Creative Review
Each month, this department pays homage to memorable advertising and marketing campaigns. The highlighted executions have been identified by leading creative executives for their noteworthy use of copy, art, photography, whimsy, uniqueness, etc. — in combination or as single branding elements. Creating good healthcare advertising and marketing requires agencies to think out of the box and clients who dare to be different. PharmaVOICE is pleased to give these vanguards their due recognition. Corporate Identity Company: Kaiser Permanente Product: Corporate identity Debut: August 2004 Agency: Campbell-Ewald, Los Angeles Chief Creative Officer: Bill Ludwig Creative Directors: Debbie Karnowsky/Mark Simon Art Director: Marni Burns Copywriter: Dan Ames Photographer: Thomas Broening Sympathetic, supportive, optimistic, passionate, spiritual — do these words describe your HMO? Let’s face it, in a brand-driven world, health maintenance organizations don’t have a very positive brand image. While many sectors of the healthcare market have long realized the value of image building, most HMOs do little to define themselves. So imagine my surprise when I heard the following ad on the radio: “We stand for broccoli. For Pilates and dental floss. We stand for seat belts and stopping HIV. We have faith in optimism, in laughter as medicine, as well as penicillin. We believe there is an art to medicine as well as science. And we believe health isn’t an industry, it’s a cause.” It’s part of a terrific new campaign called “thrive” developed for Kaiser Permanente and it is unique because it aims so high. This campaign isn’t about price or customer service or co-pays — it’s about your life. Kaiser doesn’t exist to give you pills when you get sick, the company exists to make you strong, healthy, vibrant. Kaiser wants you to thrive. All of the ads end with this statement: “We’re Kaiser Permanente and we stand for health. May you live long and thrive.” I love this campaign because it focuses on what matters to patients and it goes for the heart. Kaiser has chosen to stand for something, and there’s always power in that. Steve Coldiron, Principle and Creative Director at Jocoto Advertising Inc., San Ramon, Calif., applauds Kaiser Permanente’s new campaign for its emotionally charged message of patient care. Risperdal Product: Risperdal Client: Janssen-Cilag Debut: January 2004 Agency: Junction 11 Advertising Art: John Timney Copy: Richard Rayment It is a biting and fitting irony that a campaign for a schizophrenia treatment should be so single-minded. This impressive series of ads for Risperdal succeeds because it does one thing well, and one thing only. There are no shiny, happy people feeling better from whatever might ail them. Instead, we are treated to a startlingly horrific vision of the profound suffering caused by schizophrenia. Lush, darkly painted figures capture in masterful strokes the nightmare of the disease — one patient pulls open his chest to reveal the demons he believes live there, another sits imprisoned in a chair by a trio of ghastly witches. A single line of copy runs elegantly across the top of the each spread — emphatically, thankfully out of the way of the operatic visuals — capturing the mental agony these patients experience. While these ads are based on actual case studies, we are not treated to conventional case study write-ups, nor to efficacy and safety data that physicians likely seek elsewhere anyway. Fair balance also stays coyly stage left to let this most singular idea do its thing. You only get to remember one thing in an ad. I remember Risperdal, “Because relapses are a living nightmare.” James McGuire, VP, Creative Director, at Williams-Labadie, a Chicago-based agency focused on healthcare advertising and promotion, finds the single-mindedness of the Risperdal campaign impressive.