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A Helpful History Of Practice Marketing, And What The Future Holds

A Helpful History Of Practice Marketing, And What The Future Holds
by Scott McDonald

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORY of practice marketing might be useful in the wild marketing frontier now facing us. In the early 1980s, I was hired as one of the first marketing managers in organized dentistry. The issue of who should regulate advertising was a big deal. It included concerns as specific as how large a doctor’s sign could be or what an orthodontist could include on his or her “shingle.”

Currently, advertising for the professions is controlled, not so much by the professional associations or the professionals themselves, but by federal, state, and local government bodies. As an example, for many years the California Dental Association (CDA) issued the “Guidelines on Advertising.” Then the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) successfully sued the CDA over these guidelines. It was ultimately decided that the FTC held jurisdiction over regulating professional practice advertising.1 This case set the tone for increased guidance by government agencies over the professions and their advertising rules of conduct.

This matter was originally forced into the courts because the professional organizations tried to restrict advertising in the modern era. Various bar associations argued that advertising legal services would diminish the profession and provide false and misleading messages to potential clients. Because laypeople could not understand the technicalities of the professional work, it was thought that a robust advertising campaign would give an advantage to unethical providers. They also reasoned that if one lawyer were allowed to advertise, every lawyer would eventually be forced into the world of advertising. Various associations of the “learned professions” offered amicus briefs supporting arguments made by bar associations.

The matter of advertising was resolved in the courts by the Bates v. State Bar of Arizona case.2 The case involved two Arizona lawyers who placed an advertisement that read, “Do you need a lawyer?’’ and continued, ‘‘Legal services at very reasonable fees.’’ The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the state bar in determining that this was a violation of the state rule of professional conduct. However, the Unites States Supreme Court decided to overturn that ruling in 1977, saying that the protection for commercial speech applied to advertising by lawyers and that the Arizona rule was unconstitutionally broad. This became the governing principle and law regarding advertising by professions, including dentistry, from then on.

The CDA v. FTC case was an example of attempts by professional practice associations to retain control over business aspects of their industries, including practice promotion. In many cases, associations have lost control of the regulation of the business side of practice. But just because professionals could advertise was not a deciding factor on whether they should advertise.

Read full article on DentalEconomics.