Healthcare Agency Roundtable 2023: Representation in healthcare marketing

Healthcare Agency Roundtable 2023: Representation in healthcare marketing

By Maria Fontanazza • [email protected]

What work are you doing to advance representation in healthcare marketing as well as the overall healthcare space?

Margaret Haskell, Senior VP Strategy and Planning, The Bloc: As a woman-owned organization, inclusivity is embedded in the culture of The Bloc, and a core tenet of how we approach our work with partners and patients. Our people are a collection of diverse values, ethnicities, genders, and ideas, which fuels our drive to advance representation in every aspect of our work. It begins with market research.  At The Bloc, we believe it’s not just who we listen to and learn from, it’s how we do it. So, we strive to include all patient voices and experiences.  Born of these learnings are communications and creative that represent a broad range of patients, and educational tactics and tools that meet all individuals where they are.  All of this, in the interest of reaching as many people as possible with the tools and information, so that they can meet their healthcare needs on their terms.

Kari Salinas, Associate Director, Diversity Equity & Inclusion, and Divya Dileep, Senior VP, ECD, TBWA\WorldHealth: We believe that advancing representation in healthcare marketing begins with the impact we make from within. This means cultivating a culture of sustainable inclusion and ensuring meaningful representation at every level of the organization. Beginning with inclusive hiring and equitable talent development, we strive to build teams that mirror the diverse communities beyond our agency. We do this by boldly challenging common practices and breaking down barriers to level the playing field, ensuring that everyone has a fair and equal opportunity. By embracing greater diversity and meaningful representation, we can explore

perspectives beyond our own experiences and positively influence our culture and work. In our work, we are committed to promoting equity, unlocking value, and inspiring belonging. Advancing representation extends beyond diversifying imagery; we invest time in understanding historically underserved patients and the healthcare providers who care for them, ensuring that we support both in meaningful and inclusive ways.

Ana Sastre, Director of DE&I, ConcentricLife: At ConcentricLife, we believe that our differences make us stronger. Our goal is to be a champion for meaningful progress and a force for good —with and for our people, clients, and communities. We embed diversity in our mindset, solutions, and teams to empower an inclusive, equitable culture. By building equity within our teams, we aim to collaborate better with each other and our clients, driving better outcomes for all.

One of the initiatives we’ve launched to help ensure representation in our work is the ConcentricLife Creative Council. The Creative Council infuses a cultural fluency approach to the creative work we do, focusing on bringing perspective, insights, and actions our clients need to navigate into the future. The work focuses on three tenets of cultural fluency (counter-stereotyping, intersectionality, and nuance), building guidelines for our clients in critical ways, from considerations of cultural issues and partnerships to castings in campaigns to ensure audience representation. By embracing and promoting representation, we are not just transforming our workplace, we are shaping the future of healthcare. We are creating an environment where medical professionals find their voices amplified and patients see themselves reflected.

Jenn Reilly, Senior VP, Account Director, CrowdPharm: Through various creative and engaging brand positioning exercises, our agency focuses on who our target audience is and what attributes the brand needs to convey to make people feel they can trust and connect to the brand on a deeper level. We take into consideration age, sex, ethnicity, whether or not they are a family member or outside caregiver, how they like to receive information and where they will go to find it, and ultimately, how to tailor our communications to reach and impact the diverse customer base. Health care is complex, and so are our audiences. Getting to the route of the psychology of the brand and our diverse patient population is the ultimate driver to success for the brand and business.

Amy Gomez, Senior VP, Diversity Strategy, Klick Health: Inclusive representation in healthcare marketing is a top priority at Klick, as is addressing the significant and well-researched inequities in the healthcare space. We achieve inclusive representation through our integrated cross-cultural approach, designed to honor the voices and perspectives of all patient populations to deliver health equity-focused marketing solutions. Our lens is broadly comprehensive. We go beyond race and ethnicity to include identity markers, including gender, sexual identity, ability, neurodiversity, military status, and religious affiliation — all of which impact patients’ interactions with the healthcare system. While the word “representation” may suggest a focus on casting diverse individuals, our strategic approach begins with inclusive research and insight-mining to inform cross-cultural strategy and creative development, through to culturally nuanced activation journeys and media planning.

