success of chiropractic marketing everyday in my practice. The shear volume of patients that see chiropractors and the number of indendently owned chiro practices up and down the avenues of my town show me that. I don't need some scientifically done survey to convince me that Ms. Clancy has done a good job for the ACA.

[Jason Silvernail]

Felicity-
Welcome to the APTA! We are thrilled to have you on board and look forward to you continuing the great work and vision you've demonstrated with your previous employer. We have a lot of great material to give you to help you bring a new marketing angle to our profession.

I very much look forward to seeing what you have in store for us, I know you won't disappoint.

Again, welcome!

[Bob Schroedter]

Welcome to the fold, Felicity Clancy.

We look forward to seeing what you can do for our poor, lost souls.:-)

[Chad G]

Felicity,
I agree with all of my fellow bloggers that our profession needs the guidance and expertise you will bring to the table. The health marketing "clinic" that is chiropractic can only be emulated by our profession, one that has been sorely under and mismarketed for too long. We have the science, we look to you for the voice. Welcome aboard.

[cjk]

Hello from the trenches, Ms. Clancy & welcome to the team!

I need to admit, everyone in my office did a double take when reading the email yesterday morning from John Barnes. At first wondering if this was a prank, as Clancys’ name still appears on the current ACA roster. At the same time, it does make sense in terms of experience, industry knowledge, etc.. Our initial reluctance boils down to two reasons. The first is paranoia, viewing the ACA as historically devious, particularly towards the PT profession. The second is fear of association with the chiropractic profession; soliciting business in shopping malls, cheesy T.V. & print ads to come see "Dr. (first name only)". Bah!
Unfortunately, that is what comes to mind first with chiros and direct-to-consumer marketing.

So, can we anticipate a guest column or blog interview here anytime soon???

Finally... a HUGE thanks for your leadership, Pete Schrey, for putting up the grassroots petition and got this ball rolling. Cheers to you!

[sean]

I've been calling for new leadership in APTA marketing for nearly a year. As I've stated before, the person in charge the last 8-12 years hasn't done anything worth mentioning, and a lot I'd like to forget.
Let's hope she gets a budget and not just a salary commensurate to her experience.
Welcome aboard Felicity, but understand you're the new kid in town. Everybody loves you now, but you'll have to work very hard to maintain it.

[Cory Blickenstaff]

Felicity,

As everyone else has said, welcome aboard. Please do us proud.

[Tim Flynn]

Felicity,Welcome aboard. I look forward to your leadership. My goal for your first year is when Josephine Smith says "ouch my back hurts" her blink response is PT and this idea is made to stickforall patients with spinal pain. After all you got drugs, you got surgery, or you got us.
Tim

[Leigh Langerwerf]

Felicity-
Congrats on joining our organization and we look forward to seeing the fruits of your work in our professional development.
Leigh Langerwerf, PT, DPT

[Jen Ayotte]

Welcome Felicity! I am looking forward to an improved public opinion of PT. To those who oppose, ask yourself, how could this be worse than couch potato exercise, blackberry thumb and lessons on carrying backpacks?? These topics, quite frankly, embarrass me as a PT professional. The ACA is well regarded by the public with very little evidence to support what they do (except for what the PT's have published). Imagine having that kind of marketing talent on the side of evidence!! Now is our chance for all to see how useful and beneficial physical therapy really is!
- Jen

[Jen Ayotte]

Welcome Felicity! I am looking forward to an improved public opinion of PT. To those who oppose, ask yourself, how could this be worse than couch potato exercise, blackberry thumb and lessons on carrying backpacks?? These topics, quite frankly, embarrass me as a PT professional. The ACA is well regarded by the public with very little evidence to support what they do (except for what the PT's have published). Imagine having that kind of marketing talent on the side of evidence!! Now is our chance for all to see how useful and beneficial physical therapy really is!
- Jen