McCann Health: 2017

 

McCann Health
622 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Telephone: 646-865-3017
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: mccannhealth.com

 

 

In 2016, McCann Health once again achieved strong growth across the board winning significant new global and regional accounts, according to executives. “We are extremely proud and honored to have been named the 2016 Cannes Lions ‘Health Network of the Year,’” management says. “This award, from the best, most influential creative festival in the world, recognized McCann Health’s ability to perform and achieve the highest level of creativity in every office, in every country in its global network.”

Jeremy Perrott, McCann Health global chief creative officer, says, “Groundbreaking creativity is at the heart of everything we do at McCann Health. The only way to win this award is when every agency in the network is performing at top level. This would not have been possible without our talented teams and our clients’ terrific support and belief in our work around the world.”

And for the fifth consecutive year, McCann Health took top honors as the Healthcare Agency Network of the Year at the Global Awards show and dominated the IPA Best of Health Show and International AME Awards, recognizing the world’s best advertising and marketing effectiveness campaigns, the network’s leaders say.

The Year’s Accomplishments

According to network executives, 2016 represented the first full year of operation for McCann Health North America, a strategic move to integrate a diverse set of agencies across North America into one compelling integrated offering for clients. The agencies that comprise McCann Health North America are McCann Echo, McCann Healthcare, McCann Torre Lazur, McCann Managed Markets, and McCann Pharmacy Initiative.

Under the leadership of Amar Urhekar, president, McCann Health Americas, the newly formed McCann North America more than doubled its revenue and added an “impressive” list of new clients including AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Janssen, Lilly, Novartis Oncology, Novo Nordisk, and Takeda, executives say, adding that with these and other clients, McCann Health North America can now say 40 percent of its clients are global brands.

Urhekar says, “By uniting our individual agencies under the McCann Health North America banner, we are now providing clients with a more seamless integrated network, unparalleled resources and the highest level of talent.”
The McCann Health North America regional leadership team includes Hilary Gentile, executive VP, regional chief strategy officer; Dawn Serra, senior VP, director, human resources; and Mike Lawlor, chief financial officer, McCann Health North America.

As the first-ever chief strategy officer for McCann Health North America, Gentile has worked closely with Urhekar to bring region’s compelling new offering to life, executives say, “going above and beyond her role as chief strategy officer, to build a strong culture of ambition and growth that is taking the agency to unprecedented heights.”
In keeping with a year of rapid growth, McCann Health is renewing its commitment to being a “people first” organization that enables great talent to do great work, management says.

As such, Serra developed and spearheaded a robust new regional career development program “designed to empower the personal progress of every individual at McCann Health N. A.,” executives say.
In 2016, McCann Health launched two important thought leadership initiatives.

In partnership with sister agency McCann Truth Central, McCann Health launched “The Truth About Doctors,” a proprietary U.S. research study that surveyed 450 doctors across the nation. According to Gentile, a co-author of the study, “The autonomous, entrepreneurial role the doctor has played in the past has changed dramatically. In the last five years, doctors have gone from being the lynchpin in the healthcare system to a devalued cog in a larger wheel. New insights from the study suggest that as communications experts, we must begin to create ‘value’ based messaging that supports doctors beyond the traditional brand story.”

McCann Health became the first and only healthcare marketing agency to be included in a unique collaboration with the Rutgers Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowship Program. “It consists of a 6-month rotation at four McCann Health North America agencies specializing in different disciplines of health care marketing, including U.S. and global health care professional and direct-to-patient marketing, scientific engagement and medical education, managed markets, and pharmacy marketing,” execs say.

According to Urhekar, “We’re proud to be part of the esteemed group of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies collaborating with Rutgers University in mentoring and educating the healthcare industry leaders of tomorrow.”

McCann Health North America reached new heights in both creativity and effectiveness, taking home more than 50 awards from major shows such as the Globals, AME, Effies, IPA Best of Health Show, Clio Health, Creative Floor, DTC National, Rx Club, and the Creativity International Design awards.

Structures & Services

In 2016, McCann HumanCare (see agency profile) officially became part of McCann Health North America and a new partnership was formed between HumanCare and McCann Healthcare, the network’s specialist marketing agency for the professional health community, both located in New York. Leo Tarkovsky took on the additional role of president for McCann Healthcare. As president of both McCann HumanCare and McCann Healthcare, Tarkovsky now reports to Urhekar.

