Advertising is a world wide business. Its basic principle is to persuade potential customers to purchase or consume more of a particular product or service. Some advertisements are designed to create awareness or stimulate interest and intrigue, while others attempt to establish or change attitudes. Advertising is usually created and placed by an advertising agency on behalf of a company or organization.

Every major medium is used to deliver the advertising message including television, radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers, electronic games, the Internet and billboards. Everybody has their own view on advertising, from art form to necessary evil, and healthcare advertising is no different.

Branding

Advertising has a bigger brother – branding. Branding is the Holy Grail of advertising with many advertisements attempting to generate increased consumption of a product or service through the creation of a ‘brand image’ and reinforcement of ‘brand loyalty’. Companies who pay advertising agencies do so in the hope, and sometimes the expectation, that the products they pay to have advertised become the brand leader in their particular market.

Today brand equity has become a key asset and branding – from fast-moving consumer goods through to financial services – is often the only unique differentiator. Successful brands such as Coca-Cola, Starbucks, FedEx, Nike, Virgin and BMW are all household names and instantly recognisable as brand leaders - and they did not get there by accident. Their products were advertised in successful long-running campaigns created by advertising agencies who found a way of creating awareness, stimulating interest and intrigue and, ultimately, confidence among consumers to buy the brand.

Healthcare Branding

In today’s brand-centric society the pharmaceutical industry has been slow to jump onto the ‘brand wagon’.

Traditionally pharmaceutical companies have relied on the power of patent protection rather than the power of branding to drive sales of prescription only medicines (POMs). This usually involves creating advertising campaigns specifically for the medical profession to inform them about what a product can do for their patients.

Some of the more successful healthcare brands are Beecham’s Powders, Vicks, Clearasil and Benylin. These are known as consumer products because they are available to the general public in pharmacies, supermarkets, newsagents and other retailers all over the world, usually without the involvement of either a doctor or a pharmacist. As a result of thousands of man hours, and millions spent to get these brands to their lofty positions, they have made billions in revenue for brand owners (or stewards) namely GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Proctor & Gamble (P&G), Reckitt Benckiser (RB) and Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

It’s also true to say that these brands have made millions for the advertising agencies who conceptualised the campaigns that got them to where they are today.

Switching

Over the counter (OTC) products can be bought only in pharmacies after consultation with a pharmacist. These are becoming more plentiful as more prescription only medicines (POMs) which can only be prescribed by a doctor, are switched to OTC by pharmaceutical companies looking to generate new profit streams. One of the quickest ways to brand leadership is to be the first in a category, so many pharmaceutical manufacturers are anxious to get their brands onto the OTC shelves before their competitors.

Switches’ are big business for healthcare advertising agencies and provide an opportunity to be more creative in their campaigns because they offer products for symptoms that are easily recognised and appeal to a wider consumer audience.

Switch campaigns go hand-in-hand with educating consumers. Some successful switches that have established brand leaders have been Calpol and Nurofen.

Industry Regulations

Advertising in the healthcare marketplace is strictly regulated and all agencies in the UK must abide by rules set down in the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) Code of Practice.

The ABPI governs what can be said in advertisements for pharmaceutical products, how it is said, and to whom it is said. Most employees of healthcare advertising agencies will receive ABPI accreditation at some stage of their careers.

Healthcare Agencies

Many healthcare advertising agencies are part of large global communications networks, some are smaller independent companies, and others are very small niche operations.

All are looking for a very particular type of candidate and some of the words they regularly use include:

·          Passionate

·          Creative

·          Innovative

·          Driven

·          Confident

·          Enthusiastic

·          Motivated

·          Coherent

The word that RiverSide uses to encapsulate these attributes is ‘BRILLIANT’.