Q&A with CDM New York’s New Creative Leadership Team

Med Ad News caught up with CDM New York’s new creative leaders – Executive Creative Director David Stemler, recently from The Bloc, and Executive VP, Group Creative Directors Felipe Munhoz and Bruno Brasileiro, recently from Area 23 – for a conversation about what they are hoping to achieve at the agency and the challenges facing healthcare advertising during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Med Ad News: What brought you to CDM? 

David Stemler: CDM is a such a storied agency that has changed—not just its own trajectory over the years—but the trajectory of the entire industry. For Bruno, Felipe, and me, this presented a once-in-a-career opportunity to leverage CDM’s innovative foundation to launch its next, even more disruptive, more inventive incarnation. We are humbled, grateful, and hungrier than ever to take this agency and industry to new creative heights.

Bruno Brasileiro: Though we have different backgrounds and skillsets, the three of us have had the opportunity to learn from some of the best in this industry. When David was offered the opportunity to build a new creative future for CDM NY, he in turn offered us that same opportunity. He encouraged us to use everything we’ve learned over the years to enhance this wonderful culture at CDM and to raise the bar for craft and excellence that is already so high in the industry. We couldn’t be more excited to have the chance to be able to look ahead and keep building on the amazing CDM foundation by applying everything that we’ve learned, applying everything that we’ve lived—it’s really exciting.

 

Med Ad News: What are the things you are hoping to apply that you have experienced?

Bruno Brasileiro: In the past few years, we’ve seen a big shift in creative advertising for pharma. Some agencies in the industry have begun to raise the bar for what pharma advertising is and can be going forward. The kind of work being done by agencies all across the board shows that pharma advertising is being elevated to new standards. I think that my biggest learning in the past five years came from seeing that process take shape, and witnessing how agencies, including the ones we’ve worked at, pushed the boundaries to get clients more open to bolder ideas and bigger work capable of breaking rules to truly change behavior. It’s been a remarkable experience for me, and I’m thrilled to be able to bring that with me to CDM.

David Stemler: Healthcare has, over the past five years or so, undergone a renaissance in terms of the caliber of the work. If you look at what’s winning at Cannes these days, a lot of the best work has to do with health in one way or another. That inspires me, and that’s exactly why it was so important to me to bring on Bruno and Felipe, because that’s what they’ve been doing their entire career. If you look at their body of work, both inside of healthcare and out, their attention to craft and their passion for creativity is unparalleled. That’s what we want to bring to the table at CDM, and that’s what we want to be measured against in the industry. I often say that I love the work being done by Burger King … but this is health. There is nothing more important than health, and we should be doing work that is at least as good as Burger King, if not better. That’s the bar.

Felipe Munhoz: When you look back five years ago where pharma advertising was, you had a division, you had a barrier. You had consumer advertising, and you had pharma advertising. More and more, we’re seeing professionals jump from one to the other, people from pharma going into consumer advertising, and people from consumer coming into pharma, because the ideas and work are achieving the same level of execution. The work that pharma is doing isn’t just good work by pharma standards, it’s good work by advertising standards. When you go to Cannes, what are the pharma agencies getting Lions in? Not only Health Lions, they’re getting Lions in other categories. There is less of a division every year, and we only see that trend continuing.

David Stemler: So many brands today are inventing a purpose. That’s great. But, in healthcare, you have the luxury of working on brands for which you do not need to invent a purpose. These brands come with a real purpose baked in. They really have the opportunity to change lives and, in some cases, save them.  It’s our mission to tell these stories with invention, passion, possibility, and every creative bone in our body, because the stories we get to tell in health are the absolute best in the world. That’s what gets us up in the morning, and we want to infuse that enthusiasm and energy into every brief that hits our teams’ desks at CDM.

 

Med Ad News: What would you like to accomplish in the next few years at CDM?

David Stemler: We’re very focused in growing our oncology, rare disease, and consumer portfolio right now. CDM has always been known for having a broad spectrum of clients—I can’t name a category we don’t have expertise in—but there is such amazing research happening in oncology and rare disease, and we have such a tremendous amount of experience and passion for both, it’s a no-brainer. At the same time, Felipe, Bruno, and I have worked in consumer our entire careers, whether in health or out of health. We bring that wealth of experience to the table and we’re really looking to grow that segment of our business at CDM, especially in health tech.

Health tech, for years, has received a lot of interest from venture capital and record-breaking cash infusions, but it hasn’t yet achieved the profit margins to match its value. I think that’s going to change dramatically in the near future as predictive, preventative medicine becomes as valuable, if not more valuable, than reactive medicine. CDM has been ahead of that curve for years, and partnering with health tech to help them realize their potential is something we’re committed to in 2021 and beyond.

 

Med Ad News: What do you consider to be one of the biggest challenges for healthcare advertising at this point in time?

David Stemler: The pandemic condensed three years of change into three weeks, and it really ripped the Band-Aid off of remote engagement and nonpersonal selling. Some agencies have had to learn a new language overnight. Fortunately, CDM has always had the digital capabilities that our clients are going to need going forward.

I don’t think that the world of marketing we knew is coming back. Some elements will, but many changes will likely be permanent, even after the vaccine. Telehealth adoption is certainly one of them, and it’s going to be critical that we stay several steps ahead of that and other related trends. It’s a big challenge, but it’s one I feel CDM is uniquely poised to lead the way on.