Healthcare and pharma

Prescription-only medicines may not be advertised to the general public, and over-the-counter medicines and supplements are subject to rules on claims and mandatory text. Those rules affect spot length — the notice has to be legible and intelligible, so the ten-second version the creative assumed is often not enough.

That is why we settle spot length and format with the client before any airtime is booked. Broadcaster approval time goes into the plan as well: it is built into the schedule, not discovered when the material is rejected and the start date slips.

The same rules apply to public relations: an expert article or an interview with a doctor must not slide into covert advertising for a product. Education works better here — prevention, developments in care, clinicians as spokespeople. Healthcare is also a sector sensitive to controversy, so it pays to have a crisis procedure ready and to monitor what the media say about the facility or brand before a story spreads.

Over-the-counter cold and flu products compete for the same breaks in the same weeks. Seasonal price indices are high in that period and preferred break positions go quickly. Anyone who starts buying when the first wave arrives gets what is left.

So we build the plan with the core of the campaign reserved early and part of the budget kept flexible — depending on when the season actually hits. Radio and broadcasters’ online video can go live faster than linear TV, which makes them a useful reserve for an early or heavy wave.

A private clinic or a network of outpatient practices serves a catchment area, not the whole country. National TV pays for reach far beyond its patients. Regional radio, local press and out-of-home along the routes people in the catchment use every day make far more sense.

The same applies to recruiting healthcare staff. Candidates decide by commute, so planning is done site by site and media are chosen according to where the people who could travel to work there actually live.