Here are the top six golden rules for online marketing success.

Rule #1: Be Useful

Cut-through starts by making sure your communications are ‘useful’. The biggest message in recent years from consumers to all marketers is simply this: be useful to me, don’t sell to me. Add value to customers and patients by plugging pain points and gaps of knowledge, and providing them with something relevant to their issues, that takes them closer to achieving their treatment goals.

Rule #2: Emotion and Science Works

Use emotion, always! Use your brand’s unique mix of science and emotion to tell your story and connect with customers and patients. We, humankind, make decisions based on emotions. That’s why corporates invented procurement departments: to take the emotion out of buying! The most powerful way to connect with humans is through storytelling. Your online marketing content must be ‘story-rich.’

Rule #3: Determine your target audience and channel-plan

Make sure you’re going after the audience with the right focus or breadth to achieve your company, business unit, sales or communications goals. We often find that the GP, the HCP, the patient isn’t the only important audience to consider.

1. Who are you targeting?
2. Who are they engaging with to form opinions?
3. What channels are they using, what content are they looking at, what keyword phrases are they searching for?
4. Which of your competitors are indexing well for those search terms?
5. Where are the gaps in the channels, content, stories being used and told? Focus on filling the gap competitors are not active in so you can stand out.

Also, as you build out your strategy to cut through make sure you don’t miss out on trying to engage with the KOLs, the carers, pharmacists and other specialists that could help you achieve your objectives.

Rule #4:  Understand your customers’ journey   

When trying to solve the First Golden Rule, Be Useful, you’ll need to give the audience what they want and need. But if you don’t know what that is, you may want to map your customers journey and work out the opportunity for your brand to stand out.

1. What is the customer (HCP/Patient) diagnosis and treatment pathway?
2. What happens along this path, what is adequate and what are the problems?
3. What role does your brand play and how can it add value that’s differentiated from your competitors?
4. How does your customer read/view/interact with content along the journey? What channels, formats, frequency, voices?

At the end of completing this tip, your brand will be in a stronger position to fill the gaps and to dial-up its greatness.

Rule #5:  Integrate your channels 

When thinking about how to deliver a great impact, plan how your channels should work together to engage the audience at the right points in their journey. When channels are integrated, the customer’s experience is improved and the brand can achieve better results.

• Ensure your channels connect with one another and have synchronized messaging that funnels through awareness, engagement, and conversion.
• Involve your sales reps – ensure they understand your digital channels and can promote them.

Rule #6:  Engage with your audience 

If there is an opportunity to engage with an audience while being useful, take it! It will help your brand better understand your customer and potentially generate insights which in turn could add future value and improve health outcomes.

• Have a two-way conversation with your audience online, not just a static presence.
• There’s a significant opportunity for your audience to interact with you through chat-bot, social, Q&A submission.
• Ask: What are they (my customers) looking for, are they getting it, can we offer it to them, and are we interesting?
• What is the creative potential? Is there an opportunity for a brilliant idea, a really well-crafted design, something interactive?
• Engagement contextually in channel and medium.
• Influencers and KOLs are a key leverage here – our target customers listen to each other, and pay attention to the views of like-minded sources who they respect.

Simon Davies simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545

Omnichannel campaigns were ranked by Australia’s leading Pharmaceutical marketers as one of the least effective channels for marketing effectiveness in 2023 – yet the majority plan to double down on spending more in omnichannel in 2024.

• Omnichannel effectiveness is strongly linked to having a clear Omnichannel strategy and plan with cross-functional stakeholder buy-in from the top down. Pharmaceutical companies are obsessed with knowing ‘Where to Play, and How to Win’, yet when it comes to Omnichannel, there is a clear gap in developing this strategy and plan. Without a plan, there is no clarity on what “Effective” looks like, and therefore perceptions of impacts are often scored poorly.

• To develop the Omnichannel strategy and plan, Pharmaceutical companies need to assess their Omnichannel maturity and evaluate their baseline capability. Pharmaceutical companies often don’t have the capability or experience to measure Omnichannel maturity. Without this maturity benchmark, Pharmaceutical companies don’t know what Omnichannel goals to create or actions to take. 

• Omnichannel needs clear ownership and leadership. Pharmaceutical has unclear internal and/or external Omnichannel leadership, and without clear and accountable leadership, Omnichannel will remain ineffective.

Simon Davies simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545  Dan King  dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0439 190 700

Bastion Brands Executive Creative Director Bruce Williams looks at the essentials of building better human connections in healthcare advertising.

What will 2024 bring to the way we view creativity in marketing? And how can we make sure we are ‘pulling all the right triggers’ in producing communications that not only resonate but make a behaviour-changing impact on our audience?

With the world still facing uncertain times ahead, it’s never been more vital to show healthy respect to and comprehensive understanding of the state of mind of our audience. Add in a heightened sense of ‘political correctness’ and you start getting a feeling for how creativity could be compromised.

But that’s nothing new in pharma marketing. Working within strict medical guidelines and restrictions have always been boundaries for healthcare marketing creativity – and yet the quality of work still reaches new heights each year…

2024 should be no exception – as long as we follow some tried and tested rules – and continue to push the emotional outcomes higher up the scale in supporting the science and core claims of the services and medicines we promote.

FOCUS ON THE OUTCOME
Your drug may be able to do this or cure that. It may perform XX% better than your competitor. It may increase life for patients over 80 for an extra 6 years. Your science is incredible!

Of course, it is vital, but what does all that science mean in human terms? Rather than focus on the data, focus instead on the patient – and how their life has improved as a result of your innovative medicines.
For example, having a drug that gives cancer patients an extra year of life is wonderful to give to people… but showing what that patient did in that extra year of life is a thousand times more compelling.

BE AUTHENTIC, AND INCLUSIVE
People can always spot fake and HCPs and patients are no exception.

So where possible, use actual patients (and therefore create photo assets that are unique to your brand). This approach resonates much more with target audiences, with the key focus on their story and how your brand has enabled a transformation or change within the individual.

Audiences react well to inclusivity, and brands that are consistently committed to diversity.
This ties back to a desire from consumers for brands to go beyond the tokenistic: to the authentic. If done well, you reach a level of relatability that will resonate greater with the Australian consumer.

FOCUS ON POSITIVITY
In terms of creative execution, it’s often hard to evaluate where your brand needs to stand. Do you focus on the problem – a bit like using ‘scare tactics’ to highlight a need – or the solution?

If we are honest, most of us don’t want to be reminded of the ‘bad’: we want to focus on the ‘good’.

We work with many clients whose brand identity prohibits the use of imagery that shows people with ‘frowns’ or ‘negative expressions’. Even the use of words with negative connotations is not permissible.

And while it is a restriction that can hinder the creative process, it also reminds us of the results we all hope for – that outcome of ‘getting better’. So why focus on showing conditions and ailments Doctors and specialists live with daily? They get enough of that in their practices, journals and med ed seminars.

In healthcare marketing, the right balance of positivity and compassion – brought to life with emotionally engaging stories – is a better balance to connect with your audience.

Simon Davies  simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545  Bruce Williams  bruce.williams@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0407 359 582

When Bastion Med Ed launched CAR-T Central in late 2021, we envisioned a platform where leading haematologists could share their combined experience and expertise to advance CAR-T therapies in Australia.

Two years on, and the landscape has changed. New therapies have become available, funding is available for a broader range of indications, and lives are being saved nationwide.

Through all that, CAR-T Central has been a key resource for any medical professional looking to advance their knowledge by providing a wealth of fundamental and cutting-edge information. Since the platform launched over 2,500 HCPs and users have accessed the site, viewing more than 12,000 pages, benefitting from the cutting-edge educational content, including 20+ bespoke articles developed by Bastion in collaboration with the expert steering committee.

So, before we get into the newest data and news releases in 2024, we are taking pause and reflecting on the journey of CAR-T therapies in Australia, starting with a look at our launch in 2021.

CAR-T Central Launch

The initial launch of CAR-T Central was an important moment for the Australian haematology space. This was a unique platform where a healthcare professional could find impartial information on a new therapy class.

From an initial offering of CAR-T fundamentals and the state of CAR-T in Australia, CAR-T Central developed into a valuable resource with coverage of the latest congresses, breaking news about approvals, and lists of referral centres across Australia. All of this is supported by an expert steering committee driven to share their combined experience and elevate the standard of care available for Australian patients.

Expanding Treatments

The past few years have seen a steady expansion in the number of TGA-approved CAR-T therapies, approved indications, and available funding. There are now four approved therapies in Australia, and this expansion has broadened the benefits of these ground-breaking therapies to more patients and has allowed CAR-T to blossom into an essential tool in the battle against blood cancers.

Alongside the expansion of approved therapies, there has also been a continuation of CAR-T research being conducted on Australian soil. Home to some of the best cancer research centres, Australia has continued pushing CAR-T therapies forward, providing access to ground-breaking treatments and hope for hundreds of patients. Continued participation in key clinical trials ensures that the Australian patient’s needs remain central to CAR-T development.

Expansion of Treating and Manufacturing Facilities

CAR-T is a highly specialised treatment limited primarily to major public hospitals. However, the last two years have seen a steady proliferation of this therapy class from a few select centres. There are now hospitals all over Australia offering CAR-T therapy, improving accessibility and convenience of treatment.

In addition to these expanded facilities, there has also been a marked change in how CAR-T therapies for Australians are manufactured. Two years ago, patients would need to wait for their cells to be transported to North America or Europe. Today, CAR-T therapies are being manufactured on our shores, with the recent expansion of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation facility further expanding capability.

With this expansion in use, a need to educate the haematologists, nurses, pharmacists, cell scientists and any other clinicians involved in supporting patients receiving CAR-T has come. This need will only grow as CAR-T expands across the country, and we are determined to meet this demand.

The Future

The last two years have seen considerable progressions in the proliferation and utilisation of CAR-T in Australia. But the future may be even brighter. Experience with CAR-T treatment is improving our ability to optimise treatment and improve outcomes, “Off-the-shelf” allogeneic CAR-T therapies are showing promise in clinical trials and notable advances are being made to develop CAR-T therapies for solid tumours.

There are a lot of exciting developments on the horizon for the field, and CAR-T Central will grow to meet the needs of Australian healthcare. This includes patient-focused materials, dedicated resources for nurses and pharmacists, and an expansion of our clinical trial coverage.

All of this would not be possible without support from dedicated sponsors driven to enhance the quality of Australian healthcare.
If your organisation is interested in supporting the continued development of CAR-T Central, please reach out at contact@bastionbrands.com.au or call +61 (3) 8592 1234.

Visit https://car-tcentral.com.au/ and register for our newsletter to find out more.

Simon Davies simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545  Dan King  dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0439 190 700    Nick Tsimplis   Senior Medical Writer  nick.tsimplis@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0414877216

Emma Murray’s tips and tools on developing a high-performance mindset. 

Those of us lucky enough to hear Emma Murray’s talk on High-Performance Mindfulness at the recent Melbourne and Sydney Pharma Marketers breakfasts would agree she was one of the very best speakers ever enjoyed at our events.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive – not just because of the profound learnings and vulnerability Emma shared from her own life experiences, but also the practical, everyday steps she armed us with to bring us a little closer to our ‘A-games’.

As the founder of High-Performance Mindfulness, Emma uses mindfulness, psychology and meditation to help people perform at their best, so from elite athletes to team leaders in Pharmaceutical companies, Emma aims to overcome the unhelpful thinking that can sabotage performance and build the mindset to help deliver our very best.

It was good to hear about the value she places on ‘being in the right emotional state for optimal performance’, as this is a value shared by us at Bastion – where we find the right balance between science and emotion in our work.

We tried to break down some of the main tips and tools we all took away from the breakfast session:

• Identifying your ‘A-Game’

We all know that actions lead to results, right? Simple!

But Emma started her talk with a whiteboard explanation, that outlined the importance of ‘Emotional state’ and the profound impact that has on our actions.

Namely, when we perform actions in the ‘wrong’ emotional state, how can we expect high performance results?

A big part of her advice is to identify and ‘control your mindset, to own your skillset ’ and the powerful role your mindset plays in how you perform. – and that included being totally aware of what your ‘A game’ looks like… as opposed to your ‘B-Game’.

To truly understand why our minds keep defaulting to our ‘B-Game’ (and getting trapped there), Emma explained the science behind how our minds work and it’s all to do with our survival wiring – Those ‘fight or flight’ impulses that control most our thoughts – and hard-wire our physiology… and it’s these thoughts and practices that can overwhelm and consume us.

Unhelpful thoughts, drive unhelpful feelings, that drive ineffective action and continue to deliver low-performance results – a cycle Emma calls the ‘B-Game Loop’.

• Stopping the ‘B-Game Loop’.

Getting out of the B-Game Loop represents a paradox to our natural instincts, as our actions are based on ‘survival mode’ – we do what is necessary to ‘get through’.

But to perform at our best no matter how much stress we’re under; how much we fear failure; the opinions of others or our obsessive focus on outcomes, we need to be able to shift from our B-Game into our A-Game.

To do that we need to actually diffuse the internal monologue that tells us to keep on doing what we always do, to survive.

Emma describes finding a ‘STOP’ tool – that works for you and becomes automatic under any level of pressure, involving 3 steps:

1. Stop and Accept the emotional state you are in
2. Do something right here, right now… to change your physiology – try breath work, meditation or mantra.
3. ‘Step’ into your best

• By changing your Motion, you help change your E-Motion

In short, to move from unhelpful ‘B-Game’ thoughts we need to shift our focus and move our bodies.
The word ‘emotion’ means Energy in Motion… it is the energy that is constantly moving between our mind and our body. And if you are in an emotional state that is making you feel scared, bored, tired or anxious then you need to change this emotion… and you do this with ‘motion’, which can include a focussed breathing technique.

When we know how to deliberately, purposefully and consciously regulate our breath- so it doesn’t become dysfunctional and panicked – we can then shut off our stress response… or stop it from kicking in in the first place.

Emma had the whole room stand up and work on some simple breathing techniques that can help us in any situation.

• Overcoming the Overwhelming

When we are in our ‘A-Game’ we’re bringing all of our strengths to the moment to help us execute at our best.

But our B-Game can still creep into our subconscious – after all, this is our innate instinct. This can consume us when we are overwhelmed and feel like we have too many things to get through in life.

Emma talked us through a simple tool called ‘Chunking it Down’ as a practical way to tackle overwhelming schedules and workloads and likened this to a flashlight – where we cannot see anything but the ‘one thing’ that must take our full focus. By shining our light on a single thing, we shift our focus from the insurmountable to the achievable, staying present and not attaching ourselves to outcomes.

For sharing these useful tips and tools toward High-Performance mindfulness, we are sure Emma will be welcome back to the Sydney and Melbourne Pharma Marketing breakfast anytime.

For more information on Emma, visit her website: https://www.highperformancemindfulness.com.au/

Simon Davies  simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545  Bruce Williams  bruce.williams@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0407 359 582

We hope this Pulse finds you well. We are delighted to provide you with a recap of the 2023 Veeva Digital Summit held at the ICC in Sydney, which recently concluded with resounding success. This event brought together some of the brightest minds in the life sciences industry, and we wanted to share the highlights with you.

Key Takeaways:

Innovations in Digital Transformation

The summit featured insightful keynote presentations that explored the latest trends and innovations in digital transformation within the life sciences sector. Speakers emphasized the importance of agility and data-driven decision-making in today’s competitive landscape. Advanced use of data, a strong customer focus, and the use of technology to accelerate engagement were also raised in key note speeches by CEO’s of major pharma companies.

