AbelsonTaylor: 2022

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AbelsonTaylor

433 W. Van Buren Street, Suite 650N, Chicago, IL 60607
312-894-5500 • [email protected]abelsontaylor.com

 

QUICK FACTS

Accounts

Account wins 8
Active business clients 22

Brands by 2021 sales

Brand-product accounts held 51
$25 million or less 3
$25 million-$50 million 9
$50 million-$100 million 10
$100 million-$500 million 6
$500 million-$1 billion 3
$1 billion or more 5
Products not yet approved/launched 13

SERVICES MIX

Sales promotion 35%
Video brochures 35%
Broadcast 18%
Magazines 6%
Consumer publications 4%
Other 2%

CLIENT ROSTER

Aerovate Therapeutics
Amgen
Arcutis Biotherapeutics
Astellas Pharma US
Avanos
Chiesi
City of Hope
Coherus
CooperGenomics
CooperSurgical
CSL Behring
Fresenius Kabi
G1 Therapeutics
Kite Pharma
Kodiak
MetaMe Health
MMedx Group
Myokardia
Neurocrine Biosciences
Pharmacosmos
Pharmavite
Seres Therapeutics
Sunovion Pharmaceuticals
Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America
Vericel

 

WINNER | Best Professional Web Campaign
There are 170,000 recurrences of C. difficile each year. Since C. diff is a dire condition and patients keep coming back, the idea of horror-movie sequels is a perfect fit.

WINNER

Industry Person of the Year
Best Professional Web Campaign

 

“What a year this is shaping up to be!” say leaders at AbelsonTaylor. “After last year’s amazing growth, we are still growing at a very healthy and more sustainable rate. In 2021, we saw a 15 percent growth in revenue, eight big new business wins, 15 creative awards, 10 percent staff growth, new leadership for our diversity, equity, and inclusion priorities, strong organic growth from existing clients, the launch of eight new campaigns, and – most exciting – the creation of a new opportunity agency, ATNutrient, within the AbelsonTaylor Group.”

According to management, “All of this was accomplished despite the unprecedented staff churn that has impacted every agency, and most other businesses too. We are hiring from other companies, and they are hiring from us, and that makes it tough for everyone. But that’s the world we live in today. And after 40 years in business, we are still as strong as ever.”

Agency leaders say, “As we looked to the future and where we see the industry evolving, it was imperative that we rebrand to reflect our new focus on providing clients with breakthrough ideas that produce measurable, breakthrough results. So, we launched a new AbelsonTaylor identity and advertising campaign in 2021 – Return on Imagination (ROI). We also developed and launched a new creative evaluation tool to both assess and elevate concepts, with the goal of creating work that drives a deeper engagement and provides more measurable results for our clients’ brands.”

Recent Accomplishments

Examples of the agency’s breakthrough creative work on behalf of clients in 2021 includes campaigns for clients G1 Therapeutics, Pharmavite, Kite Pharma, CSL Behring, Neurocrine Biosciences, and Seres Therapeutics.

AbelsonTaylor began 2021 with a massive product launch with G1 Therapeutics for the Cosela brand. Both the HCP Spear the Tumor campaign and the patient-focused myeloprotection campaign launched with great success at cosela.com. Agency management says it was a fully virtual product launch because of the ongoing pandemic and the team made it one of the most successful launches in the history of AbelsonTaylor – due to excellent planning as well as strong client relationships and partnerships with the G1 Therapeutics brand team.

Pharmavite initiated a new campaign for Equelle focused on driving awareness of this non-prescription, hormone-free supplement which AT executives say is validated to provide menopause symptom relief. “We created the Equal Parts Science and Relief campaign focusing on the clinical evidence behind the Equelle brand,” agency managers say. The campaign can be found at equelle.com/pages/healthcare-professionals.

Additionally, the work with Pharmavite expanded to DTC campaigns for Equelle, including a social media launch on Instagram with Menopause, My Way.

In partnership with Kite Pharma, the AbelsonTaylor team developed the “Slayed the Dragon” patient campaign for Yescarta in follicular lymphoma and marginal zone lymphoma and continued to see success in driving patient demand. The campaign is at yescarta.com/fl/. Additionally, the agency launched the Tecartus patient campaign to help raise awareness for this important brand in treating acute lymphocytic leukemia.

With Neurocrine Biosciences, the agency created a completely new DTC campaign – Spotlight – to help raise awareness of Ingrezza as an important treatment for tardive dyskinesia.

In partnership with Seres Therapeutics and Aimmune Therapeutics, AbelsonTaylor launched the “Endless Sequels” HCP campaign to raise awareness of the impact of recurrent C. difficile infection, at cdiffsequels.com.

