Med Ad News held the 2016 Manny Awards in April, which featured a new category – Best POC (Point of Care) Campaign. Christine Franklin, executive director, The Point of Care Communication Council (PoC3), had the opportunity to talk with JUICE Pharma Marketing’s Justin Rubin, senior VP, group creative director, and Robert Palmer, executive VP, managing director, and understand more about the work they are doing. Learn more about using point of care to drive patient health outcomes at the Exclusive PoC3 Summit in NYC, October 4th, www.Poc3.org/Summit.

Christine Franklin: First, congratulations on your award-winning effort. As recognized leaders in point of care advertising implementation, we’d like to know how you would describe the shift you’ve seen in consideration towards point of care over the last year?

Justin Rubin: There has been a tremendous uptake in POC in nearly all of the brands we work on at JUICE. The industry is recognizing the power and potential of the “moment of truth” opportunity where a patient/physician conversation can result in an ask for a specific brand or a dialogue about a disease or adherence. Also, when you look at the mediums, the waiting room/exam room offers brands a choice of tactics to match their budgets – we consider video, Interactive tablet, posters, brochures, slim jims etc. One change that we’ve noticed is that a patient’s waiting time has shifted from just the waiting room to both the waiting room and the exam room. There is a psychological benefit to moving to the exam room where a nurse takes blood pressure, asks questions, etc. In response to this trend, we are connecting with vendors that provide video or printed materials and services specifically for the exam room.

Christine Franklin: As you design a campaign or pitch, what makes you include point of care? What are the most attractive and unique aspects? What goals do you feel POC inclusion ensures you will achieve?

Robert Palmer: For the most part, the majority of POC work skews toward the unbranded campaign platform. It’s widely accepted that physicians are less inclined to endorse or advertise one brand over the other in eye-shot of the patient. This is actually a blessing creatively. Unbranded campaigns have less restrictions, as they cater toward the disease or condition – rather than a product. There is often no fair balance, no claims we need to soften language for, etc. So when we create a campaign or do a pitch we can present work that is truly disruptive and aggressive.

Christine Franklin: I like the classification of POC efforts as “aggressive” – it seems like you are saying it’s a more aggressive option than “traditional DTC”?

Bob Palmer: If unbranded then yes – then restrictions for unbranded aren’t as tripping. We like to think of the waiting room as a really good qualified lead – but just because you build, doesn’t mean they’ll come. And just because it’s an office or waiting room, doesn’t mean rules for consumer captivation don’t apply. They still have phones and other distractions vying for their attention. So we still have to create campaigns that capture consumer attention. POC allows us the latitude to impact people emotionally, which is very different with brands, as data caters to the rationale part of the decision process. We’ve also been challenged with creating an unbranded POC campaign for a client that would lead to a branded conversation with the physician. In this case we had to leverage an emotional hook that would be paid off effortlessly by the brand.

Justin Rubin: Branded videos and collateral, while rarer than unbranded, can greatly impact the synergistic moment. It’s ideal when the physician and consumer campaign are identical; this way patients can ask the doctors for the brand by name, or mention a phrase or icon from the advertisement, and physicians will know instinctively what the patient is referring to. This is especially valuable in categories where physicians honor patient preference. POC in the exam room provides us with an opportunity to arm physicians with teaching tools they can use to help patients better understand information. So, in the end, we are striving to start a dialogue, and if we can, ensure a brand ask. As a result – we are seeing marketers realize it’s ideal when agencies can do both HCP and patient work.

Christine Franklin: What are the unique considerations/design opportunities as you create a point of care campaign?

Justin Rubin: While we have a captive audience, we still need to be engaging, as there will likely be other companies doing POC as well. So basically, we have to vie for attention. We aim to be bold, simplistic, challenging and thought provoking in our approach. Sometimes the design aspect takes us to “sound” design” and we look to implement audio clues that would cue patients into a video if they are not watching from the start. Most importantly, we must make sure our aesthetic and value proposition resonate on a deep level and is laden with a sense of urgency.

Christine Franklin: Please tell us a bit more about the specific POC effort that won the Manny for Best Point of Care Campaign.

Bob Palmer: We are particularly delighted by the Hemophilia POC campaign for Pfizer because we presented the idea during the new business pitch. Fast forward a few months later, and it’s been produced with very little fuss along the way. I think the reason for that is two-fold: one, there was a need that only an unbranded effort could solve because the brands couldn’t go there, and two, the work was disruptive and demanded attention. medadnews