Forty years is a long time in any industry. In healthcare marketing, a field that for much of the 20th century didn’t technically exist, it’s an extraordinary achievement. As Maricich Health marks its 40th anniversary in 2026, it’s worth pausing to ask a simple question: how did we get here?
The answer begins not with a business plan or a pitch deck, but with one woman, her conviction that hospitals needed to connect with their communities, and the courage to walk into a boardroom and say so.
That woman was Suzanne Maricich. This is not only a tribute to her legacy as a pioneer, barrier-breaker and founder who made healthcare marketing history, but to the thriving agency she set in motion.
A Pioneer Before the Field Had a Name
In the 1970s, hospitals didn’t have marketing departments. The concept of advertising a healthcare organization was largely uncharted territory, viewed by many in the industry as either unnecessary or vaguely unseemly. That was precisely the environment Suzanne Maricich stepped into when she joined St. Mary Medical Center in Southern California as director of marketing. She was one of the first women in the hospital’s boardroom, and she arrived in a role that her organization had barely imagined, let alone defined.
She didn’t just define it. She made history with it.
At the time, a single hospital on the East Coast had ventured into advertising. Suzanne saw that campaign, brought it to her board and made the case that the West Coast deserved the same. The board approved it. What followed became the first hospital advertising campaign in the Western United States and only the second healthcare marketing campaign of its kind in the entire country.
“Back then, the hospital board didn’t even know what marketing was. Suzanne ended up launching what was the first advertising campaign for a hospital on the West Coast.” — David Maricich, President & Chief Creative Officer, Maricich Health
The campaign, St. Mary’s Cares for You (recognizable by its heart-shaped “o”), became a touchstone. It was warm, human and strategically sound. It demonstrated, perhaps for the first time on the West Coast, that healthcare organizations could communicate their values to the communities they served through great marketing.
The feat was remarkable on two levels. Suzanne was breaking new ground in an emerging profession while doing so as one of the first women in any healthcare executive suite. In an era when female leadership in the boardroom was rare, she was not only present but also leading.
Project Wipeout: A Campaign Built to Last
From St. Mary Medical Center, Suzanne went on to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, California, where she created something that would prove even more lasting. In an era of public health film campaigns (the kind shown in school gymnasiums to teach kids about safety), she produced one that stands apart to this day.
Project Wipeout was born out of a simple, urgent insight: Young beachgoers were suffering preventable spinal cord injuries by diving headfirst into shallow water. The campaign educated kids and families about ocean safety. It starred Ted McGinley of “Happy Days” fame and was filmed on the beaches of Newport Beach with the full scope of a major production. The message was serious. The storytelling was compelling. The impact was real.
Decades later, Project Wipeout is still in existence. It remains one of the most enduring public health campaigns ever created in Southern California—a testament not just to Suzanne’s creative instincts, but also to her understanding that the best healthcare marketing changes behavior and saves lives.
Healthcare marketing campaign
in the country
Hospital ad campaign
in the Western U.S.
In associated client revenue growth
Years of Maricich Health
From the Boardroom to the Business She Built
By 1986, after roughly a decade in the C-suite, Suzanne was ready for the next chapter. She had spent years shaping what healthcare marketing could be. Now she would build it for herself.
The early days were decidedly unglamorous and entirely her own. An extra room in the house became the office. A new Macintosh computer and a StyleWriter printer became the production floor. Her former employer, Hoag Hospital, became her first client. What emerged from those humble beginnings was Suzanne Maricich and Associates — a one-woman publishing and design shop that was relentlessly scrappy, meticulous in its craft, and absolutely committed to quality.
She took any work that came her way — healthcare organizations, local businesses, even In-N-Out Burger — but her instincts always pulled her toward healthcare. Over time, the business evolved into something more focused: a healthcare publishing company producing custom newsletters for hospitals and health systems. These weren’t throwaway mailers. They were carefully written, beautifully designed and printed at scale, eventually reaching millions of readers across Southern California. In an era before digital health content, they were how health systems spoke to the people they served.
It was a demanding business built on an exacting standard. Every word, every layout, every print run reflected the same attention to detail that had defined Suzanne’s boardroom work. She may have traded the executive suite for a home office, but she never lowered the bar.
A Family Business Evolves
When her sons David and Mark Maricich eventually joined the business, they embraced that standard and built on it. What had been a publishing firm became an integrated branding and marketing agency. The healthcare focus deepened. The capabilities expanded. Brand strategy, multicultural marketing, advertising production, digital development, and media planning all joined the mix, as the agency grew to serve health systems, payers, life sciences companies and the full breadth of the healthcare ecosystem.
That evolution was not accidental. It was deliberate, client-driven and grounded in a belief that healthcare marketing done well is not just a business service — it’s a public good. The agency’s campaigns have helped increase health plan membership, boost COVID vaccination rates, educate underserved communities, and support the kind of behavior change that makes people healthier. Maricich Health has been able to demonstrate, with data, that its work has helped save lives. That is not something many agencies can say.
“Our legacy is built on innovation, but our future is driven by the belief that healthcare marketing can transform lives.” — Mark Maricich, CEO / Chief Strategy Officer, Maricich Health
Through three generations of the Maricich family, and across decades of growth, reinvention, and hard-won expertise, the agency has never lost the spirit that Suzanne embedded in it from the start. The credo is simple and has never wavered: Anything Is Possible.
Where the Legacy Leads
To all of that, the agency is now adding the tools of the next era: artificial intelligence (AI) for creative agility, production efficiency, and smarter automation. AI is not replacing the strategic depth or human intuition that defines Maricich Health’s work. It is accelerating it: enabling faster iteration, more personalized campaigns and greater responsiveness to a rapidly shifting healthcare landscape.
“Every day we have the opportunity to help our clients grow their businesses while making a real difference in people’s lives. Our clients are not selling candy bars — they’re developing new medicines, expanding access to care, and creating public health solutions for underserved communities.” — David Maricich
The future is bright because the foundation is extraordinary. Suzanne Maricich walked into a boardroom when women were rarely invited. She launched campaigns when hospitals didn’t know they needed them. She built an ocean safety program that’s still protecting lives decades later. And she built a business on the radical premise that meticulous, compassionate, strategically rigorous marketing could change healthcare for the better.
We are still proving her right.
This article is dedicated to the memory and spirit of Suzanne Maricich, founder of Maricich Health, who passed away in September 2024. Her groundbreaking work in healthcare marketing — and her insistence that anything is possible — remains the foundation of everything we do.