And longtime client CSL Behring engaged with the agency to develop a campaign elevating awareness of advancements in hemophilia treatments through the science of transformative gene therapies, which can be found at hemevolution.com/hcp#.

And it wasn’t just longstanding accounts that AbelsonTaylor found success with.

“With our new positioning and focus on driving business results for clients, our brand roster continued to grow in 2021,” management says. “We added an additional nine brands through business development and organic growth efforts.” New accounts included SER109 from Seres Therapeutics and Aimmune Therapeutics. The drug is a first-in-class investigational microbiome therapeutic for reducing the recurrence of C. difficile infection (CDI). Pharmavite gave the agency the opportunity to work on NatureMade Vitamins & Supplements as well as DTC campaign development for Equelle.

Other new accounts came in from Aerovate Therapeutics, which brought in AT to help with the first novel therapy in the company’s cardiopulmonary development program, an anti-proliferative therapy intended to address the root cause of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). MiMedx hired the agency for consumer media on the Epifix wound-care brand

The agency was hired by Coherus Biosciences to launch a biosimilar candidate of reference product Lucentis (ranibizumab) within the ophthalmology market. Fresenius Kabi entrusted AT with the company’s global immunology biosimilars franchise and the U.S. launch of its biosimilars adalimumab and tocilizumab.

CooperSurgical expanded the agency’s work beyond the Endosee brand, awarding business for the Ally and Mara brands in the company’s women’s health division. CooperGenomics started to work with AT on its IVF genetic testing product.

Sunovion expanded AT’s work for the Latuda brand. And CSL Behring awarded the agency the global and U.S. launch of a therapy for hereditary angioedema

The agency also had a fruitful year for awards. “With 15 wins, we had quite a run on the awards circuit in 2021,” AT managers say.

Three campaigns brought in the majority of these wins. The Latuda “Real Expressions” commercial won two Telly Awards (one Gold and one Silver); five Communicator Awards (two Gold and three Silver); and an Rx Club Silver Award.

The Yescarta “More Than Hope” campaign picked up a PM360 Trailblazers Silver Award; a Communicator Silver Award; and four W3 Awards (one Gold and three Silvers) And the Jornay “Rising Star” campaign won the PM360 Greatest Creators Award.

The agency also marked continuing success in its DEI efforts. “We made significant progress last year in our continuing efforts to create a workplace where everyone feels welcome and able to grow in a safe and positive environment,” AT managers say. “We hired Yolanda Macias as our first director of Diversity and Inclusion, created a formal DEI mission, and identified five focus areas addressing Employee Centricity, Psychological Safety, Communication Systems, DEI Training and Awareness, and Diverse Representation. The agency also established a partnership with The Equality Institute.”

Future Plans

AbelsonTaylor headed into 2022 ever mindful of the toll the pandemic has taken on everyone, including our staff and their families,” agency leaders say. “The resilience they have shown has been truly remarkable. In 2022, we continue to apply the basic principles of therapeutics to our team – recover and thrive.”

Philanthropy/Citizenship

Although the pandemic prevented our HeartsATWork program from doing many of the kinds of events that we’ve done in the past, we intensified our financial support of various organizations and found new ways of connecting with and supporting our communities,” agency managers say.

As food insecurity continues to be an issue for many in Chicago, with local food banks serving more people than ever before, AT continued to donate to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, “a group to whom we’ve contributed well over a million dollars during the course of our relationship,” agency leadership says.

AT also partnered with the Chicago Help Initiative and Lakeview Pantry, with employees volunteering their time to help deliver meals to those in need. And the agency continued a 20-plus year commitment to its partnership with Heifer International, particularly in support of the Future of Food project in Ecuador.

“In other activities, we leveraged our professional skills and extensive experience in rare diseases and women’s health to develop campaigns and content supporting Rare Disease Day and International Women’s Day,” management says. “We also held our first AT Olympics in the office, featuring some friendly competitive matches in things like ping pong and putting. While we gave out several gold medals, the real winner was the Special Olympics, to which we gave a generous donation. In October, we asked all employees to nominate charities that mean a lot to them, both to highlight the work the organizations do and to identify where and how we will provide support next year.”

(standing left to right) Keith Stenlund, executive VP/chief financial officer; Jody Van Swearingen, senior VP, creative director; Jeanine Koch, executive VP, project management; Eric Densmore, senior VP, account director; Jeff Berg, president; Dale Taylor, chairman/CEO
(seated left to right) Stephen Neale, executive VP, chief creative officer; Lynnette Hunter, executive VP, director of client services; Mark Finn, senior VP, account director; Tristen George, senior VP, creative director; Laura Bartmess, senior VP, account director