Creativity and Story Telling

To help start conversations we presented Bastion’s views on localising global content in the Content Transformation stream. We believe creating compelling content and telling stories is the key stimulus to create conversations between pharma with HCP’s, and their patients. In our keynote we brought to life our 5 key tips that we’ve learned over 10 years of localising global content.

1. Starting with objectives to design strategy
2. Understanding the customer and their persona
3. Localising the words and visuals to align with customer expectations
4. Optimising performance through objectives driven data and insights
5. Engaging with Regulatory and Compliance early to be efficient and effective

Product Demonstrations

Veeva provided an amazing range of product demonstrations that gave attendees an in-depth understanding of how Veeva’s technology, data and capability can streamline operations and improve efficiency of both R&D and Commercial Pharma operations. These demonstrations were particularly valuable for those seeking to advance their knowledge and understand solutions to their challenges.

Networking Success

The networking for the pharma industry was a highlight of the summit, allowing participants to connect with industry peers, share experiences, and build valuable professional relationships. Many attendees praised the ease of networking in the virtual environment and Veeva also told me this aspect of their summit is highly important.

We would like to express our appreciation to all participants, speakers, and sponsors for contributing to the success of the Veeva Digital Summit. The event was fantastic, and your engagement and enthusiasm made this event a truly enriching experience.

We look forward to continue shaping the future of the life sciences industry together.

Simon Davies simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545  Dan King  dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0439 190 700

Another year of Cannes Lions has come and gone… and in the wash-up, we are left to contemplate where next?

Remembering that the Cannes Lions Awards are all about celebrating creativity, AI played a larger role than ever before, being referenced in the case studies of over 8% of the winning entries as either a key driver of the creativity or a vital tool that helped ‘enhance creativity’.

Other emerging themes included getting back to the fundamentals of building brands and leveraging what makes a brand unique. Part of this move involves authenticity – and brands that showed up as genuine ‘community partners’.

In both examples, this seemed particularly evident in the pharma and health & wellness sections, where involvement in communities often means a better life experience for patients, and can be a starting point for building more effective brand engagement.

A quick glance at the work that won the highest awards shows how innovation and pushing the creative boundaries are still a non-negotiable, but clearly the rise of AI innovation and a more ‘community first’approach, show a seismic shift toward altruistic marketing – delivering tools and services to help raise standards in healthcare – and better outcomes for patients – BEYOND THE MEDICINES.

A great example of this was the Pharma Grand Prix winner, from Brazilian multinational pharmaceutical corporation Eurofarma .

Together with global creative agency Dentsu, they created an AI-powered facial expression recognition experimental tool enabling patients with Parkinson’s disease to practice their prescribed facial exercises doing something they love doing – controlling their social media engagement using facial expressions.

In association with the Brazil Parkinson Association, they developed ‘Scrolling Therapy’, a Facebook and Instagram integrated app which, through the use of AI encourages patients to navigate the feed through their smiles, mouth, nose, forehead and eyebrows movements, and other facial expressions. It’s designed to stimulate vital face-muscle exercise, complementary to other treatments focused on their condition.

See it here https://www.lbbonline.com/news/eurofarmas-scrolling-therapy-is-an-innovative-digital-tool-for-parkinsons-patients

Gold winners in the Pharma category also utilised AI and AR technology, but not as the sole idea behind the campaigns.

The Most Beautiful Sound was a project aimed at getting people to be more aware and bring a new notion of hope to cancer research for ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology). In a left field and very novel way, they re-focussed attention to the cause (of research toward cures for cancer) by inviting people to listen to the sound of cancer cells being destroyed. Contained on its own (stunningly simple) website, you can explore and take a listen here: https://themostbeautifulsound.org/home

Winning silver was a ‘disease awareness’ initiative ‘Outside-In Experiment’ aimed at bringing home the pain of uncontrolled gout to HCPs. While I’m not sure how effective it might have been in getting them to actually recommend the Horizon treatments, it certainly pushes the ability of AI to generate content and in this case take the viewer to a world that resembles an Heironymous Bosch painting!

https://www.outsideingout.com

In the Health & Wellness category we get a little ‘closer to home’ as we look to the Grand Prix winner – an entry from New Zealand. Titled ‘The last Performance’ utilised a brilliant strategy to make us sit and take notice of life insurance in a format we know and understand well. And while there is no clever use of AI or technology, this idea really shows the power of a simple idea done very well, goes a long way to create great interest and even greater results, with web visits up a massive 132% during the campaign.

See what they did here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWKWMcjA-68

And finally one of our favourites (not surprisingly generated by the Havas Global network!) While it’s not commercial in the sense of generating sales, it does a brilliant job raising awareness in a beautifully simple way. It’s also the kind of work that gives us hope in a better world, and wish more clients would think laterally and embrace ideas that we can all share.

In this case, rather than create a beautiful ad, or generate innovative tech, it instead generated incredible interest and piqued curiosity, simply by changing one word to give new meaning to an international icon, which in turn made an iconic difference to a worthy cause.

Take a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GQOAIwGoF8

This case study really does remind us that simplicity is often the best solution. It also reminds us that if you commit to a strong idea – do it well! The ‘official’ nature of this execution is breathtaking and the attention to detail is spectacular! Can you imagine if they had shortcut on anything? The idea would have fallen short… goes to show that one powerful idea often takes a massive team effort to execute to perfection.

There are so many other examples of great work that can be seen from Cannes. A quick visit will show just how much quality work was nominated, and the worthy winners, which are all worth a closer look.

Cannes Lions Awards 2023

If you’d like to know more – and walk through our ‘Best of Cannes 2023’ presentation, get in touch. Who knows, it could be the start of seeing your brand nominated for the 2024 Cannes Awards…

Simon Davies  simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545  Bruce Williams  bruce.williams@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0407 359 582

The pharmaceutical sector, marketing profession, and digital disciplines are awash with jargon and buzzwords.  It’s high time for ‘digital straight talk’ to be implemented.

Jargon overload is leading to our key stakeholders and practitioners become particularly prone to confusing their customers and patients,  when they use buzzwords and digital waffles to make a sale.

As an industry, we need to make the complicated simple. In this article, we identify the major ‘jargon culprits’  and offer some simple advice on how to get to the bottom of what we are really saying.

Acronym Addict

Signature trait: TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms)

You’ll hear: SEO (search engine optimisation), SEM (search engine marketing), CRM (customer relationship management), CRO (conversion rate optimisation)

They mean: Strategies to make customers find and engage with your brand and how much that engagement costs you.

Stage an intervention by asking questions that require direct and acronym-free answers. Try:

>What are the outcomes of this strategy/campaign?

>How has this affected awareness/sales/referral?

>How would you describe our return on investment?

Directing the conversation this way encourages them to use words rather than letters – QED (quod erat demonstrandum, Latin for ‘thus it has been demonstrated’.)

The Futurist

Signature trait: Wants you to think they are tech-savvy.

You’ll hear: AI/artificial intelligence, automation, algorithm, machine learning.

They mean: Tools that can help put your brand in front of greater numbers of more relevant people.

The benefits of a lot of these tools are still emerging, so keep The Futurist on track by pinning the conversation to the functions of the new technology they are recommending. If they cannot explain it in a way you can understand, it usually means they don’t understand it themselves. It takes a true expert to simplify something complex. Do not under any circumstances ask them about specifications until you know and understand what the technology does.

The Strategist

Signature trait: Wants you to see them as intelligent and in tune with customers.

You’ll hear: IA (Information architecture), CX (Customer Experience), UX (User Experience), Omnichannel.

They mean: How people interact with your brand and its products and services.

Place the customer at the centre of your brand’s narrative. If the customer doesn’t know the jargon, The Strategist, if they are who they say they are, should be able to tell that story without using the buzzwords. It’s a trick to make them think like a customer, not a Strategist.

The Data Analyst

Signature trait: Loves assigning meaning to numbers.

You’ll hear: metrics, conversion, meta data, tracking code, analytics.

They mean: The way we measure digital engagement.

Incite an existential crisis by telling them that numbers are meaningless… without context. Have them explain the context before allowing that numbers may, in fact, have meaning after all.

The Creative

Signature trait: Tells rather than shows.

You’ll hear: wireframe, UI (User Interface), front end, parallax.

They mean: The structure on which digital elements are presented, how they look and interact.

Have them visually show you what they mean rather than getting lost in a buzzword forest.

The Developer

Signature trait: Cares more about what they can do than the business requirements.

You’ll hear: CSS, HTML5, PHP, MySQL, Python, AWS, IOS, server, database.

They mean: The programming languages and technology that controls the building of digital outputs.

Have them demonstrate functions and outputs rather than talk about what they think they can do. Do not start a debate about whether Ruby is better than Python because you won’t be talking about bejewelled snakes (fun, irrelevant, and potentially dangerous), you’ll be reigniting a flame war about programming languages (boring, irrelevant, and potentially dangerous).

In the know

When it comes to marketing pharmaceuticals, it’s tempting to use impressive buzzwords. However, this approach can cause confusion and undermine trust among stakeholders and customers. It’s crucial to communicate objectives, scope, and timelines in a clear and straightforward manner. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and fosters productive partnerships that deliver tangible results.

Simon Davies  simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545  Bruce Williams  bruce.williams@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0407 359 582

There’s no doubt that pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing went through a rapid cycle of digital transformation during the pandemic.

Now that we have returned to normality, it’s time to ask how far your digital strategy should reach. How far has your digital offering transformed, if at all? Do you stack up against the new industry benchmarks? Is your organisation leading the way, or falling behind? And most importantly, are you providing your audience of healthcare professionals the best possible digital platforms to make their jobs – and the connection to your brands – as seamless as possible?

You can start to get a better feel of where you stand in terms of digital excellence, by taking note of these five essential considerations for your digital strategy.

1. ALWAYS OPEN, EASILY ACCESSIBLE
Healthcare professionals are busy and work long hours, often shift work. They can view a meeting with a rep as a distraction. Because reps work more restrictive regular business hours, it’s clear we’re limiting sales potential.

Sales reps or medical science liaisons often hear “I am too busy to see you” or they can’t find a suitable time to schedule a meeting with a healthcare professional. The solution? Find a more convenient method to reach clients at a time when they are both ready and willing to listen.

Remove that barrier by giving your target audience the option to access material on demand, 24/7. A digital offering allows clients to access the same information on their terms and according to their availability. Just like we’ve moved from watching TV at a fixed time every week to streaming services, health education and marketing messages must be led by convenience.

2. COMPLEX DATA PRESENTED SIMPLY
Sharing key insights and presenting data in a clear and compelling manner are two important skills your teams need to excel at to be of value to healthcare professionals.

If they struggle to confidently explain complex data, digital content can help enhance the communication process.

Used properly, a digital content strategy will help your audiences more easily find the data most relevant to them. This is especially true of clinical data, which is in great demand when HCPs make decisions around new medicines or therapies.

Digitisation allows for intelligent segmentation beyond demographic, including analysis of attitudes, feelings, thoughts, and behaviours akin to what surveys and research can produce, and can help all delve into the data in new ways.

3. CURRENCY AND IMPACT – THE HUB STRATEGY
We have seen more and more pharma companies utilise the digital hub strategy as a cost-effective way to keep their audience up to date with the latest news and data.

This digital strategy is ideal when you need to update information quickly or leverage a small budget for the biggest exposure. In this scenario, print material is not ideal, and there’s no way to tell if HCPs (and therefore patients) are using outdated material.

Having the material available digitally ensures you can edit clinical data rapidly, control which version people are viewing and share the latest research with a large audience.

4. ENGAGEMENT AND INSIGHTS
While many campaigns focus on awareness, a more valuable measure of success in the digital space is engagement.

Healthcare professionals often don’t want to see sales reps all the time, so digital channels allow brands to track and measure how clients interact with them.

Tactics like content marketing and online support assure your target audience that the rep is still in touch, but at a distance. The power is with your audience to drive the relationship on their terms.

Many healthcare and pharma companies will say they don’t know enough about their clients and would like direct relationships to understand how to serve them better.

Tracking and analysing how clients interact with digital content enables the healthcare and pharmaceutical company to understand the audience better and improve their ability to contextualise marketing efforts. By optimising how we engage and interact with customers, we have the potential to help them improve the quality of patient care.

5: MAXIMISING THE POTENTIAL OF AI
Today there are very few industries that aren’t affected by the increased capability of AI to provide a more personalised and predictive approach to healthcare solutions for patients, and they can also be of benefit to the way we market to and educate healthcare professionals.

A great example of a one-to-one communication opportunity is the friendly chatbot, which can help create a more compelling and helpful digital experience, answer commonly asked questions, and even provide better data analysis depending on the HCP’s needs and questions.

Importantly, they can provide a more personalised and therefore relevant experience for the HCP, allowing them to get the exact answer they want and help them use their time more effectively.

Once you evaluate your patients’ journey, their needs, and the questions they frequently ask (whilst taking privacy and medical guidelines into consideration), you might decide if a chatbot is right for your digital strategy.

Either way, a strong and adaptable digital strategy is a ‘must-have’ for healthcare and pharma brands. How you employ digital tactics in conjunction with your sales team will mark the next era of healthcare marketing innovation.

So, make sure you and your teams are alert to the signs that remind us to leverage the power of digital channels.

Simon Davies simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545 Daniel King dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0440 190 700

How often have you been to an industry event where the first thing the keynote asks is to write a short poem to describe yourself?

Could you write a simple sonnet about yourself or Haiku of what you do?!

That was exactly the task set by Alex Waddleton to the 120 pharmaceutical marketers at the recent Sydney pharmaceutical marketing event in Barangaroo, sponsored by Bastion Brands.

As co-aut­hor of  “Right Brain Workout”, Alex believes we all need to spend time reconnecting with our ‘right brain’ and start thinking more creatively in our day-to-day life and work.

He believes creativity isn’t limited to artists, musicians and writers – but to any profession, including science and pharmaceuticals.

He points to a startling fact that 98% of five-year olds have a genius level of creative problem solving. By adulthood, this figure falls to only 2%.

It’s why Alex’s mission about ­­being creative has never been more important to bringing life-changing ideas to life, unlocking solutions to global issues, helping people connect better and, importantly, making each day just that little bit more fun!

Like writing a poem to describe yourself, his talk outlined many hints, tips and real-life examples of the power of creativity to change behaviour and outcomes.

It led us to thinking of a few ways we could apply this in our day-to-day work in promoting pharmaceutical brands and providing medical education to HCPs.

Here are 3 ways that could help bring more creativity, spark new ideas and maybe help create better campaigns.

1. INJECT MORE EMOTION:

Clearly HCPs make decisions based on data and evidence – after all, they are scientists in a scientific world. But they’re also human and therefore make decisions on strong emotional triggers as well. Like all of us, they have fears, frustrations and desires. Those emotions affect their prescribing decisions and behaviours towards pharmaceutical companies.

While important, it is NEVER just about the data and facts. Injecting emotional content is vital to changing entrenched habits and creating better connections.

The creative question:  Are you maximising the power of emotional content in your marketing campaigns? Take a moment to think of 3 ways you could inject more emotion!

2. WORKSHOP YOUR WORKSHOPS!

We’ve all been in a ‘workshop’ and struggled to stay involved and focussed.  Rather than make them the ‘free-flowing’ environments where ideas thrive, we bog them down in agendas and power-points that miss the mark, and achieve little.

How can you make them more dynamic and alive with creativity?

Start with a 5-minute poem-writing session… ask everyone to sketch and share ‘what they did on the weekend… try some exercises from the right brain workout book… How about some communication starters and ice-breakers that help attendees feel more involved and relaxed and open to broader thinking – and not shutting them down initially because they won’t be ‘approved by Medical’?

