Franciscan Health System has received a pair of national advertising awards for direct mail campaigns promoting its urgent-care clinic and its new hospital in Gig Harbor.

The St. Anthony Prompt Care initiative was recognized for excellence with a gold award from Healthcare Advertising Awards. Concurrently, Franciscan’s update to the community about the opening of St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor in early 2009 earned a silver award from the prestigious Aster Awards.

The direct-mail campaigns took place in 2007. Award winners were announced earlier this month.

“We are thrilled to have this work recognized as among the best in the country by two very competitive award programs,” said Budd Wagner, vice president for marketing and communications at Franciscan. “We strive for excellence in everything we do at the Franciscan organization – from providing the very best care possible to effectively communicating about the advanced medicine and compassionate care we provide close to home.”

Franciscan was assisted in creating the award-winning campaigns by GA Creative of Bellevue, a full-service marketing communications and graphic design firm.

The 25th annual Healthcare Advertising Awards are sponsored by Healthcare Marketing Report, the national newspaper for health care marketing professionals. The Aster Awards, one of the largest competitions of its kind, is hosted by Marketing Healthcare Today, a national health care marketing magazine. Both award competitions recognize excellence in marketing, advertising and public relations.

The competitions receive several thousand entries every year from hospitals, health systems and others from across the nation, which are judged by marketing experts. More than 4,400 entries were submitted for the 2008 Healthcare Advertising Awards competition alone – this included more than 200 in the direct-mail category for which Franciscan received the prestigious gold award.