Mary M. Gallagher
Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
Seniorlink
Putting Caregiver Nation on the Map
“Caregivers are today’s unsung heroes,” says Mary Gallagher. “They deserve our highest accolades, and honestly we need their help to defray the cost of care.”
After working for luxury hotel brands such as The Four Seasons Hotel, Mary made a career pivot that changed her life—to healthcare. She has now been in the industry for 20 years, at both advertising agencies and major healthcare companies. During those years, she spent time at ad agency Hill Holliday in Boston, where she helped launch their award-winning pharmaceutical practice.
Mary’s driving reason for joining Seniorlink was the opportunity to increase awareness for Caregiver Nation—44 million people who selflessly give so much of themselves to care for loved ones. And Seniorlink wanted Mary to re-energize its focus and mission to provide services and support to this population.
“I want to put Caregiver Nation on the map,” Mary explains. “We need to figure out how to best reach, engage, and empower them in the care of their loved ones—with caregivers already providing $470 billion in unpaid care each year, we can’t afford not to for the sake of our healthcare economy.”
Leading her marketing team, Mary wanted to do more than just create a campaign showing the value of caregivers; she wanted to start a movement. And so “Thank You Caregiver Nation” was born. This movement kicked off during National Family Caregivers month (November, 2016) with a nation-wide contest for individuals to nominate caregivers to receive free meals for a month. To create buzz, Top Chef and celebrity restaurateur Tiffani Faison starred in the contest video, surprising one caregiver with a home-cooked meal.
The contest generated 1.5 million impressions, 130,620 social engagements, more than 50,000 visits to the contest website, and 1,290 submissions from more than 47 states. But Mary says this contest is just one part of a bigger movement underway.
“In this role, I have the opportunity to apply my experience in strategic planning, brand building, and customer engagement to the tech-enabled caregiving vertical,” Mary elaborates. “It’s a high growth, yet underserved, category. It’s the next dragon to slay in the healthcare world.”
