This article was originally published in the Brand Finance Middle East 150 Report and Saudi Arabia 50 Report
Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center (KFSH&RC) has seen solid brand value growth of 31% in 2024, taking its brand value to USD1.5 billion, making it the Middle East’s most valuable Healthcare brand.
KFSH&RC has also increased its Brand Strength Index score by 1.2 points for 2024, achieving a score of 73.9/100. This means it has maintained its standing as the 20th strongest Academical Medical Centre worldwide for the second consecutive year in Brand Finance’s Global Top 250 Hospitals ranking for 2024.
As KFSH&RC approaches its 50th anniversary, the renowned healthcare institution is implementing strategic initiatives to enhance its brand reputation and extend its reach globally. Muhannad A. Kadi, Chief Corporate Communications & Marketing Officer at KFSH&RC, shares insights into the institution's holistic approach to brand-building and the significance of cultivating a strong global reputation among healthcare professionals and other key stakeholders.
Interview with Muhannad A. Kadi
KFSH&RC has shown strong brand growth this year - impressive for an organisation approaching its 50th anniversary - what initiatives is the organisation taking around brand to spread and grow reputation?
Chief Corporate
Communications
& Marketing Officer,
KFSH&RC
We are continuously working towards enhancing the brand from a holistic perspective through the implementation of multiple initiatives. The objective is to ensure that we enhance our reach, especially where our target segment is present in order to showcase our achievements and innovations.
The initiatives are tailored to the media consumption habits of our target segments and range from the basics of institutionalizing the foundations of brand management, using an optimized mix of paid, earned and owned media; periodically measuring, raising the bar on brand metrics that we aspire to achieve; to enhancing brand awareness and consideration in geographies outside KSA.
Brand Finance's report on the World's Top Hospitals ranks KFSH&RC as the 20th strongest, based on responses from healthcare professionals around the world - how important is this audience and building a global reputation for KFSH&RC?
They are one of our key target segments especially as we increase their familiarity with our brand in different countries and regions. Global reputation is one of the key drivers to achieve our mandate of becoming a globally renowned AMC. We are confident that the initiatives being executed will move us closer to being amongst the top global AMCs with every ranking edition.
The brand stakeholders for a healthcare organisation like KFSH&RC are quite varied compared to many of the brands in the ranking - how do you make sure you build a brand that tells the right story to each of them, and in a consistent way?
The diversity of our brand stakeholders is a good challenge to have. We ensure that the enhancement of our brand image and reputation amongst all stakeholders is achieved through specific targeting when it comes to customization of content, selection of the channels and dissemination of information through storytelling in order to become a global, modern yet humanized brand rather than following a one size fits all content approach. All this is coupled with a heavy focus on digital media, which we believe is critical for brand storytelling.