Remember: A more effective workshop is one you’ve already ‘workshopped’ to include more opportunities for participants to feel more creative.

3. PUT YOURSELF IN THE PATIENT’S SHOES:

It’s always important to remember why we do what we do – improve patient’s lives. The work we do helps patients recover from serious illness, live with chronic disease, prevent serious disease, have more time with loved ones and have a better life. But it’s easy to forget about this as work tasks take over.

Here’s one simple creative idea that can help re-align our focus. In every meeting, select a member of your team to play ‘the patient’ for the entire meeting. Having a dedicated patient voice in the room could change the discussion and ‘usual’ thinking and help others to better understand the patient POV.

It not only gets the creative juices flowing, but helps everyone realise it’s more than just the medicine.

Developing creative ways to communicate is what we do, all day every day – and we love it. But even we need to take the time to think of different ways to approach things and come up with new creative solutions – or we stagnate and become formulaic.

Staying at the forefront of ways to boost idea generation and maintaining a dynamic, highly creative approach to our day-to-day activities has never been more vital than today.

Simon Davies  simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545  Bruce Williams  bruce.williams@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0407 359 582

Top 5 ways to ‘BE LIVE’ in your marketing.

Bastion Brands has just released results from its third annual survey of Pharma marketing professionals identifying key trends, opportunities, and threats to marketing success.

The findings identified 10 key actions for Pharma marketers to focus on in 2023. Some seem obvious: others may raise a few eyebrows.

A key trend from respondents was to re-embrace the notion to ‘BE LIVE; the ability to efficiently use face-to-face interaction as a means through which we learn, share, communicate and build relationships.

Undeniably, our reliance on the virtual world sky-rocketed during COVID-19 with online communications replacing face-to-face interactions. More recently, the Bastion survey has identified that this ‘rise of the zoom call’ trend is dwindling in the eyes of Pharma marketers, as most survey respondents have now reverted to the ‘old ways’.

This shift has placed face-to-face as a top priority for effective marketing and is a crucial key to success. From our survey results, live events including conferences, educational events, and face-to-face discussions were listed as the most effective tactical activities undertaken within the past six months.

Here’s a quick snapshot of ways to ‘BE LIVE’ and ensure more face-to-face interactions with HCPs?

1: Conferences

The reopening of the traditional conference, in some cases, has been celebrated as a huge milestone. It’s not just the ‘familiarity’ of events and a chance to showcase data and new products, but also the networking opportunities they bring.

2: Live events

While COVID put a hold on these – and the rise of the webinar swept the industry – the live event is now back. Many respondents said these would become a focus of their marketing, with smaller, more intimate meetings planned for short and long term.

3: Lunch/Dinners

A more intimate, highly targeted approach that many marketers are employing is the group lunch or dinner presentations that ensure the right people are connecting with your marketing. And while they may prove to be a harder event to convince attendance, the rewards are highly regarded.

4: Sales rep calls

Having sales teams back on the road was a huge benefit for many respondents who said their teams were, in many cases, ‘welcomed back’ in a big way. The personal interconnectivity was and always will be a vital part of marketing. As one survey respondent highlighted, ‘[It’s] easier to convey value or message when in a face-to-face meeting with a good relationship with [the] customer.’

5: Internal conferences

This was of particularly high appeal to many respondents. The need to create a strong culture based on real, rather than virtual, interaction was seen as absolutely vital to success. Large investments were, and continue to be, made to ensure the team is aligned on key messages, selling techniques, presentation of marketing collateral, and team bonding exercises to build stronger relationships at the grass roots levels.

These are the Top 5 ways that you can ‘BE LIVE’ as much as possible, an approach now being embraced by key marketers in Australia.

What are some of the ways your business is BEING LIVE?

If you would like help in aligning your marketing efforts towards any of these reasons, please call the team at Bastion Brand for more information.

Simon Davies simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545  Bruce Williams bruce.williams@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0407 359 582

No-one knows how to get your message through to HCPs better than HCPs, so we asked them. Results from a recent survey reveal the top five ways HCPs say pharma companies can cut-through and communicate more effectively with them.

1. Provide content-on-demand.

Integral to effective Pharma marketing is the nexus between content and the medium through which the target audience consumes that content.

HCPs are consumers, just like we are. They want to consume media at times that work best for them.

With face-to-face communication more challenging than it has traditionally been, HCPs are leaning to on-demand content for information.

They want the ability to access content when they have the time and head space to do so. It’s about making your content available in the channels they use, and want to engage in.

Questions: Do you know which channels your target HCPs want to receive information from you? Are you delivering your content in the right way for those channels?

2. Make your messaging personalised

Delivering content through the channels your HCP wants to receive it is a good first step. But it is not enough.

Ensuring content is framed in the right way, with the right messaging for your audience’s position on the customer journey is absolutely critical to cut-through and impact.

Understanding your ‘target audience’ is essential to the most relevant personalisation of content. In healthcare marketing, this strategy involves a complete awareness of the HCPs role, the treatments they prescribe, who they prescribe to and what drives them in their field of expertise.

Questions: Do you know your target audience well enough? Do you have the right messaging shaped for the different stages of the customer journey?

3. Put their needs first (omni-channel marketing)

While most HCPs won’t be aware of the terminology, a good omni-channel strategy will place them at the forefront of the communication.

This is why omni-channel communication strategy is quickly proving critical in the healthcare marketing space. Unlike regular multi-channel marketing that focuses specifically on where customers will see content, omni-channel marketing further conceptualises how customers engage with content.

It also allows for the high-level personalisation of content and the production of qualitative data.

It means developing tailored messages, mediums of communication and frequency of information to specific, categorised target audiences. HCP’s benefit from this omni-channel experience as they are provided with engaging and effective content at an individual level, with content filtered to provide personalised, customer focused information.

Questions: Is your omni-channel marketing strategy genuinely omni-channel, or a multi-channel plan in disguise?

4. Be compelling with your storytelling

The most powerful way to connect emotionally is through a well told story. The art of storytelling has never been more important than it is today in connecting audiences and having a genuine impact.

Stories and anecdotes about those affected positively by your treatment will be more powerful than mere statistics.

Use stories to engage your audiences with authentic narratives around how the treatment was developed, how it works, how HCP’s support it, and ultimately the transformative effect it has on the patients and people in their lives.

Question: Are you leveraging the power of storytelling in your marketing?

5. Leave them wanting more

Elevate your content to leave your audience wanting more. A simple and effective strategy is to brand your content like a ‘mini-series’. This may also involve ‘teasers’ or ‘previews’ to link through to more in-depth content.

The enticement of learning and the interest in wanting further information collides in content that is produced in a series format, and consequently leads to returning consumers.

For example, early in the COVID-19 crisis, Bastion Brands interviewed doctors who were on the frontline of the virus. The series incorporated KOLs in different countries and how their patients were affected by the pandemic. Each interview was released in episodes This form of information proved successful in attracting and maintaining an intrigued audience.

Question: Are you intriguing your audiences enough to keep returning for more of your content?
Would you like to better engage with your HCPs? Get in touch with Bastion Brands today

Simon Davies simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545 Bruce Williams bruce.williams@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0407 359 582

It’s a brave new world for pharmaceutical product launches, and a challenge to keep existing products in front of healthcare professionals and patients.

Traditional launch activities, such as visiting healthcare professionals or launch events at conferences, have either gone, or have evolved significantly to hybrid formats. Pharmaceutical marketers must now rethink how to launch and keep momentum alive in this new reality; a hybrid world where in-person interactions are reduced and digital activities are filling the gap.

Here are four steps to launch effectively and support your brand during the product lifecycle.

1. Preparation Healthcare professional and end-patient ‘customer journeys’ have radically changed. The way to reach them – at the right time, with the right message and with the right frequency – has also changed. Research is key. There is no substitute for effective pre-launch preparation. Closely examine the market, your competitors, and your customers. Focus on your product’s point-of-difference, how it can be positioned in the segment and, critically, what it means for healthcare professionals and patients. For example, if you were launching an oncology product today, it would be critical to focus on the differentiators, impact to clinical practice, and ultimately, patients’ lives – particularly the benefits it uniquely offers, both medical and emotional. Create insightful communication experiences that meet your customers ‘where they are’ and make it easy for them to be taken on a journey with you. Put your customer at the centre of your communications to develop integrated and effective plans. As one approach, Bastion Brands’ Stand, Story, Strategy formula is an effective way to develop a robust strategy and implementation plan for a brand. This ‘science and emotion’ branding methodology helps align your product in context so you can launch effectively, no matter the environment. 2. Launch Focus on the critical success factors that are actionable, aligned, and realistic for your product launch. In our oncology example, instead of taking a broad approach, you can be more targeted and appeal to cancer researchers and educators. This has a positive follow-on effect on oncologists, and related healthcare professionals. Collaborate with key opinion leaders in the right therapeutic areas to advocate the data that supports the product. Many of the traditional pathways to launch have changed. It’s therefore important for pharmaceutical brands to consider the best way to secure engagement through an omnichannel approach. Our research over the past three years, Trends in Pharma Marketing survey, has consistently shown that respondents rate their omnichannel marketing capability as ‘very important’ (8 on a scale of 10), but that execution leaves much to be desired due to tepid effectiveness (around 5-6 on a scale of 10). Omnichannel marketing requires consistent messaging through multiple channels to reach stakeholders. This means it’s critical to effectively use the latest technology and ‘outside-the-box’ content ideas to create memorable brand experiences. Elements may include: > Key opinion leader mapping within therapy areas > Customer journey mapping > Patient case studies > Owned and paid media materials > Internal and external launch materials > Virtual product launch meetings > Steering committee-led medical education webinars > Remote learning opportunities; and > Continuing professional development accreditation and peak body consultation. 3. Acceleration This phase is probably the most difficult in the current climate considering the advent of communication fatigue. Nevertheless, it’s critical to keep your product’s point-of-difference front of mind with your key stakeholders, and to ensure your communications stand out from the crowd. Drive the uptake of your product post-launch by leveraging advocates, optimising marketing materials and building the next chapter in your brand’s story. Perhaps take a hybrid approach: in some locations it may be safe to hold a conference where some people attend in person, and those who are unable to – attend virtually. Be sure to revise marketing materials, including advertising and advertorials. Consider the changing information needs of your customers in the months after a launch. Continually evolve your understanding of customers and step up your messaging to revitalise the presentation of your product offering. You can also adapt the scope of your campaign. If you’ve started with a mass digital approach, what could you do to add a personal, tangible touch? Service offerings ‘beyond-the-pill’ are hugely effective here and keep you differentiated and relevant. 4. Maximisation By this stage, you will have gathered data and insights from the first few months of your campaign. This is the point at which you should use what you have learnt to maximise opportunities and profitability in a mature market. Some of this depends on risk appetite. If you have started the campaign by focusing on one segment of the market, for example the cancer researchers and educators, you can broaden your scope to include healthcare professionals and cancer patients. In this case you can recontextualise the narrative of your campaign to be more inclusive. Another tactic is to find complementary areas to shift the perception of your product. For instance, if your product is pharmaceutical, you are likely to have focused on highlighting the medical benefits. Now is the time to consider including more emotional storytelling such as sharing clinical experiences, real-world case studies, and patient testimonials. Pharmaceutical marketers are operating in a dynamic market where healthcare professional and patient behaviour is increasingly unpredictable. All products need thorough preparation to identify the right communications strategy for launch before you navigate through the acceleration and maximisation phases of the lifecycle. Simon Davies simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0402 425 545 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simondaviesbastion/   Dan King dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au M: 0439 190 700

While Covid lockdowns and vaccines continue to grab the spotlight, there’s significant change happening behind the scenes in pharma marketing.

Covid has been a huge catalyst for the sector and has accelerated the rate of innovation and transformation within sales and marketing channels.

The opportunity to enhance the physical sales experience with well-crafted digital tools has opened up significant growth potential for pharma marketers doing it well.

Here are three critical ways to address these emerging pharma marketing trends.

1. Develop a hybrid marketing strategy

With reps unable to see clients during lockdown, virtual sales and marketing became a primary channel for many brands in 2020 (and in Sydney, even more so in 2021). However, despite its many advantages – flexibility, data capture and scale – the virtual channel still falls short of face-to-face interactions where personal chemistry and connection can drive the relationship.

The most effective pharma sales reps impart the science while delivering the ‘sell’ using emotion. That’s why an improved hybrid version of virtual and face-to-face methods should be a priority for brands, building on the best of both worlds.

This could include self-directed presentations, videos, interactive visual content, webinars and live Q&A sessions conducted virtually. Reps should continue to spearhead the relationship, while leveraging a bespoke suite of sophisticated marketing material.

2. Account for the changing user experience

Sales reps are travelling less and conducting comparatively far more calls online or on the phone.

This is a different user experience for healthcare professionals. As with any change, some will embrace the flexibility. With others, it may take more time and effort to build rapport.

The key here is providing a broad range of content to appeal to healthcare professionals across the spectrum. And its delivery – both virtually and in person – must be done without losing its meaning or significance. Accounting for the ways in which stakeholders like to acquire information, and providing adequate depth of detail, will help to ease them into the new user experience.

3. Streamline your channels

Many of the in-person channels are likely to take time before they return to pre-Covid frequency, so expect fewer conferences, expos and networking events for at least the next two years. Instead, use carefully crafted virtual experiences to bridge the gap.

This is a prime opportunity to ensure your messaging is consistent and streamlined across all channels for optimum impact.

There were many ‘digital channel sceptics’ prior to Covid. Now, even the most traditional companies are embracing and supporting digital marketing. However, just because most are now ‘online’, it does not mean all are leveraging the channel well or to its full impact potential.

The priority for brands should now be astute investment in digital channels to ensure it is being refined to deliver powerful sales and marketing results.

The role of sales reps is likely to continue to evolve as we refine virtual selling. What won’t change is their role in delivering the must-have ‘emotion’ needed to sell. Digital channels can certainly handle the communication of the science, but the emotional side is still best handled by humans.

The ability to enhance the physical sales experience with digital tools has opened up many growth opportunities for pharma marketers. It’s a vibrant opportunity for pharma marketers to deliver sales information to healthcare professionals in a more compelling way. This new approach to hybrid sales and marketing is not a pandemic stopgap.

It’s going to be central and a positive addition to pharma marketing for the future.

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

Bastion Brands, Australia’s leading healthcare marketing and education specialists have launched CAR-T Central, Australia’s first dedicated medical education website for healthcare professionals to explore the cutting-edge innovations in CAR-T therapy.

With pharmaceutical companies in a global race to introduce CAR-T therapies into the market to treat different types of cancer, Bastion Brands saw the essential need for a resource to help Australian healthcare professionals stay up to date on the latest trends in this new field of study which has only been present in Australia since 2018. The site is supported by industry leaders in the CAR-T therapeutic area.

Speaking of the CAR-T Central announcement, Simon Davies, founder and Chief Executive of Bastion Brands, says, “This website has been 12 months in development, bringing together experts in the field to create an independent source of information on the manufacture of CAR-T cells, the treatment procedure, practical guidance on the clinical use of CAR-T cell therapy, and the latest relevant publications and conference presentations.”

“We are launching to 1,000 haematologists, oncologists and other healthcare professionals specialising in this space and are confident we will be shining a focus on the revolutionary cancer treatment which will only continue to grow as it innovates.”