An award-winning creative director, Frank Mazzola, was appointed to executive VP, executive creative director at McCann Healthcare. Andrew Chamlin, chief marketing officer for McCann HumanCare, took on the additional role of chief marketing officer for McCann Healthcare.

According to Urhekar, “As the boundaries between HCPs, patients and health consumers continue to shift and blur, client needs are evolving too. By creating this new closer connection between McCann HumanCare and McCann Healthcare, and putting them under one proven leader, we are now positioned to more effectively meet our clients’ evolving needs with a unique cross-discipline offering.”
Other key leadership changes include Beth Beck, who was appointed to the new role of general manager for the Janssen business.

At McCann Torre Lazur, Mark Willmann was promoted to president. Lauren Lewis and Pete Irizarry were named executive VPs, managing directors. Nicholas Megjugorac, PhD, VP, scientific director, was promoted to head of strategy and Marcia Goddard continued as executive VP, executive creative director. “Under Willmann’s leadership in 2016, MTL, a three-decades-old agency, has been revitalized achieving double-digit growth,” executives say.

McCann Pharmacy, led by President Sandra Carey, grew significantly in its first full year of operation. Execs say the agency is building a strong global practice catering to the changing needs of pharmacy as well as the pharmacist in the broader spectrum of health communications.

“Biologics, considered by many to be the frontier of pharmaceutical innovation, represent a new therapeutic area for McCann Health N.A., which it has fully embraced scientifically, strategically, and creatively,” executives say.

Future Plans

Looking to the future, Urhekar says, “We remain bullish on the prospects of growth and building stronger, more strategic client partnerships as well as continuing to invest in talent recruitment, development and retention to deliver best-in-class talent to clients and exciting new career opportunities to our people.”

Urhekar added, “As McCann Health North America, we are constantly striving to be distinctive not just differentiated. This is demonstrated in the way we are structured as well as the caliber of talent and successes achieved from a Creative and Strategic/Thought Leadership standpoint. Bringing McCann Health’s unique integrated offering to life across as many clients possible is the real challenge and ambition. As the industry struggles to demonstrate the value due to high drug pricing, our offering and fresh thinking endeavors to preserve and build value through enhanced focus on Payer Marketing, Innovative Medical Communications Solutions and, last but not the least, continued efforts to raise the creative bar across the region.”

Philanthropy/Citizenship

Inspired by the experience of a colleague who lost a loved one to suicide, volunteers at McCann Torre Lazur have spent the last two years engaging their creative powers to build a powerful call to action for suicide prevention, showing the world that life is worth living. #worthliving was launched in 2014 with a single tweet and executives say it quickly surpassed expectations by generating more than 18 million social media impressions globally. Last year, the #worthliving campaign centered around the idea of “thought notes,” – virtual and actual orange sticky notes – that young people could use to start conversations about suicide and mental health. Events were held from Washington Square Park to Grand Central Station to spread the word and solicit notes. The goal: to break the Guinness World Record for the largest online album of handwritten notes.

Executives add that McCann Healthcare proudly advanced its long-time relationship with the Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation, which was founded to honor the memory of one of the children lost in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. The foundation raises funds in support of the CVH Animal Sanctuary in Connecticut. Group Copy Supervisor Linda Enns took it upon herself to expand the campaign. Seeing a connection between the “Kindness Is Everywhere” creative and a Broadway play she loved, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” Linda was able to secure free ad space for the CVH Foundation in the show’s Playbill. Because they loved the ad so much, Playbill gave it a prominent placement in the Playbills for six other major Broadway shows, reaching an audience of more than 1 million people, executives say.

Additionally, during last fall, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights challenged McCann HumanCare to articulate that mission in a succinct and impactful way, according to management. “The agency’s response was a video manifesto that was shown at the organization’s largest event of the year: The Ripple of Hope Gala. The video aimed to break down and define the three main objectives of the organization: advocacy and litigation, sustainable living, and human rights education. It successfully set the tone for an evening studded with influential activists, philanthropists, donors, and statesmen, including former Vice President Joe Biden. In fact, the response to the video was so impressive that McCann HumanCare is now in discussions with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights to plan out their 2017 communications plan.”