GREAT CREATIVE GUARANTEES GREAT RESULTS
Not according to 40 years of HCP media experience
Building a brand is far more than the advertising we see on a screen or a page. The ad may be just the visible tip of the iceberg tasked with creating awareness and motivating healthcare professionals to engage and learn more about a product.
Advertising legend John Hegarty states, ‘the first objective of any communications plan is to get noticed’ and that ‘Fame is fundamentally important to a brand’s success.’ There’s a basic principle here. If no-one has ever heard of your brand, why would they consider recommending or prescribing it?
We see lots of awards for creativity. Amazing visuals, compelling storytelling, engaging characterisation and technological brilliance. These are all worthy of recognition and play a vital role in a brand’s success. However, from a marketing perspective, it is essential that creative messages are seen by the right people, in the right place, at the right time, to create awareness and encourage engagement. Effective media placement in healthcare relies on far more than huge numbers of ad impressions. We often need to target very specific audiences with messaging adjacent to extremely specific content to retain relevance and visibility. Achieving 1 million impressions for your media campaign sounds great, but how many are effective? A specialist HCP media agency will ensure your media investment creates fame for your brand amongst the relevant audiences in the relevant environments.
It’s important not to get caught up with trends and progress in other sectors which may not immediately translate to healthcare. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality and programmatic are some of the terms we hear more and more frequently. These are all technologies that can be used by pharma at different points in a brand’s journey. But, it’s not the technology that’s important, it’s what we do with it. And in a highly regulated sector like healthcare, there will always be concerns about new developments. We need to embrace technological advancement, but also need to be realistic about the actual benefits it provides in individual circumstances, such as media placement.
We are constantly asked to provide ‘innovative’ solutions. This is subjective and often dependent on the ability of third-party publishers to carry the technology, or for it to be compliant with industry bodies such as the ABPI. There is also the key question around budget. Pharma traditionally develops strategy, often ‘digital-first,’ and then the creative campaign, without consideration of placement and implementation. Campaign outcomes are significantly better if the HCP media agency is involved at an early stage of the process. We can advise on audience preferences, media channel selection and formats, or content required to produce desired outcomes.
Media budgeting can then be strategically planned to achieve required outcomes, not based on what’s left after the campaign has been developed. Better media campaign planning makes the investment in creative much more valuable because it achieves greater visibility and impact. This makes the creative agency look good and we all have a happy client.
We’d love to discuss this further, so please get in touch. Media is not just advertising, and great creative must get noticed by the right audiences to be effective. With over 40 years as a specialist healthcare media agency, we can help you separate the reality from the myth.
Andrew King
01932 345519
*GPMS (General Practitioner Media Survey) & HDMS (Hospital Doctor media Survey) 2024 Data