Associate Professor Emily Blyth (Clinical Lead for immune effector cells at Westmead Hospital), who is the chair of CAR-T Central’s Steering Committee, says, “The launch of CAR-T Central will support frontline clinicians’ education on the new CAR-T cell therapy treatments on offer and being created in Australia. The site provides access to unbiased and well-researched information and will support healthcare professionals to make decisions on appropriate referrals for CAR-T therapy for their patients. It’s also available for quick access for clinical staff who might have contact with patients through their treatment journey.”

To read more about CAR-T cell therapy and gain insights into the tremendous innovations in the industry, healthcare professionals can go to the CAR-T Central website at:
www.car–tcentral.com.au.

About CAR-T Cell Therapy

Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a new form of immunotherapy that utilises genetically engineered T-cells, generally the patient’s own T-cells, to directly target cancer cells.

Currently there are over 17 different CAR antigens being investigated in non-active and ongoing clinical trials with CAR-T for haematological malignancies, with CD19 being the most frequently targeted antigen. There are also active clinical trials of CAR-T to at least 22 antigens for the treatment of solid tumours.

Two therapies are registered for use in Australia, Kymriah^® (tisagenlecleucel) for the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and Yescarta^® (axicabtagene ciloleucel) and Kymriah^® for the treatment of B-cell lymphoma. Initially CAR-T cell therapy was only available at the Peter McCallum Cancer Centre in Victoria, since its introduction the treatment has become available at a number of centres throughout Australia.

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

When it comes to creativity and brand recognition, nothing packs the punch like airing an ad at Super Bowl.

For many, watching the commercials have become as entertaining as watching the big game. A 2020 survey revealed that almost 71% enjoyed watching the commercials.¹ Not to mention the online and social buzz leading up to the first screenings.

But reaching the promised 200 million plus eyeballs doesn’t come cheap, with the cost of a 30 second spot this year averaging US$6.5 million. Throw in agency creative, production, filming and celebrity endorsement fees and it becomes the type of investment you want to be sure makes a touchdown.

It’s literally ‘rarefied air’ – exclusive to the select few brands that can afford the price of entry…

But this year saw some new players taking the field alongside the chip, beer, and soft drink staples, with almost 40% advertising for the first time. These included numerous Crypto platforms, tech services and no less than five electric car makers.

The great news – reflecting the shift in direct to consumer health messaging and on-demand care – is that 3 health and wellness brands also stepped up for the ‘big dance’, and pitted their creativity against the very best…

So how did they stack up?

While overall I was blown away by the level of creativity and sheer entertainment value of most the ads, I felt I would only ‘judge’ the health entries. That said, I do have some personal favourites that I’ll reveal at the end of the article. But first, let’s look at the 3 health brands who were very brave in choosing to air their messaging on a day the audience collectively consume over 1.42 billion² (yes billion!) chicken wings and gulp an estimated 325.5 million gallons of beer on Super Bowl Sunday!

Planet Fitness “What’s Gotten into Lindsay?”

This spot starring former sensation Lindsay Lohan seems at first to follow the trend of many others, where the idea seems to be to load up on as many celebs as possible – in this ad you’ll find five. And while many will say that’s overkill, the ad still feels sharp, snappy and tight – like the new Lohan herself. The celebrities aren’t just there as spokespeople, but feel they belong in Lindsay’s brave new ‘Fitacular’ world…
The other interesting idea here is that being fit makes you stronger and ‘fitter’ in body, but also in other aspects of your life. A feel-good ad that makes you want to go get fit.

Rating 7.5/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnoVFlMMdK8

Hologic “Her Health is Her Wealth”

Med-tech company advert features singer and actress Mary J. Blige making time for a wellness check-up amid her busy schedule.
And while this ad lacks the laughs and fun of your classic Super Bowl variety, it’s an emotional reminder of how important it is for everyone to prioritize self-care, even if you are a celebrity.
The ad is beautifully clear and well balanced, and Blige brings a very real sense of vulnerability. The moment her doctor gives the ‘all clear’ – we feel an emotional lift and sense of relief in knowing everything is ok. We’ve all been there before.
A bonus for the company was that Blige also performed during the Super Bowl halftime show, (the only woman) alongside Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre.

Rating 8/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yn8yn6WOP4

Cue Health “Meet Cue”

Not surprisingly, viewers couldn’t quite get through the day without a reminder that we are still living in a pandemic. Seeking to generate instant awareness of their at home Covid testing device, Cue Health developed a very clever little ad which opens with a mum talking to her kid about COVID testing.
As the kid runs to get the test, a story develops around the ‘smart health device’, Cue. With the voice of Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, she introduces herself to the other smart devices in the home, “I’m Cue, and I’m here to protect the family.” The other smart devices – speaker, camera, vacuum, and thermostat all “warm up to Cue,” once they know she’s there to protect the family’s most valuable asset: it’s health.
I really liked the way they linked Cue as the most important ‘essential device’ in a modern home for modern families, playing on the emotions of protection, combined with hi-tech science no family can do without.

Rating 9/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqgaQ9WnJSI

So that’s my take on the Health advertising at the Super Bowl. New players really did make an impact. But how did they stack up to the others?

Consumer search data company, EDO scored the Super Bowl ads by measuring online searches for the advertised brand or product in the minutes following the ad airing, to see which drove the strongest customer engagement. The ultimate rankings this year surprised many.

Coming out on top was electric car manufacturer Polestar’s powerful and plain-speaking ad that reminded me of an Apple iPhone release meets action marvel movie trailer vibe – that ended up being more effective than many of the more ‘creative’ ads to win the best performing ad at the Super Bowl this year.
Cue Health’s 30-second commercial was placed second among all Super Bowl advertisers in terms of how well it drove people to search and engage with the brand online.
1. Polestar – No Compromises
2. Cue Health – Meet Cue
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Amazon)
4. Kia – Robo Dog (EV6)
5. Nissan – Thrill Ride (Nissan Z)
6. Coinbase – QR in Technicolor
7. Toyota – The Joneses (Tundra)
8. Disney+ – Moon Knight
9. Netflix – The Adam Project
10. Chevrolet – All-Electric Silverado

As for the rest, I do love the Pringles spot for its bizarre and detailed storytelling… great tagline and song to match… truly out there…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1WAIHNMzQ8
The Salesforce ad for its ‘reading of the room’ insights about what we need to be doing in society right now…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIp251KCz6k
and the ad many have dubbed the best, this stunningly simple ad for Polestar EV. Gets the heart racing for sure…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4QI0VzbkHk

If you have a few moments spare, check out all the Super Bowl ads online. It’s well worth the search for 30 seconds of fantastic entertainment.

If you would like to share Bastion’s ‘Top 10’, arrange a time for our Super Bowl presentation today – we’ll even supply the chicken wings.
 
Bruce Williams is ECD at Bastion Brands.

References:
1. Public perception of Super Bowl ads in the U.S. 2020. Published by A. Guttmann Oct 19, 2021
2. National Chicken Council’s (NCC) 2022 Wing Report, https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/americans-projected-to-eat-1-42-billion-chicken-wings-for-super-bowl-lvi/

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Bruce Williams
bruce.williams@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0407 359 582

Bastion Brands Executive Creative Director Bruce Williams argues positivity and understanding are the keys to enhancing the power of human connection in healthcare advertising.

If you’ve been thinking there’s a lot of ‘sameness’ to the look and feel of marketing campaigns these days, you would not be wrong.

COVID has changed the way we communicate. It has been a great ‘leveller’ in that today we are much more sensitive to respect and understand the state of mind of our audience.

No truer is this than in health care, where the tone and voice of messaging has been decidedly more serious and inclusive than ever.

How often over the past year have we seen the words ‘We’re all in this together’ or ‘In unprecedented times like these…’

Focus On The ‘Good’

Given the grim nature of the global health outlook, it’s not surprising that we are looking for messages that say the opposite. We don’t want to be reminded of the ‘bad’: we want to focus on the ‘good’.

Key words like ‘hope’, ‘optimism’, ‘care’ and ‘support’ are the new ‘buzz words’ when we talk how brands desire to be perceived.

In terms of creative execution, it’s often hard to evaluate with accuracy the trends in marketing. However, a recent search and sales data report from global stock image provider Getty Images has revealed a profound shift in what advertisers are seeking to share with their customers.

Big Shift In Messaging

The results from a March 2021 survey of more than 10,000 consumers and professionals in 13 languages across 26 countries*, were striking.

The report showed searches around ‘mental health’ had jumped into the top 10 in 2020 (from only the top 20 in 2019), a clear reflection on the importance of the issue we face today.

Additionally, a sharp surge in searches around ‘support’ (+63%) and ‘kindness’ (+84%) highlight the desire we now have for sharing positive imagery and messaging.

In short, image searches reveal that content is shifting from depression and distress, to reflect a more optimistic and hopeful outlook.

Arguably, this makes it even more difficult for brands to truly differentiate, however there are still three golden rules to making sure your marketing is hitting the right tone.

BE AUTHENTIC: BE REAL

The Getty Images report revealed 79% of consumers are wanting companies to “not just show people of different ethnicities… but capture true lifestyles and cultures.”

It’s just one element of realism that can help your brand feel like it understands and is in tune with real life.

Another consideration might be, where possible, to use actual patients (and therefore create photo assets that are unique to your brand). This approach resonates much more with target audiences, with the key focus on their story and how your brand has enabled a transformation or change within the individual.

BE INCLUSIVE

The Getty Images report also highlighted the need for inclusivity, “with eight in 10 saying they’re expecting brands to be consistently committed to inclusivity and diversity.”

Once again, the results tie back to a desire from consumers for brands to go beyond the tokenistic: to the authentic. If done well, you reach a level of relatability that will resonate greater with the Australian consumer.

BE MORE THAN JUST LIP SERVICE

Finally, don’t just say, DO!

Sweeping statements are easy to make. Proving them and demonstrating the reality will provide true stickiness.

So, from saying ‘we’re all in this together’, to then showing what that means. The ‘here’s what we’re doing to help you’, is a vital step. It’s actually the step that says ‘we aren’t just in this for the money, we are in this because we actually care and ultimately want what’s best for the people that touch our brand – both internally and externally.’

While the world has searched for images and words that describe positivity, optimism and hope, the brands that go the next step and actually offer that in real terms are the ones that will flourish.

At its core, the promise of pharmaceuticals is that they will make people better – not just feel better, but actually protect, provide relief and cure.

When you think about it, that ‘new car feeling’, or confidence you’ve chosen the right insurance pales to insignificance when you have been cured of a disease or in remission, thanks to the right treatments and drugs.

‘Hope’ is a core word to start the process. More importantly, positive and real outcomes, inclusivity of your customers and demonstrating how you are helping them on their journey is how your customers will truly remember you.

*GETTY IMAGES, Visual Storytelling in the time of COVID-19: How to maximise your brand’s impact on consumers webinar, March 22, 2021

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Bruce Williams
bruce.williams@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0407 359 582

With the COVID-19 pandemic as our inciting event, pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing has been through a rapid cycle of digital transformation.

If you are wondering how far your digital strategy should reach, take note of these five signs that indicate you need better digital support.

1. Availability – 24/7

Healthcare professionals are busy and work long hours, often shift work. They can view a meeting with a rep as a distraction. Because reps work more restrictive regular business hours, it’s clear we’re limiting sales potential.

Sales reps or medical science liaisons often hear “I am too busy to see you” or they can’t find a suitable time to schedule a meeting with a healthcare professional. The solution? Find a more convenient method to reach clients at a time when they are both ready and willing to listen.

Remove that barrier by giving your target audience the option to access material on demand, 24/7. A digital offering allows clients to access the same information on their terms and according to their availability. Just like we’ve moved from watching TV at a fixed time every week to streaming services, health education and marketing messages must be led by convenience.

2. Accessibility

In light of in-person meetings and events being cancelled throughout 2020 and into 2021, the marketing sector has focused its efforts on making content and networking more accessible through digital channels. If your audiences are saying things like, “it’s too far away”, “will the conference go ahead this year?”, “we can’t have these people sit in the same room”, then consider whether a digital solution can bridge the gap.

Having a digital strategy to enhance your in-person operations can be a game-changer, particularly for smaller brands. In the past, the organisations with bigger sales teams could cover more areas. Having a sharp digital component can negate that edge. Video conferencing, webinars and screen recording are just some of the ways brands are digitising content.

As an added benefit, it opens up access for prospects with smaller travel budgets, as well as healthcare professionals from regional and remote parts of the country.

3. Complexity made simple

Sharing key insights and presenting data in a clear and compelling manner are two important skills the sales rep or liaison needs to excel at to be of value to healthcare professionals. If your team struggles to confidently explain complex data, digital content can help enhance the communication process. Used properly, a digital content strategy will help your target audiences more easily find the most relevant data to them. This is especially true of clinical data, which is in great demand when marketing a brand-new medicine or therapy.

Digitisation allows for intelligent segmentation beyond demographic, including analysis of attitudes, feelings, thoughts and behaviours akin to what surveys and research can produce, and can help all delve into the data in new ways.

4. Currency and impact

A digital strategy is ideal for when you need to update information quickly or leverage a small budget for the biggest exposure. In this scenario, print material is stagnant and there’s no way to tell if the clients and patients are using outdated material. Having the material available digitally ensures you can edit clinical data rapidly, control which version people are viewing and share the latest research with a large audience.

5. Engagement and insights

Many campaigns focus on awareness. A more valuable measure of success is engagement. Healthcare professionals often don’t want to see sales reps all the time, so digital channels allow brands to track and measure how clients interact with them. Tactics like content marketing and online support assures your target audience that the rep is still in touch, but at a distance. The power is with your audience to drive the relationship on their terms.

Many healthcare and pharma companies will say they don’t know enough about their clients and would like direct relationships to understand how to serve them better. Tracking and analysing how clients interact with digital content enables the healthcare and pharma company to understand the audience better and improve their ability to contextualise marketing efforts. By optimising how we engage and interact with customers, we have the potential to help them improve the quality of patient care.

A digital strategy is a ‘must-have’ for healthcare and pharma brands. It is not a stopgap to cover for COVID-19. How you employ digital tactics in conjunction with your sales team will mark the next era of healthcare marketing innovation. Make sure you and your teams are alert to the signs that remind us to leverage the power of digital channels.

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

The Government’s communication around Covax is off to a solid start – but we need to avoid the big mistake made by similar campaigns in other countries.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of an emotional connection.

Why is emotion critical in effective communications?

Persuasion is about finding the sweet spot between science and emotion – in being informative, and in stimulating an emotional response. Ninety percent of the reasons a human being makes a decision is based on emotion, ten percent on logic.

So, what’s the problem?

Governments around the world are struggling with persuading hesitant populations to have the Covax injection because communication is too fact-based.

At the core of vaccine hesitancy are perceptions about risk and safety: Does the person feel at risk of catching Covid? Do they believe its impacts could be serious? And, do they believe the vaccine is safe and effective?

Hesitancy is not due to lack of information. More information does not ensure more uptake. Underpinning hesitancy is a deep-rooted mistrust of vaccinations. In fact, in the US, one-third of Americans say they ‘probably or definitely’ would refuse the vaccine.

The good news is that Australia has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. Vaccinating is an Australian social norm. For vaccines to be effective in ending pandemics, vaccination rates will need to exceed 70% of the population, minimum.

Covid-19 has changed the stakes.

While an overwhelming majority of Australians plan to get the Covax vaccine, Newspoll reports a significant 25% of voters said they would refuse vaccination or were undecided. Levels of scepticism are high in the community.

Populations are concerned about how scientists have managed to deliver safe Covid-19 vaccinations in just 10 months. Misinformation about the efficacy and safety of the various vaccines on the market abound.

