Maricich Health is celebrating one of its most successful award seasons to date, earning more than 40 honors across three major industry competitions: the Healthcare Advertising Awards, the Telly Awards and the HCCSC Finest Awards. These recognitions reflect what matters most to us: purpose-driven creative work built in close partnership with our clients and designed to make a meaningful impact in the community.
Partnerships with organizations like CalOptima Health and Valley Health Plan are what make work like this possible, with collaboration built on a shared understanding of the mission, strategy and ultimate purpose for the marketing campaigns and outreach.
Healthcare Advertising Awards
As one of the largest and longest running national awards programs in healthcare marketing, the Healthcare Advertising Awards showcase creative excellence across the healthcare industry. This year we’re honored to have received 15 awards for campaigns spanning member storytelling, enrollment marketing, direct mail, video and digital work for both CalOptima Health and Valley Health Plan.
Highlights include:
- Gold for the CalOptima Health PACE Program (Brochure)
- Gold for the CalOptima Health Heart Transplant Member Story, Richard Bines (Mobile Media Content)
- Gold for CalOptima Health Member Stories (Total Health Promotion Program)
- Gold for Valley Health Plan Covered CA Open Enrollment (Direct Mail)
- Gold for Valley Health Plan 40th Anniversary (Logo/Letterhead Design)
Together, these Gold awards—and numerous Silver, Bronze and Merit honors—demonstrate the breadth of work our teams delivered across brand strategy, member engagement, enrollment marketing and storytelling.
What unites these honors is a shared commitment to aligning core human truths to communicate differentiators and value propositions associated with the business objectives of our clients.
In healthcare, that alignment almost always runs through story. A well-told member story does more than humanize a brand. It gives prospective members a mirror, a way to see themselves in someone else’s experience of being helped. Applied with discipline and consistency, that’s what turns good creative into work that earns national recognition.
HCCSC Finest Awards
At this year’s Finest Awards, hosted by the Health Care Communicators of Southern California, we brought home 13 awards for CalOptima Health and VHP, including two Golds.
For CalOptima Health, our PACE Program work earned recognition across print, digital, video and public relations categories, a testament to the power of telling real member stories through an integrated, multichannel approach. The PACE Brochure alone earned a Gold in Advertising-Print, reflecting how even a traditional format can stand out when guided by a strong creative strategy.
For Valley Health Plan, we won five awards spanning television, online, direct mail, email and campaign categories for the VHP Covered CA Open Enrollment campaign, plus a Bronze recognizing the brand’s milestone 40th Anniversary identity work.
Being recognized by our industry peers carries particular weight. Our work spans some of the nation’s most diverse patient populations, communities that speak dozens of languages, carry distinct cultural relationships with healthcare, and require marketing that goes far beyond translation. Our peers understand that challenge firsthand, which makes their recognition of our work all the more meaningful. The ability to reach diverse consumer audiences and healthcare stakeholders with authenticity and precision is central to who we are, and it is gratifying to have that work seen and celebrated.
Telly Awards: Storytelling Recognized on a National Stage
The Telly Awards celebrate excellence in video and television across all screens, drawing more than 13,000 entries from some of the world’s most talented creative teams. This season, we earned 12 Telly Awards, including nine Silver and three Bronze recognitions, led entirely by work for CalOptima Health and Valley Health Plan.
Our CalOptima Health Member Stories campaign earned Silver in both the Corporate Image and Health and Safety campaign categories, a powerful acknowledgment of how a cohesive series of human stories can simultaneously build a brand and advance health equity goals.
Individual member stories were recognized across categories including DEI, Cause Marketing, Motivational, Accessibility and Inclusion and Online Series, reflecting the breadth of impact these real-life narratives carry. The PACE Program story featuring participant Tony Goodwin earned four Telly recognitions alone.
Valley Health Plan’s Covered CA Open Enrollment TV Spot rounded out the wins with two Bronze awards in the B2C and Online Commercials categories.
For our creative team, these recognitions validate a philosophy we return to again and again: the most powerful healthcare marketing is not manufactured, it is discovered. When we sit down with a real member, listen to their story and then find the right way to bring that story to a broader audience, something authentic emerges. That authenticity is what earns trust in communities that have historically had reason to be skeptical of healthcare institutions. And that trust, built over time through consistent, honest storytelling, is ultimately what motivates people to seek care, enroll in a plan or take the next step toward better health.
More Than Trophies
What makes this award season resonate so deeply is what the work is actually about: real people. Real members sharing what access to healthcare has meant in their lives. Real enrollment campaigns that help families find coverage. And real brand investments that build trust in communities that need it most.
We are proud of every piece that was recognized, and even more appreciative of the clients who trusted us to tell these stories. Awards provide valuable recognition, but they are not the ultimate goal. Success is measured by the people these campaigns reach, the trust they help build and the access to care they help expand.
We also recognize that this work does not happen in isolation. It takes account teams who manage complexity with care, strategists who ask the right questions, creatives who push past the obvious and clients who are willing to be bold alongside us. Every recognition on this list stands as proof of what’s possible when creative work is grounded in real purpose. When healthcare organizations grow by doing more good for the people they serve, everyone wins.
Here’s to the work ahead.
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