JPA Health: 2021
JPA Health
1101 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Telephone
202-591-4040
Website
jpa.com
QUICK FACTS
Accounts
Account wins 20
Active business clients 55
Brands by 2020 sales
Brand-product accounts held 40
SERVICES MIX
PR and advocacy 60%
Marketing 17%
Interactive 15%
Advertising 8%
CLIENT ROSTER
ACOG
Alkermes
Alliance for Regenerative Medicine
American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists
American Kidney Fund
American Liver Foundation
American Medical Informatics Association
Applied Therapeutics
AstraZeneca
Ayala Pharmaceuticals
Chiasma
College of American Pathologists
CSL Behring
Eli Lilly
Emergent BioSolutions
Epizyme
Fairfax Radiological Consultants
Genomic Health
Genzyme
Glaukos
Global Medical Response
ICF
Knowledge to Practice
Intervet Deutschland
Leapfrog Group
LUGPA
LUNGevity Foundation
Medicines360
Melanoma Research Foundation
Merck Animal Health
Merck Sharp & Dohme
Milestone Pharmaceuticals
National Committee for Quality Assurance
NCCPA
Nobelpharma America
Oncopeptides
Oyster Point Pharma
Principia Biopharma
PROCEPT BioRobotics
Rhythm Pharmaceuticals
Sage Therapeutics
Sanofi Genzyme
South Carolina Department of Health and E
The Physicians Foundation
The Vitality Group
US Pharmacopeia
ViiV Healthcare
Wondros
JPA Health is a full-service, integrated marcom agency that has continued to foster collaboration, growth and dedicated client services even during the pandemic. “Over the last year, JPA focused its efforts in five areas: rebranding based on agency values, financial and staff growth, agency awards, client successes and investment in professional development,” the agency’s executives say. “The rebrand brought to life our passion for ‘Connect’ability’ and is based on five core values.”
The agency’s values are “Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, and Compassion.”
“We use our skills to exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts and feelings,” management says. “We work together toward a common goal: making the world a healthier place, improving and protecting lives. We believe in beautiful work, innovative solutions, ongoing improvement, new ideas and approaches. We will always ask questions, be interested and never stop learning. We provide excellence with kindness to each other, our clients, and the community at large.”
According to JPA, “These values enable us to make meaningful connections like no other agency through connecting words, images, concepts – and – people that have the power to help others live healthier lives.”
RECENT ACCMPLISHMENTS
In 2020, JPA won 20 accounts and achieved 44 percent revenue growth, 20 percent client growth, and 32 percent growth in staff.
“Specifically, we expanded JPA Labs, our in-house creative, digital, and research team, with the hires of paid media specialist Cameron Smith, graphic designer John Chavez, graphic designer Bella Castro, senior graphic designer Byron Cooke, senior graphic designer Julianna Dietz, art director Nhu Nguyen, production traffic coordinator Azam Malik, web developer Trecia Warnholz, junior developer Jessica Walcott, digital account supervisor Kamilah Guiden, digital account coordinator Hope Weltman and junior analyst Stephanie Johnson,” JPA executives say.
Agency leaders point out that externally, the company was recognized as an outstanding small agency finalist for the PR Week US Awards 2021 and was named the full-service agency of the year for PR World Awards. The company was ranked as the No. 12 Healthcare & Medical Firm among O’Dwyer’s Top PR Firms in 2020. For the PR Week Agency Business Report, the company was ranked No. 125 globally and No. 96 in the U.S. and was selected as the Up and Coming Agency of 2020.
The JPA team also produced award-winning work in marketing and communications, management says. “Of note, Medicine360’s #NotAwkward campaign was the Social Media Campaign winner for PM360’s PharmaChoice and Trailblazer Awards. Several teams collected honors at the 2020 Modern Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards: Physician’s Foundation won Gold Digital Campaign of the Year for ‘Vital Signs: Attend to Your Wellbeing,’ AACE’s ‘Up To Here’ campaign was awarded Gold Integrated Campaign of the Year – Advocacy, and Medicine360’s #NotAwkward campaign won Gold Social Media Campaign of the Year – Advocacy.”
Last but not least, over the last year, JPA reaffirmed its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and the agnecy’s executives say the team plans to make that a priority moving forward. “We are dedicated to authenticity, evolution and the capacity of the human spirit to unite and create inclusive narratives of health and wellness as we continue to do our work. Clients are taking note of this renewed commitment, as we saw unprecedented growth in 2020.”
