Guidemark Health Inc.: 2016
Guidemark Health Inc.
6 Campus Dr.
Parsippany, NJ 07054
Phone: 201-740-6160
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: guidemarkhealth.com
Accounts
Account wins 31
Active business clients 33
Brands by 2015 sales
Brand product accounts held 82
Services Mix
Professional/Consumer Advertising (including digital) 50%
Medical Communications 30%
Learning 10%
Market Access 5%
Customer Engagement/Media 3%
Branding 2%
Client Roster
Acorda Therapeutics
Actelion Pharmaceuticals
Allergan
Amgen
Baxter Healthcare
Bayer
Biogen
Boehringer Ingelheim
Boston Biomedical
Celgene
Celldex
Daiichi Sankyo Pharma Development
EMD Serono
Emergent Biosolutions
Endo
Evofem
Genentech
GSK
GW Pharma
Inovio
Janssen
Jazz Pharmaceuticals
Johnson & Johnson GCSO
Eli Lilly
Lundbeck
Mylan
Nephrogenex
Olympus
Otsuka
PaxVax
Questcor
Rhodes
Seqirus
Taiho
Vanda
Woman Care Global
Zoetis
Guidemark executives were determined to launch a new type of agency in 2015. With decades of previous experience, the leadership team united around the vision of creating a home for the industry’s top talent and delivering unparalleled value for clients.
“The promise of a new value proposition, and an agency custom built for client’s evolving needs, caught fire – even before the agency’s official launch in April 2015,” executives say.
“Before our campaign launched, we were pitching and winning full-service engagements, agency consolidations, and major product launches,” says Matt Brown, CEO. “It was confirmation that we were doing the right thing and that marketers were hungry for an agency with a new approach.”
In 2015, the agency drove double-digit growth in its AOR business and added more than two dozen new account wins, according to executives, who add that several of these wins led to consolidation of entire portfolios as clients began to experience the value of the agency’s structure.
For example, agency leaders say, following the award of professional and consumer promotion for Seqirus’ Fluad, the agency took on the balance of the franchise, including Flucelvax Quadrivalent and Fluad Quadrivalent. The agency was then awarded AOR status for Vaxchora and Vivotif. Guidemark also celebrated the addition of Evofem’s Amphora, Zoetis’ Simparica, and Otsuka’s Abilify Maintena, among others.
It wasn’t just the tremendous growth that excited Guidemark, according to executives, the new structure elevated the engagement between the agency and its clients. “These are becoming some of the deepest relationships I have had in my career,” says Tina Fascetti, chief creative officer. “We are having fun and partnering with some of the most forward-thinking clients in healthcare, which is enabling us to create some really breakthrough campaigns.”
Structure and services
With the agency already experiencing tremendous momentum, Brown says he focused on bolstering its strategic capabilities. In a move that he says will set the company apart from its competitors, Brown hired Fred Petito as chief behaviorist and engagement officer.
“Fred brings a dynamic to the agency that I have not witnessed in nearly two decades,” says Brown. “Our clients are excited by the thinking that he and his team bring to their business.”
Under Petito’s leadership, the agency launched Praedicis, a proprietary methodology that draws on decades of research from the social, cognitive, and decision sciences to more deeply understand the factors influencing the decisions and behaviors of all healthcare constituents.
“We are leveraging 40 years of academic research to gain a deeper understanding of what influences behavior,” Petito says. “Then we’re designing interventions using adult learning principles and user experience design to modify those behaviors.”
In addition to the area of behavioral science, market access challenges have made payor and health outcomes solutions an increasingly important resource need for marketers. To answer this need, Brown tapped Guidemark’s internal talent. Omar Shoheiber, PharmD, MBA, was named chief market access officer, bringing a wealth of knowledge and deep experience in the healthcare system. Shoheiber, once a hospital pharmacist and with formal training in pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research, says he is enthusiastic about the new role.
“To meet their own business objectives, provider networks are increasingly establishing best practices and treatment protocols with the expectation that providers within their networks adhere to them,” Shoheiber says. “These measures of quality and value are creating a very different dynamic than a few years ago. As such, we have to help our clients develop and deliver a brand value proposition that resonates with patients and providers at every level.”
Guidemark also understands the value of branding and a well-positioned offering. To ensure client products would resonate in the hearts and minds of their customers, Brown says he looked to trusted former colleague Martin Mannion to be Guidemark’s chief strategy officer.
“I’ve worked with Martin for almost two decades and I don’t know of any better strategist in our industry for getting to the true value of a brand,” Brown says.
While much of Guidemark’s value proposition is based on a unique offering of broad and deep subject-matter expertise, executives say the agency understands the importance of delivering executional excellence, foregoing the traditional model of tiered account roles, and instead placing strategic account leads (SALs) on new accounts with support from a project management office (PMO).
Developing and delivering a new agency model would require smart, strong leadership, executives say. Brown says he turned to agency veteran Vic Zambrotta to serve as agency president and oversee Guidemark’s operations and client relationships.
“Being a nimble, mid-sized agency allows us to customize our teams and deploy resources our clients truly need and only when they need them,” Zambrotta says, “Our SALs enable us to be experts in our client’s category and our PMO is stacked with experience in managing workflow and ensuring executional excellence. It is not only an effective model, it is incredibly efficient.”
Adding to the value proposition is Guidemark’s commitment to developing its Global Delivery Center. Sid Gokhale, chief technology officer and head of global operations, leads the agency’s studio in India. “We have been diligent in creating a dedicated resource for our clients, and we are pushing beyond typical production roles and employing diverse talent with tremendous skills to elevate our execution,” Gokhale says.
According to agency leaders, Guidemark is committed to bringing value to client engagements. “With a breadth and depth of core offerings not typically found in one agency, under aligned leadership, Guidemark is experiencing tremendous success in integrated wins,” executives say.
Most of Guidemark’s clients are taking advantage of the agency’s expertise and are using two or more of the agency’s services, executives say. “With deep experience in branding, professional and consumer advertising, medical communications, speaker bureaus, learning, market access, customer engagement, and media, the agency has a full suite of solutions to the challenges facing today’s healthcare marketers,” they say.
Future plans
Guidemark’s leaders say they value innovation in healthcare communications and promise new approaches that will add greater value. “While we have been able to attract great talent and therefore build many of our offerings within our current structure, we are actively looking at acquisitions that reflect the evolving needs of our clients,” Brown says.
Finding the next Praedicis or uncovering an unmet need for healthcare marketers is what drives Guidemark’s entrepreneurial leaders, they say. Brown suggested that future acquisitions could also expand the agency’s global footprint, deepen its subject matter expertise, and scale its operational capacity.
Philanthropy/citizenship
While agency leaders say they feel a tremendous amount of pride in the success of the organization, they are most humbled by the effort their people made in giving back.
In 2015, Guidemark launched its “Make Your Mark” program, giving employees time off to support a charity of their choice. Employees from all offices contributed more than 900 hours of volunteer service. They helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity, served meals and worked in local shelters, and donated time and resources to those with serious health conditions and chronic diseases.
Jim Hoblitzell, the agency’s CFO, says, “Every company wants to experience growth and success, but it is the genuine heart of the organization that makes it a place people want to call home.”