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Spotlight interview: 15 minutes on healthcare advertising

Marie Little, Managing Director, OPEN Health Patient & Brand Communications takes 15 minutes to answer some key questions on healthcare advertising

1. WHAT IS HEALTHCARE ADVERTISING IN A NUTSHELL?

Healthcare advertising follows the same principals as any form of advertising, the goal is to achieve a belief and behaviour shift to reach a desired paradigm. The way we achieve that is by utilising rational and emotional levers but essentially, it's story telling that’s designed to engage.

2. HOW HAS HEALTHCARE ADVERTISING CHANGED OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS?

The biggest thing for me is that advertising has become a lot smarter; the insights that we base everything on have become more detailed and the campaigns based on those insights become smarter. This leads to more granular targeting. We know more about how people think, where they are, what they value and what they don’t. This level of specificity is what’s changing in advertising because we can measure so much more now. The ads that are served to you are different to the ones served to me; the way they would be communicated to you are different to how they would be communicated to me based on a vast array of individual knowledge.

3. WHAT DIFFERENTIATES OPEN HEALTH IN HEALTHCARE ADVERTISING?

We base everything we do on insights and then employ a multi-disciplinary approach to tackle our brands’ challenges. The beauty of OPEN Health is that we are a team of over 500 healthcare specialists who all have a depth and breadth of expertise that’s unrivalled in the industry, which is a great resource to have! Based on the nature of the healthcare challenge, we put together the right team of specialists from across OPEN Health and develop a cohesive and collaborative plan to ensure we get the best solution and create campaigns that achieve tangible goals. They don’t just look great, they achieve something and that’s the point of what we do. The way we connect is very tangible in OPEN Health; we all know each other, and we are well connected. The whole ethos of OPEN Health is that collaboration is at our core – it’s what we do every day.

4. DESCRIBE THE BEST HEALTHCARE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN YOUR TEAM HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN?

I think our best campaigns are the ones that are multi-faceted; a combination of brand materials, internal motivational campaigns and externally-facing patient support and engagement. Our goal is to ensure we are supporting healthcare professionals in making informed decisions which drive the best outcome for patients; the patient is also supported and feels that’s their goal too. One of our stand out clients is Incyte. We have done a lot of work with them over the years, including European brand campaigns and an award-winning, patient support programme: CML Life. Those are the campaigns that really stand out because they make a difference.

5. WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE ADVERTISING?

As the world moves evermore online, our understanding of our audiences will continue to improve. For example, analytics and research companies can look at thousands of data points on any individual because everything we do is monitored and, in addition to qualitative market research, it’s those data points that we can look at to understand our audience and what makes them tick. The more we understand, the better we can deliver value to our audiences and a robust outcome. It’s about getting to the right people, at the right time, with the right message; that’s always been the goal of advertising.