The inside story on avoiding the pitfalls and mastering the craft of healthcare branding.

Whether it's a pain reliever for a headache, a life-saving operation, having a baby, or just a routine checkup, everyone in the developed world is touched by the healthcare industry in one way or another. As vital as this industry is to us all, branding expert Vince Parry sees fundamental problems first hand in the way healthcare companies and their advertising agencies market health and wellness brands. Identity Crisis highlights the many missteps, misnomers and missed opportunities for some of the biggest healthcare brands of our day, and offers solutions for avoiding these problems in the future. Among many observations, this book points out:

- The problems of using consumer-goods branding techniques in healthcare

- The ways that illness changes how we define ourselves and make brand choices

- The pervasive fallacy that doctors aren't influenced by healthcare marketing

- The enlightening power of branding or rebranding illnesses to defuse their stigma

Bringing over 30 years of expertise to bear, Vince Parry has written nothing less than the definitive book on healthcare branding: what to do and--just as importantly--what NOT to do for anyone involved or interested in an industry that is at the center of our lives.