Evoke Health Announces Creation of Evoke Group
‘FIRSTHAND’ and ‘Traverse HealthStrategy’ join ‘Evoke Health’ in Pursuit of a More Human Health Experience for Customers.
March 1, 2016 (New York) – Evoke Health, one of the world’s largest consumer health and wellness agencies, today announced the creation of FIRSTHAND, a new digital marketing agency, and Traverse HealthStrategy, a digital health consultancy. The three companies will function under the umbrella entity, Evoke Group, with the mission of helping health and wellness clients create more human brands and experiences for their customers.
“To say that healthcare is changing drastically is a gross understatement,” said Reid Connolly, CEO of Evoke Group. “As consumers are asserting themselves more in every decision process, we’re also seeing wild changes in the way all the health stakeholder groups interact, mostly due to unprecedented innovation in the digital channel. So we’re expanding our spectrum of services to be more responsive to the emerging needs of life science clients.”
Evoke Health, the group’s flagship agency, specializes in DTC, consumer and digital marketing agency-of-record (AOR) engagements to help clients address the growth in consumer control. FIRSTHAND will deliver digital marketing across audiences to simplify brand decision-making processes and help navigate advancements in digital health. Traverse HealthStrategy, a consultancy, will help clients optimize cross-channel marketing effectiveness and organizational efficiency through all of this change.
FIRSTHAND – www.1sthand.com: With digital health innovation coming mostly from outside pharma, Connolly sees the need for a pervasively digital agency to help pharma clients understand and leverage these developments. FIRSTHAND is a specialized agency with digital at its core. “FIRSTHAND focuses on optimizing interactions between and across health system stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, hospitals, payors, pharmacists, patients, and caregivers, to better enable the flow of information and enhance brand pull-through,” said Eric Daly, Managing Director, FIRSTHAND.
Central to their approach is a rigorous reliance on data-driven insights for first-hand knowledge of customer needs and channel effectiveness, to drive smarter decision-making for clients. The agency is staffed for digital AOR relationships and will also pursue digital innovation opportunities that have the potential for transformative impact. FIRSTHAND has offices in New York City and Philadelphia.
Traverse HealthStrategy – www.traversehs.com: According to Connolly, many people refer to digital as one channel, but it is actually profoundly fragmented. “As new digital sub-channels emerge daily, clients face the challenge of integrating them with proven channels and supporting them with the right organizational infrastructure to deliver the best results,” said Pat Thistlethwaite, Managing Director, Traverse HealthStrategy. “Our mission at Traverse is to combine best-in-class strategic theory with real-world operational understanding to help clients get the most value from investing in cross-channel technologies and capabilities.”
By creating Traverse, Evoke Group is able to offer clients access to senior strategic professionals across geographies, each with a combination of agency, client-side, and consulting experience. Traverse consultants support clients in three broad areas: Marketing Channel Planning, Digital Strategy, and Organizational Design.
Evoke Group also announced the opening of a west coast office for Evoke Health. Located in Santa Monica, CA, Evoke Health’s new outpost is serving Evoke’s large and growing clientele on the west coast.
Evoke Health, FIRSTHAND, and Traverse HealthStrategy will operate as independent companies, with shared executive management oversight.
About Evoke Health:
Evoke Health, an Evoke Group Company, is a full-service consumer health and wellness agency with a heritage of innovation. Born at the crossroads of creativity and technology, the agency has built on this heritage to innovate, integrate, and inspire, across every platform and channel. With offices in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles, Evoke Health is able to help brands create more meaningful, more engaging, more human relationships with their customers, through a deeper understanding of what truly motivates consumers in the real world. Visit Evoke Health at www.evokehealth.com.
About Evoke Group:
Evoke Group is a collection of leading health marketing companies committed to a culture of digital excellence and bound by a common purpose: Health More Human™. The Group includes Evoke Health, FIRSTHAND, and Traverse HealthStrategy, and is a member of the Huntsworth Health (www.hhealth.com) global group of best-in-class companies. Visit Evoke Group at www.evokegroup.com.
