All for one at Centron

HealthSTAR Communications, Centron’s parent company, has unified the ad agency and the medical education, public relations, and market access groups under one brand. The entities are now known as Centron Advertising, Centron Medical Education, Centron Public Relations and Centron Market Access.

“We’re really formalizing our long-standing commitment to provide our clients with best-in-class integrated marketing support,” says Chris Sweeney, CEO, HealthSTAR Communications. “This move allows us to leverage the reputation of our already-established units and keep leadership intact, specifically Marcia McLaughlin as the CEO, Michael Metelenis leading Advertising, Erinn White leading Public Relations, Shannyn Smith leading Medical Education, and Scott Baxter leading Market Access.”

According to McLaughlin, “We’ve taken a close look at the changing needs of the market, and we believe that our clients want and need a truly integrated resource, one in which leaders of the agency marketing disciplines are actually working together daily to develop and execute the best strategy to deliver commercial results.

“Too often, integration has meant clients have to ask and pay for the agency disciplines to talk and interact with each other. We believe this approach should be ‘business-as-usual’ for all healthcare agencies, considering consolidations and shrinking resources in the industry.”

Executives say the concept of “real” integration also extends to Centron’s philosophy regarding digital agencies, specifically that digital is a critical channel that needs to be a part of each and every marketing function, versus existing as a separate agency. To that end, Centron has just hired top industry talent, Danielle Tyburski, as vice president and senior digital strategist. Tyburski will use her digital experience gained at TBWA/Chiat/Day, Sudler & Hennessey, and Universal Buzz to work with each client, ensuring a consistent digital strategy.

“We’ve always tried to deliver what the industry needs, so to be a Med Ad News Agency of the Year finalist, to bring on new digital talent, and to announce this unification of companies means Centron is positioned for an exciting future – and so are our clients,” McLaughlin says.