B2B Media Opps: Aetna, Sutter Health hire CEO for joint venture (Score 71)

Effective November, CVS health company Aetna and nonprofit healthcare system Sutter Health (SH) selected Jeb Dunkelber as the CEO for its joint venture, Sutter Health l Aetna. Previously the head of growth at Notable, Dunkelber will now oversee the venture's management, expand its footprint, support portfolio growth of employers, welcome new members and build upon its innovative model.

This hire closely follows Aetna's hire of CMO earlier in 2020.

The joint venture has not yet promoted by national advertising, so the data below applies to Aetna and SH individually.

While iSpot doesn't report any national TV spend for SH, Aetna does invest in this channel. So far in 2020, commercials targeted Gen-X and boomers viewing programs such as CNN Newsroom, The ReidOut, The Five, Special Report With Bret Baier and Your World With Neil Cavuto. YTD spend of around $4.7m reflects a 62% increase from the roughly $2.9m spent by this point last year; this amount also marks Aetna's full 2019 spend. The company typically only utilizes this channel in Q4.

View Pathmatics's estimations of both companies' recent digital ad spend here.

Each individual company has a wide target demographic, but SH | Aetna provides self-insured PPO and EPO commercial health plans along with Aetna-offered, fully-insured products to employers in Northern CA. Thus, its target demographic consists of businesses of all sizes, particularly those on the West coast.

Kantar data reports both Aetna and SH also invest in OOH, print, radio and local broadcast.

Agency & martech readers - There's certainly a chance the companies will seek agency assistance to pursue growth for this venture; reach out soon to see what work you can secure. Aetna works with Ogilvy (creative AOR) and Universal McCann (media AOR); SH works with barrettSF (creative AOR) and Quigley-Simpson (media assistance).