Mariela Orochena, Director of Talent Acquisition, IPG Health: Our commitment to enhancing representation is guided by our EDI+You network-wide approach, which emphasizes that Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is a collective responsibility and that it plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of healthcare.  We provide our recruitment teams and managers with the necessary tools to attract, hire, and advocate for diverse talent. Our approach centers around a “culture add” strategy, where we strive to embrace unique perspectives and experiences, naturally dismantling historical barriers, including bias, in our recruitment and career development processes. For example, we actively source new, diverse talent by partnering with organizations like Women Who Create and The One Club, and our groundbreaking Write It Forward program – a 12-week apprenticeship that recruits, trains, and mentors writing talent from all walks of life for entry-level, science-focused copywriting positions, and aims to remove many of the barriers that might discourage applicants from less traditional backgrounds. Our efforts help to broaden our talent pools, allowing us to tap into a wealth of unique abilities at all stages of work creation. We are unwavering in our support for fresh talent in our industry, investing in specialized programs like Write It Forward and The Residency, and immersive learning experiences that are strategically tailored to ensure their long-term success and advancement. This not only strengthens our organization but also contributes to the growth and vibrancy of the healthcare industry as a whole. 

Megan Hall, Executive VP, Executive Creative Director, Entrée Health: For each of our clients, one of the core questions we ask is, “What equity issues are at play in this disease state? What can we do to address them?” We make that an integral part of our strategic and tactical planning process. For example, we’re working with a client who has a treatment for, among other things, prostate cancer. That’s a disease that has a disproportionate impact on veterans, particularly Black veterans. We helped this client develop ways to partner with the VA to ensure that implicit biases weren’t creating treatment inequities. Equity issues are everywhere: food deserts increase the risk of diabetes, historical choices about where roads are placed have an impact on rates of asthma, etc. It’s our job to think about how we can increase access to care that accounts for these. 

Jeralyn Mastroianni, Chief People Officer, Fingerpaint Group: Embracing a more representative and inclusive workplace not only fosters feelings of belonging and increases employee engagement, but it also has a direct line to patient impact. Representation — beyond race or ethnicity alone — provides a platform to get diversified content to diversified audiences. At Fingerpaint Group, we have formalized an approach to hiring candidates from diverse backgrounds, resulting in a 40 percent increase in diverse hires. Our Employee Resource Groups provide unique leadership opportunities for our talent and give voice and community to underrepresented groups while offering insight and education to everyone across the organization. Identity Day, which encourages employees to take a paid holiday of their choosing to celebrate their unique cultural backgrounds, promotes the expression of and connection to multicultural heritages. More can and will be done. Our industry has a responsibility to overcome barriers to creating representative and inclusive content for the sake of our collective health and wellness.

Steve Millerman, General Manager, Fingerpaint Multicultural: Fingerpaint Group has a dedicated division, Fingerpaint Multicultural, that specifically specializes in multicultural marketing for pharma with a unique methodology called Pharmacultural. Over the last 10 years, we have delivered some of the largest award-winning campaigns across U.S. Hispanic and African American populations. The biggest advancements are driven by the analytics components of how pharma can activate communications across different ethnic groups, as well as track and optimize campaigns, all in context of multicultural content, creative, and marketing mix. One of the biggest challenges for our clients is figuring out the degree to which marketing across multicultural groups needs to be customized. We have implemented approaches that allow us to solve for these challenges, going beyond just casting and translations, and we have developed our own insights library that ventures way beyond traditional, decades-old ideas, most of which are no longer applicable.

Hemali Lakhani, Senior VP, Media, CMI Media Group: I work through my religious organization since many of our temple representatives via the Jain Center of America/NYC Chapter are physicians – it’s important to continue to champion clinical diversity and testing – it’s equally important to help with education around access. For clients, I partner with our Inclusive Media Center of Excellence to find solutions to engage with diverse audiences, which include telehealth options, website/SEO-related recommendations, and much more.

Shyam Desai, VP, Digital Activation, CMI Media Group: I work within my community, alongside my wife (nurse practitioner), to bring more awareness to the disproportionate risk of diabetes [and] high cholesterol among individuals of South Asian descent. 

Khari Motayne, VP, Media, CMI Media Group: I actively mentor a group of our young diverse talent at the agency and across the industry. A lack of mentorship and access to empowering networks is among the largest barriers for young diverse talent in both health care and marketing, particularly at the intersection of the two.

Egbavwe Pela, Senior VP, Media, CMI Media Group: I lead both our BRAAVE ERG and our Inclusive Media Center of Excellence, and am actively working to advance representation through mentoring, public speaking and advocacy, employment practices, and organizational development to raise awareness within the agency. For our clients we have an added focus on ensuring the right message is getting to the appropriate audience. According to a 2019 study by the ANA, although Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics make up almost 40 percent of the population they receive less than 10 percent of the media spend. 2024 should be the year where we’re ensuring that our priority audiences are prioritized and we’re carving out unique targeting to make sure we’re reaching these audiences.

Daniel Winter, VP, Product Strategy, CMI Media Group: We created a partnership program that opened space for a better participation of minority owned media suppliers in our strategy and planning products. We believe their contribution in understanding and reaching their communities is important to move the needle into a more efficient representation and access to health care.

