You know your brand. You’ve put your heart into making it pop, differentiating it from all the other brands. And if you are a creative in pharma today, there’s a growing chance you are working in-house, rather than through an external agency (although that doesn’t mean you won’t work with external agencies, or that external agencies will disappear).
In-house agencies are not new, but their sudden rise is dramatic, says Emily Foster, Director of the In-House Agency Forum (IHAF), and the author of our feature, The Pros and Cons of In-House Marketing—with an increase of 52% over the previous decade! Cost cutting and efficiencies were the big driver, but getting great creative by the people who know the brand best is a definite pro, along with in-house teams’ knowledge of the business, commonality of goals, and dedicated resources, among other things, under one roof. Yet, in-house agencies face challenges, too—recruiting enough talent with the right skill sets is chief among them. Foster offers a guide to the changing agency landscape and what it will mean for the future.
So you know your brand, but it’s even more important to deeply know your customers and when to engage them—at the point of care, when doctors and patients are making actual decisions about treatment. Today, those decisions are no longer limited to the doctor’s office, which means the definition of point of care is expanding. Our special section on Point of Care examines how it has evolved over the past decade, how companies are more transparent following 2017’s misleading numbers controversy, and what new technology and strategies are changing the space even more in 2019.
Our industry’s creatives not only do great work for clients, but for themselves and others, too. Check out next month’s The Greatest Creators to see the original artwork of the winner of our annual, one-of-a-kind, competition on the cover. And in May, our special ELITE Awards issue honoring the industry’s top Entrepreneurs, Leaders, Innovators, and Transformers will introduce you to the change agents who, through talent and persistence, move healthcare forward. A special celebration is in the works for July that will give all of our readers the opportunity to network with these extraordinary leaders. Stay tuned for the details!
