Excellence in Patient/Consumer Health Programmes

Summary of work

Thyroid disorders are among the most frequent diseases in the world, with about 1.6 billion people at risk and women four to seven times more likely to be affected. Up to 50% of those affected are thought to be unaware. Merck challenged Porter Novelli to help raise awareness of thyroid disorders in women to encourage testing among those displaying symptoms, while positioning Merck as a leader in the field of thyroid disorders.

Our creative theme, ‘It’s not you. It’s your thyroid’, focused on the similarity between the symptoms of thyroid disorders and the effects of a busy lifestyle. We employed a wide-reaching social media campaign, targeted digital promotion on Facebook, traditional media outreach and a series of local partnership activities to drive women to the newly created thyroidaware.com website, where they could research symptoms and causes, and use a symptom-checker tool to assess risk of a thyroid disorder.

Porter Novelli and Merck Global worked with Merck’s local affiliates to reach up to 13m people in more than 20 countries and the campaign was supported by 30 third-party groups.

Judges' comments

Porter Novelli and Merck’s patient journey model was impressive and shows a targeted approach to execution, clearly meeting a patient need. The judges particularly liked the interesting collaboration between communications and medical affairs – something which is often overlooked in pharma.