How clinics in Brazil use patient-style UGC to fill their diary, the formats that work and the rules to respect.
Why clinics are made for UGC
Five reasons, specific to this sector.
The decision is long and anxious: the person wants to see somebody like them before booking.
The main objection is not price, it is fear, and a video handles it better than a page.
A patient's journey is told far more naturally than a clinic's sales argument.
Word of mouth is already the sector's first channel, and UGC is its distributable version.
And the catchment area is local, which makes a small, well-targeted audience more profitable than a large national one.
The formats that fill a diary
Six formats, ranked by effect on bookings.
The tour of the premises: reception, waiting room, treatment room, equipment. It lifts the worry about hygiene and seriousness, without claiming anything.
A patient's day: arrival, exchange with the team, departure. The experience is told, not the result.
The questions nobody dares ask: three short questions put to a team member, simple and non-promotional answers.
The practical run-through: duration, what to plan for, how you leave, when you go back to work.
The team introduction: who will see you, with the qualifications displayed.
And the follow-up: the contact after the appointment, a format that reassures about aftercare.
The rules not to ignore
Six rules, to handle before any production.
The patient's consent, dealt with above, distinct from the licence.
Advertising by health professions obeys its own rules, which notably limit promises of results and the use of transformation images. What is allowed is checked with the competent professional council, before the shoot.
No promise of result, no guarantee, no superlative about effectiveness.
No direct comparison with another named practitioner.
Clear identification of any commissioned or paid content.
And a check that the creator never presents themselves as a health professional nor gives advice that would look like it.
How to brief to stay compliant and still convert
Five instructions to write into the brief.
Ask for the account of the experience, not the evaluation of the result.
Supply a closed list of authorised wordings, and forbid improvisation about effects.
Have the script read by the person responsible for compliance before the shoot.
Forbid shots suggesting a transformation, unless the professional council explicitly allows it within the intended framework.
And plan a neutral call to action: book a consultation, never buy a result.
Where the videos run
Four placements, from most to least profitable.
Local retargeting on people who visited the site, with a tight geographic radius.
The service pages of the site, where the video replaces a reassuring paragraph.
The clinic's profile, which serves as a shop window in searches by name.
And discovery advertising, useful but more expensive, to be kept for formats answering a precise question.
What a clinic can show
| On screen | Possible | Forbidden |
|---|---|---|
| The reception and the premises | Yes, with consent | A recognisable patient without written consent |
| The administrative journey | Yes | A procedure filmed |
| A dated personal experience | Yes, without generalising | A before-and-after |
What protects the person filmed
Written consent specific to the video, revocable, and the absence of any health data in image or sound. A first name and a place can be enough to identify someone.
What is verified before writing a sentence
The practitioner's title, the licence to practise, and what medical advertising allows locally. These rules are strict and confirmed with the facility, the competent authority and a lawyer.
What to order
A reasonable starting order for a clinic.
One tour of the premises, two frequently-asked-questions formats, one practical run-through and one team introduction. Five videos, two different creators, a single shooting session on site.
One last marker: in this sector, compliance is not a constraint that weakens the campaign, it is what makes it publishable. A cautious video that stays online for a year is worth more than a spectacular one pulled after a week.
