To boost brand awareness of Organon’s Nuvaring, Elite Health developed an omnichannel campaign that included ads on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.
Lindsay Cohen, managing director at Elite Health Agency, thought she knew the pharma playbook inside and out. But what she didn’t realize was that it could be rewritten.
When she joined the digital marketing agency in 2019, years of industry experience had instilled in her the “pharma state of mind.” But company founder and CEO, Robert Burko, came at things from a different perspective. With over 20 years of digital experience as a founder of Toronto-based Elite Digital Agency, Burko’s expertise lay in disrupting old playbooks to help clients thrive in the digital space.
What initially seemed like opposing viewpoints became the foundation for a fresh, dynamic approach to marketing in the health space.
“There was the opportunity to bring our backgrounds together and work towards convincing people like me that there’s new and better ways of doing things,” says Cohen, who is now also VP of Elite Digital. “My immediate reaction used to be, ‘There’s no way we can do that in health.’ But now the thinking is, ‘How can we do that?’”
Elite Health’s founders believe its “work hard, play hard” culture is a key element of its success.
Elite’s healthcare clients have benefited greatly from the shift in mindset.
One of the most prominent examples is the Canadian arm of a major global pharma company.
Initially, Elite Health helped evolve the company’s marketing team to gain a digital lens, pioneering its social media presence and building healthcare professional (HCP) portals that brought together all of the company’s brands. It also implemented marketing automation and email journeys, moving from “spray and pray” tactics to hyper-targeted messages. “That digital transformation totally changed the way they engage with all their target audiences,” Burko explains.
Elite Health has also worked with an animal health company to break new ground in the digital space. One of their consumer products used to rely heavily on traditional radio for advertisement. Seeking to reach new audiences, better measure ROI and reduce ad spend, Elite Health expanded the product campaign onto multiple digital channels, including Spotify. Though the team was initially skeptical of the approach, Cohen says the Spotify ads are delivering three times the amount of impressions as those on Facebook and Instagram (which have also outperformed historical and industry benchmarks).
Burko says the Elite team is constantly collaborating, learning about what works for clients in other industries, then applying similar tactics to healthcare.
Elite Health has a dedicated client services team that has experience working with the Pharmaceutical Advertising Advisory Board (PAAB) on regulatory approvals. And as a Veeva-certified partner, the agency knows the ins-and-outs of the cloud-based software, which is commonly used by pharma companies.
The health team sits next to designers and developers at Elite Digital, which has worked with PepsiCo, Labatt, Mars Wrigley and other major brands. “It’s a wonderful cross-pollination of ideas, where key insights and best practices are shared across the agency,” says Burko.
While leveraging digital and social channels may be standard practice in other industries, the healthcare sector still has untapped opportunities.
Exploring new channels is one of them. For example, facing increased competition from generic brands, Elite Health developed an omnichannel campaign for Organon’s Nuvaring to boost brand
awareness. The strategy included ads on TikTok, Snapchat and Spotify – channels not typically considered in pharma media plans. With over 10 million impressions and nearly 2 million Canadians reached, the campaign exceeded all client benchmarks.
Elite has even shown how the digital mindset can be applied to traditional pharma tactics. For instance, brands commonly target key opinion leaders (KOLs), whose influence comes from publishing in medical journals and presenting at conferences.
Bringing gamification to the world of pharma, the Elite team created an immersive, Cialis-branded hockey game to generate site interactions and increase engagement.
For Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson, Elite added a digital twist by identifying a new breed of KOLs: digital influencers. It drafted a list of HCPs with strong engagement on platforms like LinkedIn, creating new leads for Janssen’s sales reps.
Although Elite strives to help clients push boundaries and move past the “pharma state of mind,” Burko emphasizes that industry guardrails are always respected.
“Our clients know that we have that knowledge and that expertise,” adds Cohen. “That gives them reassurance that we won’t steer them in a direction that could compromise their brand, product or business.”
CONTACT:
Robert Burko
CEO
rburko@elitedigitalagency.com
