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ZocDoc doesn’t just want to assist patients in booking doctors’ appointments. The healthcare access infrastructure is dedicated to helping patients book the right provider for their needs, however specific those needs may be.

The brand’s latest campaign, “Ready to be Seen?”, presents three scenarios where patients recognize they need medical care: the athlete who experiences pain while running, the boyfriend who is allergic to his girlfriend’s cat, and the woman who knows her menstrual pain isn’t normal.

Each patient is not only looking to see a doctor, but to see the right doctor: someone who will make them feel seen as an individual.

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ZocDoc worked with SpecialGuest to create the campaign, which launched Monday and will air on TV, audio, social, and digital in the coming months. “Ready to Be Seen?” is a logical next move for ZocDoc, which has run two previous ad campaigns centered around the idea of patient choice. However, it’s the first campaign to be overseen by Brian Irving, named ZocDoc’s first CMO in April. Irving previously worked with SpecialGuest on campaigns in his past roles, which include former CMO of Lyft and Meta Reality Labs.

In an exclusive interview with ADWEEK, Irving said a fourth “character” emerged in the creative process with SpecialGuest: ZocDoc’s user interface. As the team worked on writing relatable patient characters and presenting ZocDoc as a resource, Irving said they ended up abstracting the UI into “someone \[to whom\] the patient is expressing their deepest monologue.”

While ZocDoc does not currently feature an actual chatbot trained to handle patient concerns, the company recently announced a collaboration with GoogleHealth that will integrate ZocDoc’s real-time booking availability into the Google Gemini app.

The integration with Gemini, like the “Ready to Be Seen?” campaign, is meant to help ZocDoc meet patients where they are, Irving said. This is especially pertinent at a time when health-seeking behavior is shifting towards AI answer engines.

“Our mission is to give power to the patient,” Irving told ADWEEK. “If you think about the healthcare industry, it is really built for the patient. So when we start with the patient, that becomes our North Star.”

ZocDoc often turns to patient surveys to measure indicators of the brand’s success, honing in on factors like trust and awareness. The surveys are also useful for surfacing universal truths about the patients ZocDoc aims to serve; for instance, 71 percent of patients said finding the right doctor matters as much as getting seen quickly, according to ZocDoc.

“A patient’s need for care is one of the most personal things in their lives. They bring their fears, priorities, quirks and non-negotiables with them,” Aaron Duffy, co-founder and CCO of SpecialGuest, said in a statement. “Patients want to feel seen. Zocdoc helps people more easily find and book a doctor who really gets them, and we wanted the work to celebrate just how personal and achievable finding the right fit can be.”

andrea-michelson-2026

Andrea Michelson

Andrea Michelson is the healthcare marketing reporter at ADWEEK. She previously covered the coronavirus pandemic for Business Insider and was part of the New York Times Covid mapping effort in 2020.