GSW Movement Disorder Campaign Focuses on The Fight of a Lifetime

Work for Merz Therapeutics transforms pain into power

Merz Therapeutics has a vision to become the leader in specialty-neurology pharma, and the organization is committed to bringing better outcomes for more patients through its neurotoxin treatment indicated for several lifelong movement disorders. The kicker: it doesn’t contain the typical additives the body can build resistance to, which is a typical shortcoming of movement disorder treatments.

But how do you best communicate to healthcare providers that the body can function better through it for those afflicted with these disorders—ones that affect over 40 million in the U.S. alone?

That became the central question for GSW LA, a full-service healthcare communications agency that sits within Syneos Health, when Merz Therapeutics tasked it with creating a campaign for the community. This resulted in “The Fight of a Lifetime,” which seeks to help transform these disorders into a person’s individual power. 

“The goal was to capture the physical manifestations of movement disorders to bring to light the fight these patients experience in every moment of their lives,” says Lacey Jae, EVP and ECD at GSW-LA. 

It’s the clenched fist with upper limb spasticity that appears as a symbol of strength, or the strained muscles of cervical dystonia that suggest tenacity, Jae explains, further highlighting that these moments should be viewed as a boxing match. 

We wanted to show “how similar the motion is for someone to put their ‘hands up’ in boxing defense and when someone with a movement disorder clenches their fists involuntarily” she says. “The flinch, in some movement disorders is like a movement before someone gets hit. So, it’s showing the resilience these patients have against their disease.”

GSW-LA worked with photographer Andy Anderson, who captured the essence of the brief through evocative black and white imagery. These can be seen in the “powerful, heroic, winning stances” the product delivers, instilling confidence in people as they go about their daily lives.

Jae points to the “creative wave” the company abides by, bringing creatives within the organization together from all over the world to ensure a global perspective at the outset. Here, teams met for a three-day intensive brainstorming session. A Merz Therapeutics Medical Science Liaison (MSL) was on hand to provide insights from the field while creatives were designing concepts. “We gained inspiration from some of the stories that she told,” notes Jae.

The campaign resulted in sales growing three times the rate of the market, with Merz Therapeutics emerging as a product differentiator in the industry.

The company perceives the campaign to be “boundary breaking,” as it depicts these patients in something authentic and raw. It unabashedly shows the disease in its truest form, pain being center to the work. Jae underscores the importance of a step-change in health advertising overall. Products have to go beyond simply describing how they work, and now must move into the length of time it will take to see results, how clinical trials work, what terms mean, and more, which the global pandemic helped to amplify. 

“Otherwise, people will see through anything that doesn’t feel authentic,” says Jae. 

“The Fight of a Lifetime” currently appears across various HCP (Healthcare Professional) communications: websites, sales aids for sales reps, and also conferences designed for the healthcare community.