Fear and uncertainty are building.

The Five Covax Communications Success Factors

Since the attitudes and behaviours associated with vaccination are very malleable, the Covax uptake will be significantly impacted by the effectiveness of communications, based around these five most critical communications imperatives.

1. Storytelling – Tell stories, don’t just inundate with facts 

The most powerful way to connect emotionally with a human being is through stories.

Stories and anecdotes about those affected positively by vaccinations are more likely to be effective than statistics. People want to hear about other people.

Understanding and harnessing the power behind storytelling needs to be the central persuasive marketing tool as Governments roll-out the vaccine.

Early stories can be around how the vaccines were developed, how they work, how HCPs are supporting them, and then- as positive case studies emerge – stories of success.

2. Turn up the ‘MICRophones’ – Most important Covax Referrers 

Who do we listen to most in a crisis? Our HCP’s. So, a recommendation from an HCP could be the strongest determinate of a vaccine’s acceptance.

HCPs are the most critical influencers and trusted advisors in vaccine confidence.

Communicating to HCPs about the vital role they play in talking to and reassuring patients about the need to have the vaccine is central to Covax success in Australia.

3. Right message for each audience – One size does not fit all 

When it comes to Covax messaging, tailoring communication to each audience is critical. One message will simply not work with all groups we need to persuade. Each person’s vaccine journey is different based on their priority stage, and level of motivation.

How well a particular message will be received depends on a variety of factors, including an individual’s political affiliation, race, ethnicity, age and location. Key to bespoke messaging per audience will be identifying their major concerns.

Simply telling people, “the science says it’s fine” is unlikely to prove a winning strategy. And campaigns that attempt to shame people into receiving the vaccine will be met with the same scepticism. Instead, emphasize what can be gained from immunity, and open up the dialogue, allowing people to voice their addressable concerns.

4. Right messenger for the right audiences – maximise influencer impact

The right influencers and opinion leaders are powerful, credible persuaders with defined audiences. It’s critical that communications carefully matches influencers with audiences where they resonate, have credibility, are seen as role models and will have a positive impact. Again, one size does not fit all.

For example, Lady Gaga would be a powerful influencer with certain groups, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with quite different audiences, cricketer Steve Smith with others. Influencers and opinion leaders can make a big and positive difference to Covax uptake. Just make sure the match-making is spot on.

5. Make Vaccinating Highly Visible – familiarity creates acceptance

Distributing vaccinations where people spend considerable time is important. The Government’s plans to enlist pharmacies around Australia, for example, to provide Covax vaccinations is a perfect example of this.

In some centres in the UK, local cathedrals have been used, or other central high traffic venues of note. The key is for people to see other people getting vaccinated. It’s a highly effective way of overcoming the trust issue. People tend to think and act like their friends and families, which encourages adoption of behaviour.

Following these 5 key points will help ensure a successful Covax uptake, but the most important factor to remember is the emotional aspects of the communication.

While we are all numbers, we are people first – and this cannot be forgotten when widespread uptake is critical for us as a community.

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

While 2020 was a year no one could have predicted, we thought it’d be a great time to dust off the crystal ball and look optimistically to what 2021 might hold.

Bastion Brands reached out to some of the pharma industry’s key marketing people and asked them 5 questions about Pharmaceutical Marketing in general, and how they are marketing their brands in the wake of 2020 and the tsunami of change this has brought to the landscape… here’s what they told us.

1. What is your biggest learning from 2020? 

Unanimously these responses followed the fact that F2F interactions are a thing of the past. And while many were slow to adapt tactics, HCPs seemed – and continue – to be very open to online sales calls.

“Pharma has forever relied on F2F interactions… but now we need to better blend F2F and other channels of marketing… to adapt, move forward quickly and optimise all relevant marketing channels to ensure your strategy holds up regardless of the situation.”

“…together we have accelerated the relationship away from a transactional to a partnership one… there is scope to build further trust as pharma were seen as the ‘good guys’ during 2020 by being more transparent, trusting and open with customers.”

2. What is the biggest shift to how you market? 

Without conference activity and virtually every interaction being been done without reps in front of HCPs for the last 6 months, the shift has seen more reliance on digital, email and tele comm’s – and will continue to be a focus.

“The way forward will be finding that balance between digital and face to face and show a strong commitment to bringing value beyond just product and price.”

3. What is the largest mistake you see being made in pharma marketing today? 

Most responses pointed out that ‘learnings’ had been made rather than ‘mistakes’, once the reliance on F2F marketing was compromised.

“COVID really highlighted the gaps pharma had. To its credit, most organisations have adapted quickly and are now learning how to better interact without F2F calls… In the past there hasn’t been the pressure to nail these channels because we have always had our core F2F business interactions.”

And that… “there was still too much conservatism from the company (not necessarily marketing)… all too readily saying ‘no, I don’t think so’, instead of ‘how can we?’…”

4. With regard to the changes you have made to your marketing mix since COVID 19, what are you going to continue with, in 2021?

Most agreed the new mix would entail a blend of F2F, virtual and phone calls.

“…it will continue to increase our transparency and value.”

“Each of these platforms require a different skill with regards to how to deliver your product story and messages effectively. Not only do we need to have a story for our F2F calls, we need one for virtual and phone calls to make them just as engaging.”

5. What is your number one priority in 2021? 

Most responses were focused on building on the new channels and relationships developed throughout COVID.

“Maximising the use of different channels to ensure content can be received by HCPs in their preferred way,” and “Solidifying our existing customer base to protecting against competitors entering the market.”

Interestingly a few responses pointed out that building even stronger relationships was a priority.

“Taking some risks and trusting our customers to continue the journey with us to win-win situations.”

In summary, 2020 has been a huge learning curve for all of us – especially in navigating the use of new channels. This learning will continue to develop in 2021, with the focus on bringing more meaningful interactions to those channels.

Throughout 2020 Bastion Brands have helped our clients navigate and execute effectively across all channels. If you’d like to see some case studies or take a more detailed look at our survey answers, please contact us for more.

Maybe we can help you build a more effective approach to your marketing in 2021 and beyond.

If you are interested in a marketing effectiveness game-plan, reach out to:

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

From leveraging new technologies to rethinking how and when we connect, a lot has been learned about what it takes to engage healthcare audiences, collect data and drive commercial outcomes online.

From over five months of primary research, here are five things you can do to get an effective edge on your healthcare marketing right now:

1. Host a (great) virtual event  

With this year’s big-ticket events cancelled or postponed, now is the time to bridge your audience engagement gap with a live virtual event. What makes for a great live event or webinar? Useful, topical educational content, audience engagement through live Q&A, the option to enjoy on-demand, and the ability to collect data – through surveys, live polls and post-event feedback.

2. Keep content short and sharp

The human attention span averages around eight seconds. Short, sharp ‘snippets’ of video content with a clear message and call to action is key. For ultimate effectiveness in half the time, answer your HCPs questions upfront: ‘Who was the patient, what was their prognosis, what treatment and dose, what was the outcome and what did you do next?’.

3. Make ‘Useful’ your priority  

In a content-heavy world, we all need to be smarter in how we present our content to engage HCPs and ‘get them online’. The most effective healthcare marketers collaborate to solve real-world problems, have discussions around practical management scenarios and tailor their commercial conversations to add value to clinical practice. Achieving the right balance between brand promotion and educational value has never been more important, and creating useful content is key to delivering true value to your audience when they need it most.

4. Netflix for HCPs  

We’ve all recently binged on popular media! So why not use cues from these platforms to help add more accessibility to your communications? When creating video content with KOLs, for example, take the cue from Netflix, brand it effectively and actually create a series. It might be 6 or 8 videos that are 3 mins each that builds a complete, compelling picture. This can have a significant impact on engagement levels, and in addition, allows you to engage with HCPs over a longer period of time.

5. Strike a balance of science and emotion  

Digital channels have been especially saturated over the last 6 months, so how do you create cut through? A simple way to stand out from the crowd is by using the right amount of emotional and scientific insights. Take the time to understand the driving emotions of your audience as well. What are the fears, frustrations and desires of the HCPs you are trying to influence? How can you use this to create a compelling and engaging story?

COVID-19 has already made a huge impact on the way pharma companies market their products, with limited opportunities for face-to-face networking, education and information sharing. Bastion Brands has re-shaped a number of marketing and sales strategies for our clients, to address these problems and establish a clear way forward to help build their brand and grow sales.

If you are interested in a marketing effectiveness game-plan, reach out to:

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

The COVID-19 pandemic is evidencing a stampede of pharmaceutical marketers embracing digital channels more than ever before.

Marketing online runs the risk of becoming ‘wallpaper’ if the content is bland, undistinctive, or undifferentiated. Pharma companies need to think of a unique, creative value-add to stand out online.

The Golden Rules for Online Marketing Success

Rule #1: Be Useful

Cut-through starts by making sure your communications are ‘useful’. The biggest message from consumers to all marketers during COVID is simply this: be useful to me, don’t sell to me. Add value to customers and patients by plugging pain points and gaps of knowledge, and providing them with something relevant to their issues, that takes them closer to achieving their treatment goals.

Rule #2: Emotion and Science Works

Use emotion, always! Use your brand’s unique mix of science and emotion to tell your story and connect with customers and patients. We, humankind, make decisions based on emotions. That’s why corporates invented procurement departments: to take the emotion out of buying! The most powerful way to connect with humans is through story-telling. Your online marketing content must be ‘story-rich.’

Multi-Channel and Digital Marketing Top Tips

1. Determine your target audience and channel-plan

The first tip is to make sure you’re going after the audience with the right focus or breadth to achieve your company, business unit, sales or communications goals. We often find that the GP, the HCP, the patient isn’t the only important audience to consider.

1. Who are you targeting?
2. Who are they engaging with to form opinions?
3. What channels are they using, what content are they looking at, what keyword phrases are they searching for?
4. Which of your competitors are indexing well for those search terms?
5. Where are the gaps in the channels, content, stories being used and told? Focus on filling the gap competitors are not active in so you can stand out.

And finally, as you build out your strategy to cut through make sure you don’t miss out on trying to engage with the KOLs, the carers, pharmacists and other specialists that could help you achieve your objectives.

2. Understand your customers’ journey  

When trying to solve the First Golden Rule, Be Useful, you’ll need to give the audience what they want and need. But if you don’t know what that is, you may want to map your customers journey and work out the opportunity for your brand to stand out.

1. What is the customer (HCP/Patient) diagnosis and treatment pathway?
2. What happens along this path, what is adequate and what are the problems?
3. What role does your brand play and how can it add value that’s differentiated from your competitors?
4. How does your customer read/view/interact with content along the journey? What channels, formats, frequency, voices?

At the end of completing this tip, your brand will be in a stronger position to fill the gaps and to dial-up its greatness.

3. Get your ‘Science and Emotion’ message right

When trying to solve the Second Golden Rule, Emotion and Science Works, you’ll need to start by using your audience insights to develop a compelling brand story.

1. Start by developing a brand story with the right balance of science and emotion. Clarify how a brand is positioned around a particular therapy area: scientifically, clinically and from a research view. Separately, build powerful, persuasive ‘stories’ to bring the brand promise to life that address the audiences’ key drivers. It’s these stories that fuel the online marketing campaign.
2. Stand, Story, Strategy™ is Bastion Brands’ unique emotional branding methodology proven to drive results for RX brands around the world. It’s part emotion, part science – all for the success of your brand.
3. ‘Stand’ is about the brands mission, vision, values, direction -where this brand is going. ‘Story’ is how you articulate that, value and purpose, how you explain the story of that brand. ‘Strategy’ is the channels and how you intend to execute that brand story.

4. Integrate your channels

When thinking about how to deliver a great impact, plan how your channels should work together to engage the audience at the right points in their journey. When channels are integrated, the customer’s experience is improved and the brand can achieve better results.

1. Ensure your channels connect with one another and have synchronized messaging that funnels through awareness, engagement, and conversion.
2. Involve your sales reps – ensure they understand your digital channels and can promote them.

5. Engage with your audience

If there is an opportunity to engage with an audience while being useful, take it! It will help your brand better understand your customer and potentially generate insights which in turn could add future value and improve health outcomes.

1. Have a two-way conversation with your audience online, not just a static presence.
2. There’s a significant opportunity for your audience to interact with you through chat-bot, social, Q&A submission.
3. Ask: What are they (my customers) looking for, are they getting it, can we offer it to them, and are we interesting?
4. What is the creative potential? Is there an opportunity for a brilliant idea, a really well-crafted design, something interactive?
5. Engagement contextually in channel and medium.
6. Influencers and KOLs are a key leverage here – our target customers listen to each other, and pay attention to the views of like-minded sources who they respect.

6. Keep up-to-date

If you want to stand out in digital, you need to know what is going on and what the opportunities and trends are that will capture the attention and form opinions with our audience.

1. Measure the success of the digital channels and adapt. Collect and use data, always.
2. Keep on top of industry and global digital trends – these can quickly change.
3. Get your strategy right. Don’t jump too quickly to tactics.
4. Make sure you are updated on media trends, search trends and make sure that our brand takes advantage of those opportunities when relevant

COVID-19 has pushed pharma companies into accelerated digital change and applied the pressure to work out how to use digital.

But most importantly, follow these tips so your brand can stand out, be useful, and tell an engaging story with science and emotion.

For more information, contact:

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

In marketing a lot can change in a short amount of time, however, it’s clear that COVID-19 has had a profound and far-reaching impact in just 6 months.

It is evident in our findings of two surveys we asked marketers to complete. One last November– before we even knew what COVID-19 was and the devastating effect it would have on the world, and the second just a month ago.

As we say – a lot has changed since then! It is clear that some tactics and strategies remain the top focus, however, the channels used have shifted understandably to the virtual and digital platforms.

Top learnings based on pharma marketers survey results are:

1. Medical education remains no.1 most effective tactic
2. Lack of team in the field, using digital channels and cutting through the digital noise are the biggest marketing challenges
3. Digital channels are here to stay, and there is an increased confidence in capability
4. A decrease in time spent on patient programs, increase in internal activities and time spent on ‘sales team materials and engagement’ relatively the same
5. Biggest trends that’ll impact growth: less access to Physicians (negatively) telehealth (negatively) and digital channels (positively)

These findings largely follow the kind of work we have seen an increase in, namely high-level medical education programmes designed to inform and involve healthcare professionals in a helpful and cooperative way.

Certainly, we have also seen an upsurge in internal marketing activity – not surprising given the desire to ‘keep teams together’ in the current working apart environment.

It is not surprising that nearly all respondents agreed that the biggest challenge was in the way to target key sales opportunities without a sales force on the road. This was further heightened by the desire to cut through the noise of digital channels and stand out.

And while there was an increased belief and confidence in the capabilities of digital channels to deliver the appropriate messaging, there was a decline in the ability for messages to be heard amid the ‘digital noise’ that is flooding not just ours, but every industry.

What are you doing to be heard?

Given your answers clearly also state that digital channels aren’t just a ‘stopgap’ but are here to stay, now might be the best time for you to re-think your strategies, and plan to stand out in a digital world that’s becoming more and more crowded every day.

If you’d like to see the findings from our survey, – titled ‘COVID-19 Trends in Pharma Marketing’, we’d be more than happy to arrange a half-hour session where we can personally take you through the findings.

For more information, contact:

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

In part one of this article, we looked at how the healthcare brands that are digitally progressive, especially during COVID and beyond, have already seen the benefits of having their own independent customer access and access to direct customer insights and not relying on 3rd party media platforms, external advertising or large sales teams to drive their brand.