STRUCTURE AND SERVICES
The agency was started by Carrie Jones, who says after working for some of the world’s largest communications firms, she decided that there was a better way to serve clients, reach patients and improve global health. JPA Health was born with a sole employee – Jones – in a home basement office.
“Fourteen years later, JPA has 80 full-time employees, three offices in two countries and is one of the largest health marcom firms in the United States,” management says. “JPA’s exclusive focus on health means that clients can count on a team with experience and perspective to deliver results.”
According to agency leaders, JPAers act as “synced up specialists,” which enables clients to benefit from collaborative expertise across health marketing, public relations, and advocacy.
“We are experts in marketing, creative, digital advocacy, public affairs and media relations,” JPA executives say. “The company’s in-house creative, digital and research group, called JPA Labs, works in collaboration with account teams and is composed of specialists in analytics, visual communication, social media and web design. JPA Labs uses strategic insights and unparalleled creativity to support winning programs that require insights and research, branding, creative design, video production and animation, digital strategy, social media marketing, website design and development, advertising and paid media management and more. Additionally in 2020, JPA’s GRETEL, an exclusive tool aimed at understanding and interpreting how and with whom conversations happen across the health landscape, celebrated its 10th anniversary with new research and insights features.”
GRETEL is the largest collection of data on how to reach healthcare influencers, agency executives say. “This powerful tool brings together stakeholders and influencers in health – including news media, organizations and individual influencers – to show for the first time precisely how they intersect. GRETEL helps customize engagement strategies and tactics ensuring that we understand the dynamics of a healthcare issue, including the key influencers and issues being discussed; identify a client’s key audiences, and who they need to reach for an initiative to be successful; and connect with the media, influencers and channels who reach those stakeholders.
“On GRETEL’s 10th anniversary, we launched GRETEL’s message testing functionality to test and understand what messages resonate with each target audience based on past language they themselves use and share. We also launched GRETEL Deep Dive to provide clients a deep understanding of a particular heath specialty or audience to understand how best to reach them.”
FUTURE PLANS
In 2021, JPA will continue its partnership with Tidal Equality – the strategy firm it engaged in 2020 to deepen the agency’s focus on equity and inclusion in its work and decision-making. JPA executives say Tidal Equality offers a unique tool called The Equity Sequence – “along the lines of unconscious bias training, but so much more.”
According to management, “The Equity Sequence is an evidence-backed tool designed to equip individuals and teams to build equity collaboratively, one question and one decision at a time. The Equity Sequence can be applied to any key decision (product, process, event, content, system, program, etc.) to reduce bias and make it more inclusive and equitable.”
Additionally, the agency will continue to expand service offerings to better improve client relationships, according to the leadership team. In January 2021, JPA launched its DC-based public affairs practice and “reframed” its offerings for specific health client segments: pharmaceutical marketing, pharmaceutical advocacy/PR, public affairs, public health, and international.
“Taking that a step further, we announced an internal reorganization in January to better align with our mission and values,” JPA executives say. “Leadership on accounts will leverage expertise and add additional sight into the professional development needs of staff. From an account team perspective, the shift is meant to streamline accounts and management, ensure the teams are matching the client needs, provide the staff with diverse experiences and reduce the number of accounts each team member services, ensuring that both the client and the team are putting their best foot forward.”
Carrie Jones, principal
PHILANTHROPY/CITIZENSHIP
The employees of JPA did not let COVID-19 stop them from giving back, agency executives say.
“JPA celebrated and encouraged the support for healthcare workers on the frontlines, donating N95 masks to help ensure their safety and donated to a nonprofit in lieu of holiday gifts to clients. We also participated in two pro-bono projects with the American Liver Foundation (ALF) in the U.S. and Autistica in the UK,” according to agency leaders.
ALF has been a JPA Health client for more than six years, but like many nonprofits in 2020, it faced challenges related to COVID-19. “Our pro-bono efforts enabled ALF to continue its mission to help Americans living with various liver diseases,” management says. “JPAers’ responded to 12 media inquiries, donating about $48,000 worth of time.”
Autistica, the UK’s leading autism research charity, wanted to create a coalition of charities to ensure people living with neurodevelopment conditions (NDC) received better support. The charity enlisted support from JPA to help support the coalition and develop the Embracing Complexity campaign. As part of the campaign, JPA helped kickstart top down and grassroots discussions and secured the UK Health Minister to help launch the report. “The coalition now has over 50 charities working together and secured action from the UK government to help launch the report created and to set up a cross-department group with Health, Education and Justice to better serve people living with NDCs.”
