How Leveraging Culture and Influencers Can Drive Healthcare Creative

Lessons from Clio Health's Catalyst Conversations

The second Clio Health Catalyst Conversations event took place last Thursday at the NYC offices of IPG Health. Four panels discussed elevating healthcare creativity, influencer marketing, how pop culture can inspire storytelling and more. 

Waking up a sleepy category

The first panel, “Committing to Creativity In Consumer Healthcare,” featured Opella (formerly Sanofi Consumer Healthcare) and its partners The Martin Agency and Lippe Taylor. The speakers explained how they hacked this year’s Met Gala for Unisom.

“We weren’t as relevant as we wanted to be,” said Nimit Bansal, Portfolio Lead—Personal Care, Opella. “Everything done on a pretty small budget.”

The theme for this year’s gala was “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” As a Unisom tie-in, throughout the day, 20 models in Christian Siriano designs “fell asleep” at various Manhattan landmarks.

“There was no formal sponsorship with the Met Gala. We could not use their name in any outreach,” added Kristin Pehush, EVP at Lippe Taylor. “The message was so concise—sometimes a good night’s sleep is better than the best night out. That’s what the models set out to illustrate. It didn’t feel like a corporate pitch that Christian Siriano had to get behind. It was creative and exciting.”

“We made sure there wasn’t a product message, there was a cultural message,” said Bill Ulrick, Opella’s heead of shopper engagement, HCP & creative excellence N.A.

Northwell Health’ s purpose-driven storytelling

The next panel featured Ramon Soto, CMO at Northwell, sharing ways that the hospital makes its storytelling more relatable and engaging.

“Healthcare is stuck in convention. I want to see unconventional thinking,” said Soto. “It’s a low-interest category until you need it. How do we build relationships with consumers? They know us before they need us. Marvel broke the convention of the blockbuster model. Why couldn’t we to that in healthcare?”

With the launch of  Northwell Studios, the brand can partner with companies like Netflix and HBO and amass its own super-fans, while addressing issues like guns being a leading cause of death among children. 

“I use my platform as currency and let show runners in wheres most healthcare systems will just shut you down,” he said.

Initium Health Talks Behavioral Health campaigns in New Hampshire and Colorado

“Stigma can de deadly in behavioral health re: substance abuse, mental health,” said James Corbett, principal at Initium. “The campaign in New Hampshire raised awareness for 988, the 911 for those in a mental health crisis. How do you help middle-aged white men ask for help in a rugged state? Use the tagline, ‘Strong as Granite,’ emphasizing that asking for help is a strong thing to do.”

The second portion of the “Breaking the Chain: How Effective Content and Collaboration Can Lead to Real Breakthroughs in Behavioral Health” panel focused on Colorado and the tea on THC.

“THC harms developing brains and children exposed,” says Annie Futterman Collier, associate professor at the Colorado School of Public Health. “Art can be very effective as a public health communication medium. Artists have innovative ways of talking about things, presenting things, integrating things. It’s from the people, not big business.”

Influencer marketing in healthcare

The final panel of the evening—”Under the Influence: Mastering A New Frontier in Healthcare Communications”—focused on ways to use influencers in healthcare marketing to combat disinformation and build trust between patients and product.

“What message do you want to deliver, and let that influencer really run with it. As a Black female physician, I represent less than 3 percent of physicians in the U.S.”, said Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell, founder of Beyond Clinical Walls. “Primary Care is very vital in healthcare. We see womb to tomb. We see everything. How do we tap into those physicians. There’s an opportunity to met people where they are.”

“We do rigorous background checks before we put an influencer recommendation in front of any client,” added Casey Ross, group director of social Media Strategy at FCB Health N.Y. “It’s one thing to have an audience but can you move the audience? Can you move them to take an action, like, share, comment on content.”