These profound advantages are pushing some brands further ahead in shaping their offering, improving customer engagement and focusing their promotions.

For many, it’s time to take a longer-term view on preparing and planning for a digitally dominated future that can give you direct access to customers and an opportunity to gather their own customer view directly.

A FIVE STEP STRUCTURE

To help brands progress digitally, and develop better customer databases and engagement programs, takes a structured approach. At Bastion Brands, we’re working with many late adopters, along with advanced brands to build and roll out their customer database and engagement strategies with our 5 step structured approach.

  1. ASSESS & AUDIT

Current state assessment and auditing your customer data: Take a look and you’ll probably find customer data all over the place – lists of customers from sales reps, conferences, events, webinars, and e-newsletters are all likely. Find them to understand what the data sources were, what format the data is in, what data points you have, and store them all in one location. Also consider if you have organisational policies and procedures, and legal requirements regarding data gathering and usage.

  2. PLAN & ALIGN

Planning: Align your business, marketing and comms strategies and objectives with your data and digital strategy. Work out what data you currently have, and what you want to acquire, and the use cases associated with gathering the data in order to achieve the right outcomes.

  3. STRATEGY & STRUCTURE

Complete your data gap analysis and work out your initiatives that could include list consolidation, cleaning, analysis, and growth. Use these initiatives to work through a road map.

  4. PROCESS & OPERATION

Operational Plan: Work out processes, along with roles and responsibilities to make sure that the data gathered meets the objectives, is governed well, is stored and accessed through the right technology, that the team are skilled and capable, and that the pending organisational changes are well managed.

  5. ESTABLISH & IMPLEMENT

Implementation: This is where the rubber hits the road. Empower the team to roll out the strategy and operational plan, and make sure scheduled reviews are undertaken.

Truth be told, brands that can both understand and access their audiences to develop insights, without 3rd party barriers, through their own customer databases and engagement programs, are the ones who are prepared to succeed now and in future.

No matter if your brand is in its infancy or is particularly advanced in terms of developing your customer database, customer insights and engagement programs, these assets are worth investing into for shaping your future success.

For more information, contact:

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

That was then, this is now…

Back in the late 90s the internet was commercialised, which enabled an opportunity that would radically change how people and brands connected and communicated.

At that time browsers were crude, interactivity was limited, data transfer speeds were glacial, social media was embryonic and digital marketing was quite simple.

All you needed to be a progressive brand in early stages of digital marketing was a website, along with a customer database and an email broadcasting tool. If you had these essential assets at your disposal, you could develop deeper insights and understanding of the needs and interests of your customers, which in turn could help your brand tailor and improve its offering.

KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE = OWNING YOUR OWN DATA

Without these assets, companies were dependent on 3^rd party research agencies and sales teams to help explain who the audience was, and what they were thinking and feeling. So it came with great expense (research) or as simply ‘heresay’ (anecdotal). Hardly the right approach to often complex audience understanding.

Back then, and unfortunately sometimes even now, the understanding of ‘audience’ was often described primarily with geographic and demographic data, and creative briefs would usually state the target audience to be something as broad as ‘25-54 year-old women with children, on the eastern seaboard’. These blanket approaches lacked rich insight, and customer data was greatly needed to shape the brands support, value and message for their customers.

Digital was a new way to accumulate customer data, and digitally progressive brands understood that building and engaging with your own customer database would provide a competitive advantage by shaping their offering from the insights gained. So brands started to build customer data driven programs of work, loyalty programs, newsletters, content hubs, and social networks.

What makes a compelling content platform?

Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter, for example is the world’s biggest content marketing platform for people planning and having children. BabyCenter delivers content in nine different languages, with more than 50 million parents visiting its 11 websites every month. The platform provides rich content, product sampling, market research projects and conversation forums which in turn, provide valuable insight. These insights, that Johnson & Johnson own by building the platform, have significantly shaped the product and service offering for the customers they serve and given them a major competitive advantage.

In a similar way, to a more targeted audience, Gilead have recently built a digital hub and presence that engages with HIV focused sexual healthcare professionals. 

This platform, https://www.hiv-australia.com.au/, provides HCPs with the latest global and local HIV news, research and content, and integrates a centralised hub with additional outbound channels to distribute new content when it’s published. This initiative shows Gilead’s ongoing commitment to develop deeper insights and understanding of the needs and interests of healthcare professionals. With these insights, Gilead can tailor offerings and create increased support and value for the healthcare professionals they serve and people under their care.

The point is that these databases provide access to a much clearer understanding of who the audience really is. Knowing your audience, was then, and remains now an important competitive advantage. Being able to directly access your customers’ ‘who, what, when, where, why and how’ is one of the most impactful ways of shaping a business and brand offering, adding value to customers and focusing all marketing activity.

Digital engagement in healthcare

More than 20 years later, the need for customer data, insights and digital engagement programs are now required more than ever and the disadvantage to those brands without them have become even more pronounced.

The COVID-19 restrictions benched sales teams, and constrained advertising options within the healthcare marketing industry, so having an own customer database, website and engagement programs really helps continue to gather insights for your brand while access remains limited and behaviours change.

It’s fair to say, that relatively few of the world’s leading healthcare brands are digitally progressive. However, the healthcare brands that are, have already seen the benefits during the ongoing constrained economic condition, of having their own independent customer access and access to direct customer insights, as they do not rely on third party media platforms, external advertising or large sales teams.

The message is clearer today than it has ever been – in uncertain times the certainty of owning your own data and digital platforms is invaluable, and will continue to prove so.

In part two we will discuss the advantages of digital independence and the best ways to achieve it.

For more information, contact:

Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

Dan King
dan.king@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0439 190 700

With circumstances changing every day around the ever-evolving situation created by COVID-19, Bastion Brands have developed a suite of tools and deliverables that can help you reshape the way you communicate and help your brand maintain a strong voice in changing times.

Over the next few weeks, we will focus on each of the following in more detail and hopefully shed more light on how implementing these tactics can benefit you:

6 ways to stay ahead of the curve during COVID-19 and beyond:

1. Sales Team Engagement: 

The way reps engage with customers has changed dramatically. Now is the time to start focussing on how to re-train and adapt your sales team to the ‘new normal’. This not only includes useful tips on working from home and helping keep the team motivated, but moving to direct channels and virtual meetings by delivering key messages in a much shorter time, re-framing call dialogue and sales materials, and utilising channels like direct mail more creatively.

2. K.O.L Engagement Strategy: 

With no face-to-face meetings allowed, what is your action plan to engage with KOLs over the next 6 months? Opportunities exist to create virtual ad boards, podcasts, a fortnightly meeting etc. This is perfect timing to engage with your top 10 KOLs and critical to strengthening relationships.

3. Content Strategy/Marketing:

People are consuming more online content than ever before. The rise of digital media has increased exponentially over our first 2 weeks of lockdown alone. There has never been a better time to plan your digital content and start providing salient material.

4. Virtual Conferences: 

It will be at least 6 months before conferences as we knew them will return to normal. How will your brand appear in a virtual conference world? Are you prepared and ready to face this new dimension?

5. Patient Journeys/Customer Journeys: 

The way we interact and receive information has also changed forever, as has the doctor/patient relationship itself. Teleconsulting is becoming more prevalent, and consideration must be made to how this impacts patient and HCP alike.

6. Patient Support Program: 

If there is an existing patient support program, how are you evolving it for these times? Your patients need your leadership and brand strength more than ever. If you don’t have a patient support program – the time is now to explore what else can you do to support patients on your product during this time.

Our clients have already seen the benefits of strong, positive and responsible communication with their key stakeholders, partners, HCPs and their patients and patient advocacy groups alike, through our ability to provide expert message development that is clear, helpful and on brand.

Now is the time to think beyond the crisis and establish new work cycles and activities that work – from finding new ways to connect with customers, to providing timely helpful communications to those in need – and ultimately help your brands endure and become more salient in times of crisis.

Stay tuned for more on each of our 6 ways to stay ahead of the curve over the upcoming days and if you like anything you read, please reach out and get in touch.

A solid and achievable communications plan is a much better way to get through COVID-19, than stockpiling toilet rolls!
For more information, contact Simon Davies
simon.davies@bastionbrands.com.au
M: 0402 425 545

It’s brand plan season. You understand your product, the brand objectives, you know your audience, now you need to work out how to reach them. But this is where the tide can change.

How do you decide which channel is going to effectively engage your audience and not leave you stranded?

Truth is, it’s never smooth sailing…
There are so many different channels and so many different media providers claiming they have the best reach, the most engagement, the longest interaction times and greatest click through.

They can’t all be the best choice…or can they? How can you be sure you’re not missing out on something better or more effective?

Especially in this age of rapid change, as much as we think we know the ‘waters’, there are now more unexpected conditions that could quickly change. Suddenly you could find yourself in a ‘less than perfect storm’, having to reconsider channels quickly.

But it doesn’t have to be sink or swim!

Knowing where you can best reach your target audience has always been a vital component of marketing success. Today it’s even more so, with many more options to explore to deliver your message.

All the development, research and creative time you put into your product’s marketing could be wasted if you don’t identify the best communication channel that makes the most sense for your particular target audience and contributes significantly to the success of your message reaching your market.

It’s times like these you need a guiding light to help you navigate the right channels and plot the safest and most effective course of action.

Bastion Brands are a media agnostic company. Which means we don’t have a vested interest in choosing a particular channel for your brand. Instead, we have a vested interest in working with you to develop the most effective multi-channel campaign that will yield the best results for your brand. Our channel planning services extend to:

We have 7 years’ experience studying and working with the various channels unique and vital to the Pharma space. This knowledge places us in a unique position to provide unbiased, third-party advice to brand managers and Pharma companies when it comes to channel choice.

We can help navigate you through the right channels at the right time, to reach the right people, as well as fully integrate your choices to achieve the absolute best results for your product or brand.

And in a volatile and vast ocean of channel choices, we’ll not only keep you afloat, but make sure you are steering the right course for your brand.

Why not get on board today?

The statistics surrounding mental health in Australia demonstrate this is an issue that is starting to dominate the healthcare landscape more than ever. Which is why, Bastion Brands have been making it a priority to build an in-depth understanding of this space.

One in five Australians will suffer from a mental illness. The significant efforts of charities, advocacy groups and disease awareness campaigns have slowly been working to reverse the stigma associated with depression and anxiety. It has also lead to more patients seeking and receiving the help they need. In fact, the RACGP report, Health of the Nation, 2018 found that GP’s are treating mental health issues more than any other.

So, why should we stop and take note? Because another fact suggests that patients being treated for long term physical conditions are more and more feeling the impact on their mental health as well.

The Australian Government released a report into the comorbidity of mental disorders and physical conditions in 2012, which found that 12% of Australians aged 16-85 had a mental disorder and a physical condition at the same time. Indeed, the most common comorbidity was anxiety disorder combined with a physical condition which affected around 9% of the population.

Understanding the prevalence of the link between certain chronic health conditions and mental illness is more important than ever as patient centricity begins to dominate our approach to health communications. Putting the patient at the heart of what we do requires us to truly understand the whole of the patient.

More and more of the work we’re undertaking at Bastion Brands with our clients puts a focus on the patient and draws insight from the challenges they face as a result of their disease burden. Bringing this to life for healthcare professionals through innovative medical content is something we are fast becoming experts at.

To this end, we are now taking our passion further, attending industry events to absorb the latest information and best practice in this area and understand how technology is playing a bigger role than ever in closing the gaps found in patient care, especially those managing a mental illness. Such as the images captured at the recent ‘Designing for Better Mental Health’ event (pictured below).

It is also why Bastion Brands has begun a long-term partnership with One in Five, a volunteer organisation established in 2002 to fund medical research into mental illness, whose ultimate aim is to create a world where mental illnesses are understood, effectively treated and one day made preventable – together we hope to see One in Five become None in Five.

We look forward to sharing the impactful work we are creating in the space that without a doubt brings to life our agency philosophy ‘where Science & Emotion collide’ and our passion to create seriously life-changing work.

In the meantime, if you are considering how best to ensure your marketing efforts are making a truly life-changing impact to healthcare professionals and their patients, then get in touch to find out how the power of Science and Emotion can help.

Those who couldn’t make the Melbourne Pharma Marketers breakfast this week or Sydney Pharma Marketers breakfast late last year, missed out on a valuable insight into one of the most interesting brains in the business. Which is why we have dedicated this edition of Bastion Pulse to providing a valuable recap.

Famous for his role as a panel member for ABC’s Gruen and having made his name in the advertising and marketing world as a strategist and CEO of one of Australia’s biggest agencies, Leo Burnett, Todd Sampson has since taken on a whole new aspect to his life and career – literally pushing himself to the limits to discover first-hand the power of the brain.

As keynote speaker at the MPM breakfast, he revealed three key factors how everyone can improve their ‘brain plasticity’ and backed his arguments with some incredible and often terrifying personal accounts of his ‘theories in practice’ as he shared footage from his successful TV programs ‘Body Hack’ and ‘Redesign My Brain’*

Todd used his own real-life scientific ‘experiments’, such as a ‘blind rock climb’ on a death-defying rock peak in Arizona, a ‘Houdini escape’ while chained underwater and a ‘sky walk’ tightrope between buildings 21 floors high, to demonstrate the power of the mind and its ability to handle and overcome fear in highly stressful circumstances.

This was balanced by some more straight-forward methods we can all incorporate into our daily lives to improve our brain power everyday, such as meditation techniques. Todd even gave attendees a simple way to extend and train our brains to challenge the norm and help us practice doing something different to our everyday routines. His challenge – simply brush your teeth using your opposite hand for 30 days! By thinking about a routine task in a different way we not only become more ambidextrous, but we improve our brain power.

His compelling and inspirational narrative was backed firmly by proven facts of science, which was a perfect fit for the record crowd of over 70 in attendance.

Some of the stories were hardly what you’d expect to hear from a board member of Fairfax and Qantas, which made his presentation all the more fascinating!

As Gold sponsor of the Sydney and Melbourne Pharma Marketers, Bastion Brands continues to join forces with Principal Sponsor Princeton Digital and the industry steering groups to support and drive the breakfast series and we will shortly make everyone aware of the next event, planned for a date around September 2019 for both SPM & MPM.

To make sure you don’t miss the next event, join the ever-growing pharma marketing communities by Linking in at Melbourne Pharma Marketers https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7026137/ or at Sydney Pharma Marketers https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12135845/

Simon Davies,
Managing Director, Bastion Brands

*Essential viewing and watch out for the BodyHack series 3 soon to be aired.

There is a crisis of trust globally and everyone is feeling the strain. Like it or not, all businesses and brands are – and will – be affected by it. The chain of trust brands have worked so hard to forge could be broken in a snap, unless we understand and accept the two forces at play underpinning the crisis, namely:

Expectations. Simply put, we (brands, leaders, companies, individuals) are all being held to much more exacting standards than every before. In particular, millennials (now making up 33% of the workforce and growing) look very seriously at the standards and behaviours of those they will work for, buy from or invest in.

Empowerment. The rise in activism, coupled with the instant and global power every person has to distribute information about poor conduct, has empowered the public more than ever in history. Humans have always behaved badly. Today, poor behaviour is going to be found out and distributed widely in an instant. Like a raging fire, once it’s been lit, it’s difficult to put out! The banking and finance industry has felt the full force of the trust decline following decades of behaviour perceived by customers as ‘questionable’, and through the horror stories that emerged during the Hayne Royal Commission into Misconduct in that industry. The ‘reputations’ of the banking and insurance sectors now rate only just above those of the tobacco industry.

