See our picks for the best pharma marketing campaigns
Which marketing campaigns catch our eye in the pharmaceutical space? Explore our picks and learn why we think they’re so brilliant.
Providing digital marketing services for the pharma, life science, and biotech sectors is quite a ride. We get to engage with some incredible minds, helping them find the angle which will translate their genius into the language of investors and customers.
It’s also a high-stakes game, sometimes literally one of life and death. This makes the industry subject to tight regulations on what we can and can’t say. You can get away with telling porkies when you’re selling a used car, but not a disease treatment.
How do we balance this critical need for impact with vital rules on accuracy? Well, partly by paying careful attention to how others do it. The world is full of dynamic, creative pharma marketing campaigns. Here are some of our favourites.
Meiji & Dentsu: You and the Immune System
What’s the focus?
How often do you really think about your immune system? When was the last time you had to consider it in real terms beyond some vague, ‘oh, I’ll drink some orange juice cos it’s good for me somehow?’
Dentsu’s campaign for Meiji confronted commuters with the bizarre world which exists inside our own bodies. When your immune system becomes a familiar face on the train to work, it becomes more of a priority to care for.
Who’s the target audience?
Anyone with an immune system, which nicely covers most of us. Japan doesn’t tend to share the West’s preoccupation with atomised identity, thinking which may well have contributed to how effective this campaign is.
By zooming right in, way beneath the skin, the ad leaves no room for anyone to feel unrepresented. It’s a masterful move whereby the sheer alien look of the artwork unites all possible audiences. After all, deep down we’re all just a collection of wibbly antibody thingies.
What about the visuals?
The visuals make this campaign. Full disclosure: none of us speak Japanese, Dentsu’s project was picked purely for the otherworldly impact of its artwork. If anyone reading this does speak Japanese, please let us know what the copy says so we can love that as well.
For now, we content ourselves with the soft, floating light and shadows of the art. Weird framing and a hyper-closeup perspective reinforces the message: this is a world which is strange, and at the same time familiar to all of us.
Know Your Lemons Foundation: Know Your Lemons
What’s the focus?
Educating women on the symptoms of breast cancer saves lives. The Know Your Lemons Foundation has been refining this campaign since 2003, using a simple, powerful visual theme and straight-talking copy.
Using lemons as a breast substitute gives the campaign global appeal. It’s enjoyed success even in countries whose culture and laws make discussion of female anatomy a dangerous taboo.
Who’s the target audience?
Women who don’t fancy being patronised with fluffy, euphemistic language on a serious topic have flocked to the campaign in their hundreds of thousands. Terms like ‘nipple crust,’ ‘hard lump,’ and, ‘new fluid’ transcend performative femininity, delivering a hard-hitting message to real human beings.
Use of lemons is an intentional move. Corrine Beaumont, the mind behind the campaign, is an academic who conducted extensive research into creating a campaign with mass appeal. As with the Simpsons, yellow is universal.
What about the visuals?
Who’d have thought a bunch of lemons in an eggbox would work so well and spread so far. The attention to detail that’s gone into making each lemon a helpful representation of various breast cancer symptoms is impressive.
Beyond that, the campaign wins by sticking to a simple format. It’s a shining example of what happens when you set out to send one clear message and reject any distractions.
Hims: Branding and launch
What’s the focus?
How do you talk sensitively about guys losing their hair and being unable to perform in bed? How do you market products aimed at fixing these issues without lapsing into tired clichés?
Men’s health brand, Hims, doesn’t just walk this tightrope, it backflips across the thing. Wit and humour shine through their launch campaign while remaining supportive and inclusive.
Who’s the target audience?
Talking about hair loss is tough for a lot of men; our Chief Copywriter insists he shaves his head by choice, and that his beard isn’t a way of compensating. Having a productive conversation about erectile dysfunction is even harder.
Hims does amazing work on these sensitive topics. Addressing them proactively is painted as a noble, heroic act: “Let’s walk at our full height, honour the forebears, have a smile, and for god’s sake, floss.”
What about the visuals?
What can we say; they’ve taken baldness and an inability to rise to the occasion, then made them both look like Boohoo. Putting an optimistic, lifestyle twist on a topic steeped in such anxiety is commendably brave.
And, most importantly, it works. Light pastel colours bring that anxiety right down. The whole look says, ‘hey bro, it’s no big deal, let’s just get this sorted out.’ Oh, and we know Snoop Dogg is in everything nowadays, but they did an advert featuring him and it’s brilliant.
Sookio: Digital marketing for the life sciences
Striking the right balance with your messaging is tricky in such a tightly regulated industry. You need to work with the right content agency, whose copywriting and content creation services can tell an engaging (but compliant) story.
It’s time to get started.