The continuing development of digital communication in pharma and healthcare was highlighted last night at the PM Society Digital Awards in London.
Now in their ninth year, the awards’ categories covered a range of different media and settings, from promotional brand campaigns, to patient programmes, and congresses, meetings and events.
Following a similar trend from last year, there was a spread of winning entries, with no single agency or company sweeping up more than two Golds. The awards culminated with the inaugural Pharma Digital Partner award which was won by Norgine’s Kym Jacks Bryant who beat finalists Mary Andrews from GSK and Kasper Kofod from Novo Nordisk. Best Digital Project or Account Manager this year was won by Four Health’s Sam Bradford Smith and the Best Agency Digital Team was from Insypher.
Three agencies won the most honours: Bedrock won two Golds, in Congress, Meetings & Events and Corporate Communications; DDB Remedy took home two Golds in Film and Innovation-Creativity categories and Insypher Ltd received two top awards; Gold in the Market Access category and Winner of Best Agency Digital Team.
VCCP took away four awards in total – a Gold, two Silvers and a Bronze, while Four Health took three, including a Gold, a Highly Commended and a Bronze. Other Gold winners included Big Pink, emotive., Hamell, Pegasus and The Purple Agency. 90TEN also took Gold in the Patient Programmes category – a category they also won last year.
Amongst the pharma companies and healthcare organisations, Gilead was the only company to take two Gold Awards, one for their innovative HIV patient programme and the other for the hard hitting hepatitis C awareness raising film – Are you Chris?
Meanwhile ViiV Healthcare, Teva and Celgene all took a Gold and a Silver. Other Gold winners included Network Rail with the Samaritans and British Transport Police for their thought-provoking campaign to reduce suicide attempts within the transport system. Allergan, Glenmark, Grunenthal, Merck Serono, MSD and Novartis and all won Gold as well.
Full list of category Gold winners
Promotional campaigns
Hamell Ltd Maloff Protect Marketing Campaign
HCP education & support
emotive. ART Perspectives
Patient programmes
90TEN My journey: Flight HIV101
Market access
Insypher Ltd Mavenclad budget impact model
Congress/Meetings
Bedrock Novartis ESC Congress Activities
Integrated channel campaign
Pegasus Small Talk Saves Lives
Corporate communications
Bedrock This is Axiom
Internal communications
The Purple Agency EMEAC congress App
Film
DDB Remedy Are you Chris?
Animation
VCCP Health Capaxone: World at their feet
Innovation: New Technology
Big Pink HCP education side effects App
Innovation: Creativity
DDB Remedy IFOS Hologram
Digital Account Manager
Sam Bradford Smith (Four Health Media)
Digital Team
Insypher Ltd
Pharma Digital Partner
Kym Jacks Bryant (Norgine)
There were 17 categories at this year’s awards, the only new award being the addition of the Pharma Digital Partner Award. 41 judges in total examined the entries, first online and then at a second round involving face-to-face presentations. The judges were predominantly from industry, with expertise in marketing and digital as well as some medics and additional judges from the NHS and agencies.
The PM Society’s Rachel Farrow
“As we saw in 2017, there has been a wide spread of Gold awards across the agencies showing that there are numerous highly talented agencies producing outstanding digital work. Some are specialist digital agencies, others identify themselves as healthcare communications, medical education, creative, patient focussed agencies, PR or market access agencies,” said Awards Chair Rachel Farrow said.
“What they have in common is that they can all deliver fantastic digital work and these awards allow that work to be highlighted. I’m really pleased we’ve been able to add in the Pharma Digital Partner award this year as it’s great to have a chance to highlight the fantastic working relationships and partnerships between clients and their digital agencies.”
The PM Society will follow the awards with an article looking more closely at what makes client-agency partnerships work.
