PublicisHealth Media 2014

,

100 Penn Square East
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Telephone: 215-982-5700
Website: publicishealthmedia.com

Quick Facts

Accounts  
Account wins 13
Account losses 1
Active business clients 28
Brands by 2013 sales  
Brand-product accounts held 15
$100 million – $500 million 2
$1 billion or more 4
Services Mix  
Cross-channel 80%
Search 20%

Client Roster

800 Doctors
Alkermes
Amgen Oncology
AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals
Athena Health
Biogen MS Brands
Circassia
Genentech
Gilead
Johnson & Johnson
Otsuka
Procter & Gamble
Rite Aid
St. Judes
Sanofi/Genzyme/Sanofi Pasteur
Shire

Publicis Health Media (PHM) launched in January 2013 and celebrated its first anniversary in January 2014. Led by its president Matt McNally, PHM has a growing roster of the biggest pharmaceutical and health and wellness companies, overseeing media for more than 200 individual brands globally. Built from the combined portfolios of Digitas Health and RazorfishHealthware’s media practices, PHM already has enjoyed double-digit revenue growth from year-end 2012, with continued growth expected in 2014.

The Year’s Accomplishments

Through strong agency/client partnerships, PHM experienced significant organic growth in 2013, and added key new clients like Alkermes. PHM also has successfully expanded its portfolio outside of pharmaceuticals, with the addition of new clients across multiple therapeutic channels like over-the-counter (OTC) dental care, OTC respiratory, and pain therapies.

Structure And Services

Executives say PHM is the only global, health and wellness focused, strategic media planning and buying agency in the world. Headquartered in Philadelphia’s historic John Wanamaker building, PHM has offices in Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, London, and Paris.

At its heart, PHM has fused media into the creative agencies of Publicis Healthcare Communications Group. PHM offers broad thinking and buying power to help pharmaceutical, health, and wellness clients connect with their audiences through relevant, engaging experiences. According to its leaders, the agency has demonstrated a track record of thinking about and delivering innovative cross-channel solutions across a holistic media ecosystem – paid, earned, owned, digital, and traditional – creating the industry standard in health and wellness.

Executives say newly developed innovative product offerings from PHM have changed the way it does business with its clients from a media and creative perspective. Connections Planning is an approach that leverages key audience insights alongside the media mix and creative modeling, and has a team of experts to analyze and provide recommendations based on findings. Agency leaders note that this offering is unique, as it is one of the only models that does more than just look at historic brand and category data – it also looks at present and future trends to help clients navigate the ever-changing media landscape.

Clients immediately have seen the impact to bottom line sales data through the media and creative recommendations derived via PHM’s Connections Planning framework, executives say. PICTURE is an attribution modeling tool that identifies pathways to deliver consumers the best experiences, and brand the best ROI. Clients can measure by channel and pathway to determine the optimum media buy, resulting in predictable ROI and new business growth. PICTURE is able to tie results to script level impact. Clients have commented that this is the first approach that is able to truly answer how media and marketing are impacting their bottom line.

According to agency leaders, this tool has moved PHM’s clients from looking at last click analysis, and funneling all dollars to the few media channels that seemed to be driving business impact. “These products have helped clients transform their approach to engaging with both their consumer and healthcare professional audiences,” executives say.

Executives attribute the agency’s success in part to the reintegration of media into creative agencies throughout Publicis Healthcare Communications Group’s (PHCG) network, including Saatchi & Saatchi Health and Publicis Life Brands Medicus, by deploying senior-level media talent from PHM into those agencies. PHM also has successfully expanded into Europe with offices in France and the United Kingdom, capitalizing on the evolution of the complex European health and wellness marketplace, bringing more digital integration to engage healthcare professionals in those regions.

PHM has been widely recognized within the industry, executives say, pointing out how PHM people are sought after to educate and speak with publishers about the future of digital media. PHM executives have presented at the National Sales Meeting for eHealthcare Solutions, HealthLine, Remedy, EveryDay Health, and Here Media. In addition, McNally and Ray Rosti, VP, search engine marketing, are the only media agency executives represented on the newly formed Google Health Advisory Board, which is charged to develop new services to support the pharmaceutical marketing community. The agency leaders serve as members of the Doximity Ad Board and Precision Health Ad Board.

Future Plans

After strong growth in its first year, PHM actively is building upon its foundation by developing new tools and expertise specific to the health and wellness market. McNally has put forth an agency mantra for 2014: to be brave. “Change is all around us, health and wellness is changing, media is changing faster than advertising, and our customers are changing,” he says. “We need to be brave every day, and help our clients and customers lead the change.”

PHM plans to expand on these offerings by adding additional communications research and measurement tools to advise their clients and inform their planning process. Additionally, PHM plans to expand its New York and Chicago offices, and will begin to integrate its media offering into PHCG agencies across Europe – notably London, Paris and Barcelona.

Philanthropy/Citizenship

Recently, PHM leveraged its publishing relationships to secure over $1.4 million in media donations for the new Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness pro-bono ad campaign for Crossroads Community Services, an NYC-based nonprofit that provides food, shelter, and support to help hungry and homeless New Yorkers break the cycle of poverty. The placements across multiple channels include a digital spectacular placement in Times Square, taxi and gas pump TVs, in-office advertising (i.e. Clear Channel Outdoor, Verifone and Mesmerize Marketing), video and in-text advertising, in addition to banners on key health sites such as HealthGuru, Sharecare, Vibrant, and WebMD.