PR’s Top Pros Talk… Developing Effective Healthcare Campaigns

Paddi Hurley, Managing Director of Health at Allison, describes when clients should move forward with a branded healthcare campaign versus an unbranded healthcare campaign. She emphasizes the importance of taking time to find an authentic spokesperson. Paddi also shares how technology can play a role in clinical trials.

>> Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and others.

TRANSCRIPT:

DOUG: Paddi when you’re putting together a plan for a health client, what’s the first thing you need to think of?

PADDI: Well, Doug, the first thing I want to understand is what is the landscape within which they’re operating. So, for example, are they first to market? Are they entering a competitive landscape? What kind of programming would make sense for them? Perhaps if they are first to market, you can do a really robust unbranded education program. If they’re coming into a very crowded market, you likely need to do more branded programming.

DOUG: Yeah. And you touched on that about the distinction between branded and unbranded and the landscape being so important for that. What are some of the keys you definitely want to do a branded campaign.

PADDI: I think a branded program makes the most sense when there’s a very competitive landscape. You typically are not the market leader. So, you are a challenger brand, for example, and you know, and also it makes sense if you really have some key brand differentiators that will separate you from the competitors, per se. And then I would do an unbranded program. Like I was saying earlier, if you’re first to market or where disease education. I’m so sorry. My cat just jumped on the table.

DOUG: We love that.

PADDI: And unbranded program when there’s a lack of understanding of a condition when I’m your first to market and when that kind of education would benefit ultimately the brand.

DOUG: Yeah. And I should just add that no cats were injured in the making of this video podcast. It seems like your cats pretty well behaved. Are there times when it makes sense to do both branded and unbranded campaigns for a client that may be supporting a similar issue?

PADDI: Absolutely. A lot of clients do a combination of unbranded and branded. The way it normally works is before a drug, for example, is approved, you do something called market conditioning where you’re creating awareness around either a condition, the symptoms of a condition, how to get diagnosed, what to talk to your doctor about. And then once the drug is approved, then typically you might move to a more branded program. Especially if it’s a competitive market like I was describing before.

DOUG: Yeah. And it’s also important to think of multicultural audiences as obviously they may be prone or even more at risk in many cases to some of the conditions. What are some of the steps you take in putting together a multicultural part of the plan?

PADDI: That’s such a good point. So, in addition to understanding the landscape, when I first get an assignment, the second most important thing to me is understanding their audience. Who are they trying to reach? So, um, in a lot of instances, there’s very specific needs. So, for example, a condition might be, , over-indexing among a certain demographic or population, African Americans, for example, Latinx. So, creating program programming that is authentic and bespoke to those audiences is critical. And the way that’s done is very variable. It can be in terms of the spokespeople with whom you’re working, the patients with whom you’re working, ensuring that they represent these audiences, that they’re speaking in their language, that they have an authentic connection to the audiences, and that their story is relatable and meaningful to those audiences. So that is critical, and I can talk more if you’d like, about how we do that and how we not only program against certain audiences but better understand the audiences.

DOUG: That’s great. I’d love to hear that. And also how you even go about finding spokespeople who are authentic.

PADDI: This is a very, very valuable part of the planning process and something that you should take your time with to ensure you’re finding the right spokesperson. Especially if you’re looking for a spokesperson who is using or will use the drug, who has the condition, and who is an appropriate candidate for the drug. So, the way I go about it is I understand their audience. We start to vet, for example, celebrities who may have a relatable connection to the to the condition. And from there, once you have sort of your short list. Starting to really vet those figures, maybe you do focus groups. Make sure that you understand their story, make sure it would resonate. And, the whole process in itself can take upwards of, especially if they’re going on drug upwards of a year. So, allowing that time to find that right, that right person. And it’s really critical because if you do find the right person, a program not only will take off, but that person could potentially be used across other disciplines, whether it’s advertising, going to sales launch meetings to you know, participating in all kinds of marketing initiatives. So, if you take the time to find the right person, it’s time well spent.

DOUG: I know the FDA is just changed some of the targets and standards for that. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention or ask about AI in this conversation, but is there a place for AI in helping to find people who are approachable and right for clinical trials?

PADDI: Absolutely. That is a huge initiative. Right now, artificial intelligence is being investigated and employed in multiple clinical trials to help not only, well, ultimately to help with that FDA requirement to make sure that these clinical trials are better representing the diverse population in the United States, for example, they’re evaluating, having AI create or expand certain arms of a clinical trial to represent sort of the data they’re seeing in certain patient populations. We also see that they’re using AI not only to ensure diversity, which is critical, but also to help in clinical trials for rare conditions where it’s very hard to find an adequate number of patients to evaluate a therapy.

DOUG: I know co-branded initiatives are popular in many different verticals. Is there a growing role for them in the healthcare space and what does that look like?

PADDI: You know, it’s so interesting that you say that because I think historically, we have not really seen pharma and biotech employing co-branded programs. It’s, you know, a very competitive atmosphere, and it’s just so highly regulated. It’s very complicated. But more and more we are seeing potential branded programming. So, for example, I personally have had an experience whereby I worked with a pharma company on a drug that was for overactive bladder, and we did a partnership with a company that provided consumer packaged goods. So they we’re providing reusable briefs for women who have overactive bladder for leaks. And, by working together in tandem, each company was benefiting the CPG company basically with capturing an audience earlier in the co-pay cycle. And the pharma company was providing the treatment once they got diagnosed. And by working together, they were educating women was primarily a condition that treats that’s for women educating them so that they spoke to their doctor earlier in that, in that symptoms experience so that they were diagnosed earlier.

DOUG: How do you apply measurement to all of this to make sure that you’re achieving the goals that the client is looking for?

PADDI: Measurement is critical and it’s constantly evolving in communications and marketing. So, what we like to do at the beginning of a program with a client is understand their KPIs, and their key performance indicators. These can be business objectives. These can be business goals. And then determining how we can demonstrate how we help achieve those, something I personally use a lot is a lot of my clients have annual, ATU surveys. So that’s awareness trial usage. And we take that information. And that’s ultimately our goal is to improve, improve awareness, improve trial, improve usage. And then all of our tactics, whether that is earned media sponsored media, social influencer, are lining up and demonstrating how they are achieving and moving that needle.

DOUG: Yeah. Well, by any measurement standard, I guess old style, I’d have to say this conversation has been really thought-provoking and interesting. Maybe we’ll have to look, back a year from now to make sure enough people actually saw it. People reacted to it, and hopefully, they change their behaviors because of it. Thanks so much for being with us.

PADDI: Thank you so much, Doug. I really appreciate your time. It was lovely to speak to you.