Angela Tenuta, President, EVERSANA INTOUCH: At EVERSANA and EVERSANA INTOUCH, we believe in a workforce that embraces people from all backgrounds and cultures. Diversity makes us better and stronger, and this has been a focus point at our agency for 20+ years. It started with Faruk Capan when he established Intouch, and his firm belief in inclusivity continues today. We have a diverse team, spanning the globe. We carry this torch proudly and reflect it within our work with clients to advance their treatments to the patients that need them. From raising awareness of health inequities in breast cancer care with the “Inequality You Can’t Ignore” campaign to championing women’s choice with the NEXTELLIS launch campaign, “It’s In Our Nature,” it’s so important to understand not only what we do well but most importantly the why behind it.  Healthcare marketing is about making a difference. We remind our teams about this every day in our cultural beliefs, one being patient minded. No matter if you’re a creative or a writer or a strategist or technologist, you’re here because you have the ability through your knowledge and experience to help people. That’s powerful.

Courtney Murphy, Chief People Officer, North America, Ogilvy Health & Ogilvy: Ogilvy Health always strives and continues to develop avenues to advance our diverse representation in healthcare marketing. It begins with a clear recruitment strategy in which we deepen our relationships with key external partners and diverse candidates. Being the creative and strategic agency that we are allows us the opportunity to hire talent with varying, exceptional skills to support all of our business needs, whether it be in account services, creative, strategy, med ed, market access, public relations, experience, and more.  Because we are healthcare-focused, that affords our employees the added benefit of working to support patients, caregivers, and providers. But recruiting is just beginning and only where it starts, we then focus on the employee experience, providing training programs and mentorships where our diverse population can continually learn, grow, and build the career of their dreams. For our 2023 Summer Intern Program, we set out to bring in a class that was 50 percent representative of a diverse group of students, and we far exceeded that goal. This year, two of our former 2022 Summer Interns signed on with the agency as full-time employees, one of whom is from a diverse background. This is a key area of focus for us to continue to attract new talent to the agency. Being a part of the larger Ogilvy network, our employees have access to join and actively participate in our Ogilvy Communities, spaces where people can connect on the unique experiences of their shared identity in a psychologically safe environment. Ogilvy Communities are formed based on a collective of people with a shared identity including but not limited to race, gender, cultural identity, religious affiliations, and interests. These communities are key contributors to our culture, creativity, and inclusivity. In 2024, Ogilvy Health will once again participate in Ogilvy’s 30 for 30 Program, a six-month Women’s Leadership Program aimed at elevating and equipping women in senior leadership positions with tangible skills to take the leap and transform their careers.  With WPP as our parent company, all employees also have access to the Making Space communities and events that support mental health and embrace equity and inclusion. 

Harriet Shurville, Chief People Officer, Avalere Health: We recognize the profound impact diverse representation has on our industry. One of our guiding principles at Avalere Health is making science relevant for all. This year we set up a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Council, led by our Chief Commercial Officer, Gail Flockhart. The DEI Council brings together voices from each of our business units around the world — Consulting; Medical; Policy, Access, Value, and Evidence; Marketing; and Digital Experience Technology — to support our clients in developing equitable strategies and solutions from pre-clinical to post-launch. These solutions span the product lifecycle, from evidence generation to market access, brand and portfolio strategy, and driving inclusive omnichannel marketing campaigns. Key to driving health equity is leveraging multiple data sources to uncover disparities in how populations navigate, access, and benefit from healthcare. We are utilizing our access to large databases — claims data, the social determinants of health, clinical data, formulary and benefit design, and data on patient programs — to develop insights that inform equitable approaches. However, we also recognize that ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion starts at home. Our commitment to advancing representation in healthcare marketing goes hand in hand with our dedication to diversity and inclusion. We believe this is not just the right thing to do, but also essential for delivering equitable healthcare to all.

For Avalere Health, we believe that creating a culture of belonging, where employees feel valued and empowered, is likely to retain high performers. We also support team members in professional development, which provides fuel for retention and high performance. Some of our employee-development programs include mentorships, upskilling plans, and employee resources groups led and sponsored by leaders in our executive committee. The groups focus on gender equality, diverse ability, race/ethnicity, family, mental health, and LGBTQ+ colleagues.

Healthcare Agency Roundtable 2023: Pressing issues in the election year (Part I)

Healthcare Agency Roundtable 2023: Artificial intelligence for the foreseeable future (Part III)

Healthcare Agency Roundtable 2023: Cutting through the social noise (Part IV)

Healthcare Agency Roundtable 2023: A look ahead in market access (Part V)

Healthcare Agency Roundtable 2023: Moving into 2024 (Part VI)

 

Maria Fontanazza is the director of content, Med Ad News and PharmaLive.com.