Reputation is built on two key pillars. Perceptions about you have to be thriving in both in order to gain a worthy reputation.

Capability. You need to be perceived to be very good at what you do, delivering consistently great results.

Character. You need to be perceived to have good values, integrity and to genuinely be ‘doing the right thing.’

Think Harvey Weinstein. Even with world-class capabilities as a movie producer, his character is deeply flawed. His overall reputation is therefore the lowest of the low. A package that no one wants to be associated with.

At the other end of the scale, think Roger Federer. World-class capabilities as a tennis champion, and character traits that are nothing short of perfect. His overall reputation is therefore through the roof! A package you can literally bank on.

If you want to build trust, a brand, company or individual needs to work on delivering excellence in communicating a consistently powerful story. True trust is found at the intersection of your ability, benevolence and integrity, defined thus:

Ability. Delivering results, capable, expert, good at what we do.

Benevolence. Our intentions are good, we are givers, we put back in, we support others.

Integrity. We live our solid values, follow the rules, we do the right thing – always.

A great place to start in reviewing your ‘Trust Fitness’ is to check how much we actually put our customer at the centre of everything we do.

A genuinely customer-centric strategy, delivered with consistency over time, will deliver a high degree of trust – for a brand and for a company. Deloitte has developed a ‘Conditions of Trust’ model that describes the three steps required to genuinely have the customer at the centre of all you do.

1. Want to keep promises
A hard question that needs to be answered first up. Do we really, really, really want to put our customer first? Will we fight hard, every day, to ensure our actions keep the customer front and centre in all we do?

2. Making the right promises
Are our products aligned to customer needs? Are they clearly described? Value-for-money? Are they customised to changing circumstances for our customers?

3. Be able to deliver on promises
Do we have the processes, platforms, and people to deliver on our promises?

Remember – reputation is the gap between what you say you will do, and what you do.

How well is your brand or company positioned to survive the deep scrutiny that will inevitably come your way – and likely, very soon?

More importantly, what are you doing about building trust in this age of rage? An age where our customers not only expect but demand genuine trust in the companies they choose to engage with, and let the world know when their trust is broken.

A good starting point is to unpack the above model to see where your brand or company stands in light of the trust intersection. An even more accurate and honest appraisal could come from an external resource, (such as Bastion Brands) to help you identify your ‘Trust Fitness’ levels and implement a plan to build, establish or regain trust in the areas in which your brand is lacking.

As a keynote speaker Janine Allis proved that you can still be an approachable, warm and modest human being as well as an intrepid, successful and driven businessperson at the same time.

Held in Melbourne at The Craft and Co on March 19 and on the shore of Sydney’s harbour at Doltone House on March 26, Janine enthralled the record number of attendees with her inspiring story and in particular her ‘top ten’ learnings gleaned over her incredible career.

As Gold sponsor in 2018 and 2019, Bastion Brands continues to join forces with Principal Sponsor Princeton Digital and the industry steering groups to support and drive the breakfast series and we are delighted with the turnout to see Janine.

Bastion Brands feel strongly about supporting organisations like SPM and MPM as they are important for many reasons….

The events we sponsor create a strong sense of community amongst pharma marketers. represent the chance for us to come together, network and share news, catch up with peers on a social level and start the day with some inspiration from quality key note speakers known for their success and ability to motivate a room.

There is little doubt that of the 70 in Melbourne and 116 in Sydney, there were not many who went away disappointed.

For those who missed out, it’s our pleasure to list Janine’s Top 10 learnings:

We invite you to be part of the next SPM event, planned for August with dates and venue details to follow shortly.

However, as a teaser for our Melbourne clients we can announce that Todd Sampson has been confirmed as guest speaker at the next Melbourne Pharma Marketers – so watch this space!

And please join our ever-growing pharma marketing communities by Linking in with us at Melbourne Pharma Marketers or at Sydney Pharma Marketers.

On average every 60 seconds, we generate approximately 3.3 million Facebook posts; nearly half a million tweets; 65,000 Instagram posts, there are over 120 new LinkedIn accounts created and YouTube now houses more video content than you could watch in a lifetime!¹

The point is, the sheer amount of content generated, created and distributed to achieve a reaction and engage a viewer is staggering. And it’s no longer purely social, with mainstream brands and businesses embracing the power of digital in ever increasing numbers.

The 2018 Sensis social media report shows 79% of Australians use social media, with 47% of small/medium businesses and 60% of larger businesses using content to build engagement and trust with their customers.²

Further to this, currently 23% of marketing budgets in Australia are allocated to content, while 36% of marketers forecast an increase over the next year, according to the Content Marketing Institute.³
But how many of those are healthcare companies? And how likely in our highly regulated world – will content marketing play a comparable role?

When you consider some of the statistics that directly relate to healthcare and issues such as choosing a doctor or clinic, it won’t be long before digital content will be the ‘new norm’ in health industry marketing.

The advent of ‘Google Doc’ and the ease in which ‘self-diagnosis’ is initiated online, has enabled patients to be more informed about their own conditions.

The fact is that 35% of adults in the US have gone online specifically to “figure out” some medical condition. And 59% of Internet users looked online for health information in the past year.⁴

Incredibly, searching for health-related information has now become the third most popular online activity,⁵ as content providers are helping people better answer their growing health concerns.

In Australia specifically, 75% of users reported that information sourced online through their smartphone helped them make decisions about local professional health services.⁵

Our need for immediacy is creating trends that continue to shape the way patients look for, find, and interact specifically with doctors, treatment centres and hospitals.

In fact, 72% of internet users looked online for health information of one kind or another within the past year.⁴

In late 2015, Google declared that 1 in 20 Google searches were for health-related information.⁶

26% of internet users went online in the last year to read or watch someone else’s experience with a health or medical issue.⁴

16% of internet users say they went online in the last year to find others who might share the same health concerns.⁴

The last two points prove that socially, we are becoming more inclined to share experiences and actually seek peer-to-peer support from those prepared to exchange stories about their ‘real’ health issues and impart knowledge about what to expect from treatment, the process of care and even the drugs involved moving forward.

The companies that help facilitate this patient support and activity could be the ones that benefit most from digital content. As they embrace the trend of 90% of top performing content marketers who put their audience’s informational needs ahead of their company’s sales or promotional message.⁷

The strength of this argument leads to one undeniable fact – that most certainly digital content can play an important role in the future of healthcare marketing, across branded and non-branded messaging, patient support and facilitation of patient generated content.

Content has the power to demonstrate your expertise, show your on-going support for doctors and patients alike and importantly, to both audiences, build the kind of trust that’s hard to cultivate in more traditional channels.

By its very nature, content marketing doesn’t aim to get attention. Instead, the whole point is to giveattention. Which is why it’s tailor made to help pharma companies build empathy, consideration, support and understanding around patient needs over a long-term relationship.

All of which leads to one big question – how will you embrace the opportunities in this space to ensure digital content is more than a buzzword, but a strategic, vital and dynamic part of your marketing mix?

Understanding your digital landscape is a great starting point to further enhance or explore richer digital content marketing. Bastion Brands offer a comprehensive digital auditing service to help your brand understand the current competitive analysis and where opportunities could abound.

References:
1. Based on infographic from Smart Insights 2016
2. https://www.sensis.com.au/about/our-reports/sensis-social-media-report
3. https://www.adma.com.au/sites/default/files/2018-australia-content-marketing-research-11_13_17.pdf
4. http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/01/15/health-online-2013/
5. Google/Galaxy, “Consumers in the Micro-Moment,” Australia, June 2015.
6. https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/health-info-knowledge-graph.html
7. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2018/10/research-b2b-audience/

Welcome to 2019. I hope you are all feeling at the top of your game as we take on another year. I know I am!

Although over the holiday period, as I over-indulged a little (maybe too much!), or jumped a little too high with the kids on the trampoline, I found myself reaching for anything that would make me feel better.

Luckily, a cure was most-often quickly available. The hangover didn’t last long thanks to a fast-acting paracetamol… My indigestion soon eased after taking some antacids… and the strained back muscle from too much playing with the kids, was soon soothed by a rub of some reliable anti-inflammatory gel.

So my holiday was made all the better for the fact that I felt great – at least most of the time!

It was then that I realised that unlike any other, our industry – the pharmaceutical, medical, health and wellness industry – is primarily concerned about one question above all else – ‘How are you feeling?’

As pharmaceutical and healthcare marketers, we honestly WANT our customers to feel their very best. We produce drugs and devices to help people feel better, by actually making them better.

I’d even argue that’s why the healthcare industry exists – we’re concerned about it, we desire it at many levels and we even consider we haven’t done our job if the outcome hasn’t made people feel better.

We are all about feeling better as an outcome.

Primarily speaking most other products or services are purchased to ‘serve a purpose’, rather than actually improving how we feel. If they help us feel better as well, it’s obviously a bonus, but it’s not at their core. That’s what makes the health and wellbeing sector so vital – we are genuinely concerned about improving lives. As our prime purpose we want people – all people – to feel better.

It led me to make a big resolution moving into 2019 – to convince the great companies we work with to talk more about the ‘feeling’ their products provide – and to help them innovate and explore new ways to capture these feelings and touch their audiences in more authentic and involving ways.

It made me excited about the possible strategic directions this could take our marketing. It may be a virtual experience. Or a real one. It could be a brand story video that succinctly captures a feeling… or a fully-interactive, sales conference augmented reality…. A new digital platform that helps sales teams better communicate to HCP’s , or a bold social media campaign where we encourage patients, their carers and health care professionals alike to share their feelings an help others feel inclusive.

The options are endless and as we enter a year where anything is possible, that gives me – and the team at Bastion Brands a truly great feeling.

As we round off and reflect on 2018, we all can’t help think a little further afield and what 2019 might bring in terms of trends, ‘must haves’ and ‘next big things’ in terms of pharmaceutical marketing essentials. But let’s start by taking a look at what this year has taught us.

Simplicity:

It seems this rule is never really lost. We crave it, work hard for it and, in a market that is saturated with messages, we must achieve simplicity if our message is to be remembered. The principle of ‘keeping things simple’ has never been more salient than today and often it’s a ‘feeling’ or personality that’s remembered rather than a fact or figure. If your brand or product has the right simple core meaning, it’s a big step in making it remembered.

Relevant Technology:

Generally speaking, pharma marketing sets a serious tone. The products and brands we market ultimately need to be trusted and this takes respect from the marketing teams. Our messages change lives and are important. We are not selling something as simple as soft drink or fashion… we are dealing with life changing treatments. What we market, on the most part, are treatments with years of science, testing, research, formulation, data and proof behind them, so we need to respect that when we communicate. Our communications – and the media, digital platforms and sales technology we use – should never be viewed as ‘gimmicky’. So when utilising technology, the trend has been toward simple, easy and authentic platforms that clearly state the data – otherwise our discerning audience will dismiss the messaging. We believe these trends will remain long into 2019.

So what’s new for 2019?

We have noticed an increasing connection with disease advocacy and patient support groups with pharmaceutical marketing teams. Depending on the therapy area, there is a growing desire for patients to fully understand their condition and therefore seek the support of like individuals. We believe this trend will continue to grow for two key reasons:

1: Access:

Social networking and access to a wide range of information is strong. No longer do patients simply get ‘diagnosed’ for one condition. We are heading rapidly toward holistic outcomes – and potentially awareness of multiple options. So patient advocacy groups often look beyond ‘treatments’ – the drugs themselves – and assist patients and families/carers with a plethora of information that is genuine and unbiased, to help them in ways they may not have thought about (eg: psychological impacts, patient mentoring, etc).

2: Authenticity:

People crave authenticity and genuine emotion. We believe this is a great sign for our industry as the human side of our message has too long been ignored in favour of presenting cold, hard facts and clinical data. Recently we were asked by a global company to help bring more emotion into the sales force messaging, because research had shown that the HCP’s had become dulled to the constant, predictable sales deliver that was fact-based. Whatever trends 2019 holds for the industry, there is only one thing we know will hold true. That companies that strike the perfect balance of science and emotion, will find success in their marketing endeavours.

In our digital age, collecting detailed insights into how healthcare professionals behave online is a critical starting point in developing a truly evidence-based digital strategy – a strategy that sees you investing in the right digital projects at the right time, for maximum impact.

From Bastion Brands’ digital team, here are three ways healthcare marketers can apply a more scientific approach to their digital communications strategies in the new year.

1. Understand your audience

How do healthcare professionals really behave online? From search terms to Twitter mentions, sophisticated social listening software can now help marketers deliver critical insights into your audience’s behaviour and information exposure.

2. Understand the digital environment

The digital world is ever-evolving, so a real-time understanding of where your treatment sits in the context of its competitors is nothing short of critical.

3. Understand the conversation (and know who’s leading it)

Every minute of every day, conversations are happening about your therapy area, and your treatment. Understanding the tone and scale of each conversation taking place, as well as who your Key Social Opinion Leaders are, may sound out of reach. But the Bastion Brands Digital Landscape process makes this critical information easily accessible, allowing it to act as a starting point for proactive management of the online conversation.

Learning. Experience. Knowledge. In the world of Pharma, there is little else that matters when it comes to creating new treatments and releasing new studies around well-known and trusted drugs. We know that experience matters, because it’s a simple fact that the more we learn, the more we grow. Expertise is respected in our industry, for good reason. A proven track record has been – and remains – the basis for so many developments and advancements in treatments. Of course, there is another key word that matters just as much to HCP’s, who we know make their choices around what is best for their patients, and so while experience, expertise and trust is important, ultimately it comes down to ‘facts’.

We deal in data daily. Research (often worth $billions of investment by pharma companies) leads our strategies and importantly the Key Selling Messages (the facts) that make HCP’s pay attention to what we are selling. So as Bastion Brands enter its 7th year of operation, we started to reflect on a few ‘facts’ of our own. Facts that add up to a wealth of Learning, Experience and Knowledge in influencing HCP’s behaviours. Facts we can continue to build on, and share.

The image above displays the data we’ve accumulated over our 7 years in healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing. If you’d like to benefit from our 7 key learnings on how to influence HCP’s behaviours, get in touch – we’d love the chance to share them with you.

Bastion Brands is proud to announce that our ‘Continue the Fight’ campaign has been selected as a finalist for Best Single Advertisement at this year’s prestigious PRIME Awards. The only prescription brand ad (or print ad) to make the cut, ‘Continue the Fight’ utilised hard-hitting portrait photography to communicate a simple and motivating truth about battling an incurable disease: ‘there are always things in life worth fighting for.”

The resulting ad compelled specialist doctors to support their patients to dust off their gloves and continue the fight against multiple myeloma for longer, helping them to reach their key life milestones.

Bastion Brands would like to thank our client on this project, who had the courage and trust to support us on this journey to create brave, challenging (and hopefully award-winning!) work. View the campaign, and Bastion Brands’ 2016 PRIME Award-winning work, here.

‘Continue the Fight’ will battle it out against four other outstanding OTC and Disease Awareness campaigns at the Awards ceremony on Thursday 20th September.

More information about this year’s PRIME Awards is available here.

Introducing Bastion Med Ed – The New Home of Innovative Medical Education 

Much like the world of healthcare, Bastion Brands is always evolving to better serve the needs of our clients, and theirs.

In June this year, Bastion Brands Medical Team was proud to announce the launch of Bastion Med Ed, a new specialist division providing medical content and educational experiences that engage specialist audiences through a compelling collision of science and emotion, delivered with the help of innovative technology and event design.

You can find the full run-down, including exciting new case studies about our latest Med Ed work, on our new website For now, here’s a taste of what’s on offer with Bastion Med Ed in 2018…

Interactive Educational Experiences and Events

At Bastion Brands we’ve tipped the traditional medical event model on its head. Using the latest in holographic technology, we’re bringing patient case studies to life – facilitating interactive education and peer to peer learning along the way. Learn more here.

Unlocking the power of Life-Saving Digital Tech

Digital technology gives you the tools to engage in critical healthcare conversations 24/7. Our digital market research methodology is designed specifically for the healthcare industry to help our clients generate evidence-based digital strategies and measure the impact of their investments

Advisory Boards and KOL Management

For medical teams wanting to get even better value from their KOL advisors, Bastion Med Ed delivers collaborative agenda planning and bespoke processes to get to the heart of your objective, leave no stone unturned and maximise the value of your meeting/s. Learn more about how we use lean six sigma to gain actionable insights here.

Offering ‘early experience’ to the right people

Product familiarisation programmes (PFP) are vital in providing early experience with a new medicine to key prescribers before reimbursement. But targeting a PFP to the right customers and integrating it into a wider medical communications strategy can be a challenge. Learn more about how Bastion Brands fully subscribed a PFP with specialist prescribers within two weeks, here.

Six days into Cannes Lions festival, Bastion Brands MD Simon Davies’ is ready to share his inside perspective on the future of healthcare marketing

What trends will shape healthcare marketing in 2018 and beyond? What can healthcare marketers do to help their brands stand out from the crowd? And what can we all do differently this year to make an even bigger difference for people living with debilitating medical conditions, or disease?

This year, I wanted to find out first-hand. So I packed my bags and joined the masses for the 64th annual Cannes Lions Health festival, known by many as the worlds most celebrated platform for life-changing creativity.

From Cannes, France, here are three ways healthcare brands are leading the way this year.

1. Patients Are Expecting More From Us

With a world of medical information now at patients’ fingertips, top healthcare marketers agree that it’s no longer enough to simply educate our end-patients about our treatments. Instead, we must also provide them with real-time access to support.

2. More Brands Are Living Their Purpose – and Outgrowing Their Competitors by 47%

Stepping outside of the healthcare realm, Unilever Executive Vice President Aline Santos dropped this truth bomb on a crowd of hundreds during ‘The Big Interview’ in which she shared her advice for launching successful brands in “an age of unease and disruption”.

3. Creativity Is The Best Medicine

Creative communications that simplify complex medical information and humanise the treatment journey were the clear winners at this years’ awards, as evidenced in the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation’s Gold Lion winning ‘Imaginary Friends’ campaign.

After slowly gaining ground over the last few decades, a dynamic new weapon in the fight against cancer could finally be in our hands…

And just like that, the news is out. The BBC recently broke the incredible story of a US woman with terminal breast cancer who had been given only 3 months to live – but who now, 2 years after receiving a revolutionary new treatment, has no signs of cancer in her body. None.

The biggest surprise of all? This treatment she received is not a new synthetic “wonder-drug”, but a product of her body’s own immune system – a ‘living drug’ crafted from the woman’s own immune cells and reprogrammed by scientists to destroy her cancer for good.

How did this all come about?

This incredible new treatment is the result of an overall shift in strategy for cancer treatment, with researchers turning to the body’s own disease-fighting mechanisms to combat cancer. And while the idea of using the body’s own natural defence system to fight against disease and nail those difficult-to-target rogue cells is hardly new, advances in our understanding of the human immune system and of cancer means this option is now a real possibility.

The reprogramming of a patient’s immune cells to fight cancer (called CAR-T) is just one of the many options available, with anti-cancer antibodies and cancer vaccines also being explored. CAR-T has already been approved by the FDA for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in children and young adults, indicating that widespread commercialisation of CAR-T and similar therapies may be just around the corner.

So, what does this mean for healthcare marketers?

As a treatment option, CAR-T is worlds away from the standard therapies healthcare professionals and patients are used to, and it’s our view that Australia’s healthcare industry will need to adapt to this innovation quickly. Ensuring both patients and physicians understand the complexity of CAR-T will be a significant challenge for the industry – but an important one. As with all change, good communication will support a smooth transition, and ultimately allow these treatments to get to patients faster. While there are still some doubts as to how broad the application of CAR-T will be and whether the use of the word ‘cure’ is premature, the early success of this innovation gives cancer physicians, their patients and our industry as a whole great hope that the days of incurable cancer may finally be numbered.

Every day, doctors choose to prescribe one of many comparable treatment options over another. And while years of study and a detailed understanding of complex scientific data contributes to how these decisions are made, research tells us there’s something else is at play…

A few years ago, American neuroscientist Antonio Damasio conducted a groundbreaking study on patients with damage to their limbic systems – the area of the brain that generates emotion. Besides their injuries, they all had one thing in common: they each found the simplest of decisions, such as what to have for lunch, very difficult to make.

As later referenced in his seminal book Descartes Error, Damasio found that science doesn’t, in fact, have the final say. Despite understanding what is logical, his subject’s ability to make a decision at the very point of choice came down to emotion – how they did or didn’t feel.

So, if ‘fact’ or logic is the driver, and emotion is the ultimate decider, what does this mean for healthcare marketers looking to influence prescribing behaviour? It’s a question we’re asked just about every day. And after years of working closely with healthcare professionals and delivering medical education events, strategic services and creative campaigns, we believe we have the answer.

You’ve heard about our Interactive Patient Mannequins. Now it’s time to meet one. 

She’s smart. She’s engaging. She’s virtually real. A first in our nation’s healthcare industry, ‘Sydney’ is the innovative Interactive Patient facilitating peer-to-peer learning at pharmaceutical conferences around Australia. 

First launched in 2017, Bastion Brands’ Interactive Patient Case Studies represent a new and exciting era in medical education events where healthcare professionals engage in peer-to-peer learning, and where patient case studies are brought to life through ultra-real virtual Patient Mannequins.

Click here to meet ‘Sydney’ – one of thousands of ultra-real virtual patient mannequins available for your next medical education event.

New from Bastion Brands: Interactive Patient Case Studies and Peer-to-Peer Learning in Medical Education.

With an emphasis on peer-to-peer learning, Bastion Brands’ innovative Interactive Patient Case Studies are putting conference attendees in the driver’s seat, taking audience engagement levels and learning outcomes to new heights.

Imagine you’re at a medical education conference for a groundbreaking new treatment. The lights dim, and an audible cough pierces the air. Imagine looking up to find that, instead of a key speaker, a 16-year-old boy with shaggy hair and faded jumper were on stage. A patient. Imagine the emotion in his voice as he shares his family’s medical history. Then imagine being asked to turn to the people around you, and work with them as a team to decide on how to best incorporate this new treatment into his current regimen. Imagine then that your decision-making would determine how the rest of the conference – and the rest of his life – would unfold.

First launched in 2017, Bastion Brands’ Interactive Patient Case Studies represent a new and exciting era in medical education, where conference attendees are empowered to facilitate their own learning, and where ‘the patient’ takes centre stage to share their story first-hand.

‘Branching Logic’ lets Doctors Decide

Unlike conventional case study formats, Bastion’s Interactive Patient Case Studies are based on branch or ‘skip’ logic to mirror the real life diagnostic journey. At key points in the case study, teams of conference attendees vote by group consensus the next step to take, and watch the consequences unfold.

Virtual Patient Mannequins

Bastion Brands’ ultra-real Virtual Patient Mannequins lift traditional case studies off the page, bringing realism into the room.

Any age, any race: Bastion Brand’s “Virtual Patients” are crafted to reflect real life patients, warts and all…”

The new year’s break is always a time of heightened emotions.

There’s the rush of all that shopping, the stress of family get-togethers, the joy of giving – and the ‘let down’ when we don’t get the gift we expected.

There’s the anxiety of racing off on holiday; the disappointment when ‘batteries aren’t included’; the excitement of the children and the sheer bliss we get when we finally relax with a good book and a quiet sip of our favourite beverage!

It’s a roller coaster of emotion that’s compounded because we’ve broken from our work routines. For a while we let our guard down and think about what really matters in our lives – moments with family and good friends and time spent doing the things we really want to do.

And even though we may not want to, inevitably we find ourselves ‘talking shop’ as we answer the question ‘how’s your year been?’

As was the case over my break, at a relaxed barbeque hosted by a friend who happens to be a highly experienced and well regarded urologist.

He asked how my year had gone, as he’s genuinely interested in the creative process and my role in helping pharmaceutical companies in their marketing to doctors across all therapy areas.

And because I’m genuinely interested in what motivates an experienced doctor to choose one medicine over another, we got to talking about the decision making process of doctors prescribing potentially life changing medicines to their patients.

When I mentioned that Bastion Brands specialize in using emotion to add a human connection to the scientific evidence, he questioned how this would work.

I explained that in the ‘non-pharma’ world, neuro-imagery has shown that consumers base their choices more on emotions, feelings and experiences rather than product features and facts; and that research has proven emotional response to a simple print ad, for example, has over 200% greater influence on a purchase decision than the actual content.

He argued that, as a doctor, he actually tries to ‘block out’ the emotion when it comes to his patients, particularly in his line of therapy where he often deals with highly sensitive, life threatening illnesses such as prostate cancer. He concluded that if he allowed himself to make an emotional connection with his patients he would struggle to cope.

Not being a doctor and living with this day to day, I could only agree with him. However, I still pushed the idea that surely he was swayed by and emotional argument when it came to advertising or information?

Surely as a consumer he too had purchased purely on emotion, not because his decision made sense? Otherwise I would have to question the whole notion of our brand platform ‘where science and emotion collide’!

It wasn’t until later in the evening, when I was relating some detail about a new campaign we are about to launch for one of our clients, that his ears pricked up again. As I got to the end of my description of the campaign – for a drug that is a last line treatment for a terminal condition – and the emotional triggers behind the key messaging, I noticed tears actually welling in his eyes. (And it wasn’t because he’d gone back to chopping onions!)

What caused the reaction was simple – I’d recounted a truth he could identify with, and it resonated in a deep way.

So whilst it may not change his focus when face to face with some of his patients, it did reaffirm to me the power of a message charged with emotion to drive change, cause a reaction and create change. To make someone stop and think and engage in a personal way.

It reaffirmed to me that a message that leads with emotions – and touches on personal feelings and experiences is actually stronger than messages based on pure science, brand attributes, features or facts. It’s a way that goes beyond the features of the medicine. Beyond the data of trials and research, and into the very heart of the matter – what it means to the patient.

And that’s a connection we can all relate to.

Bruce Williams
Creative Director
Bastion Brands

“Australian men aren’t exactly lining up to see their GPs, but health marketers can meet their communications objectives if they’re willing to meet them halfway,” writes Simon Davies.

Sorry guys, but the stereotype stands: While women are diligent as ever about their healthcare needs, men still can’t seem to find the time (or the courage) to get down to the doctor. So, what gives? And what can healthcare marketers do to ensure their messages get through?

This week, I had the privilege of presenting on this very topic at Mumbrella’s Health & Wellness Marketing Summit, and sharing few things I’ve learned over the years about making a direct connection with ‘doc dodging’ men and communicating the benefits of your brand with us – even when we’re nowhere to be seen…

1.      Meet us in the middle

When 22% of men ‘don’t have time’ to get to the GP, it might just be time to bring the ‘GP’ to us. Healthcare services that reach men in their natural habitat (such as This is Beard Season’s pop-up skin cancer clinic at the Australian Open of Surfing) or direct to their door (like Bowel Cancer Australia’s home testing kit) are two ways healthcare brands have done just that, with great success.

2.      Get technical with us

Mobile technology brings a world of information to our fingertips. Crafting mobile-friendly communications provides men with preliminary avenues to explore their health concerns in a way that’s both personal and private.

3.      Tell us a joke  

There’s nothing like a good laugh to break the ice and build affinity. While many healthcare brands are on the side of caution in this area, a little humour, when used appropriately, can help men get comfortable about talking to doctors about our bodies.

4.    Don’t forget the ‘emotion’

At Bastion Brands we believe the most effective communication is when
‘science’ and ‘emotion’ collide. Presenting men with the scientific data behind what you’re selling and an emotionally compelling ‘why’ for buying, from their own quality of life to that of their loved ones, has the power to influence men’s decision-making – and maybe even get us to start taking better care of ourselves.

For more information about Mumbrella’s Health & Wellness Marketing Summit 2017, including the full list of speakers head to Mumbrella Health & Wellness.

Science and creativity collided with explosive results at Cannes Lions Health 2017, the world’s most celebrated platform for creative bravery in healthcare communications.

Taking home the coveted Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Good was ‘Immunity Charm’, a campaign dedicated to helping Afghani HCPs keep tabs on a child’s immunisation history. The Ministry of Public Health’s campaign took inspiration from a traditional Afghani cultural practice of protecting children from curses through charm bracelets, making immunisation a new, life-saving tradition in a nation where infant mortality is a tragic (yet often preventable) reality. Check it out here.

Taking home a Gold Lion was Brazil’s VR Vaccine, the nurse-administered virtual reality experience placing soon-to-be vaccinated children at the centre of an immersive adventure, transforming a moment of pain into a moment of fun. Experience it for yourself here.

Another tech-driven campaign that caught our agency’s eye was Chinese web company Baidu’s ‘Know You Again’. Supported by Alzheimer’s Disease China, the campaign fused AI technology with infrared sensors and an image stabilising camera to create a pair of glasses that showed Alzheimer’s patients who’s who in their line of vision, and ultimately help them see that they’re not alone here.

By bringing science to life with the power of human emotion, this years’ Cannes Lions winners were a perfect demonstration of our collective ability to not only engage in ground-breaking creativity, but to use it as as a driving force for business, for change and for good.

Find the full list of Cannes Health gong-getters here.

In an industry fraught with complications, regulations and life-impacting decisions, ‘simplicity’ is an underrated virtue.

So while many marketers tend to get caught up in engaging the latest tactics (or gimmicks, as is sometimes the case), experience tells me that, every once in a while, it pays to get back to basics. To distill what it is you offer people beyond the all-important safety and efficacy data, and simplify their spectrum of choice.

At Bastion Brands, we understand that decision-making in healthcare is often an inexplicable collision of science and emotion. So we’ve harnessed it to deliver a simple formula for creating strong, healthy pharma brands from the inside out. Giving them the unshakeable platform they need to develop strong, healthy relationships with the people that matter most, from internal sales teams and doctors to the patients in their care.

It all starts with ‘SSS’ – Stand, Story, Strategy.

What does your brand Stand for?

Whether you know it or not, your brand has a unique ‘reason for being’. An intrinsic motivator that gets you out of bed in the morning, and underpins everything you and your team do, every day.
To find it takes time, teamwork and maybe even a few arguments. But when you do, it’s truly transformative.

What’s your Story?

Your brand started somewhere to get where it is today. In healthcare, that place very likely came from a desire to help people in need. Crafting a story that encapsulates your unique reason for being, and tells the journey from where you began to where you are today serves not only as a written reminder of where you came from, but an emotionally compelling reason for people to believe you when you tell them where you’re headed in future.

What’s your Strategy?

In the fast-moving world of healthcare, it’s critical to have a detailed understanding of your brand’s positioning in the market. Mapping out your brand’s strategy, from channel and media selection to recruitment and talent selection efforts, becomes all the more meaningful when based on a shared belief in what your brand stands for and why.

In an industry where people are fighting their way through complex information to make what can ultimately be life-changing decisions, your brand must simplify their spectrum of choice by being clear not only on what you ‘sell’, but what you stand for. By telling a unique story with conviction. And by doing what it does best even better, with a smart, measurable strategy. Simple.