Darielle Ruderman
Consumer Marketing Lead, Shingrix
GSK
The Consumer Marketing Guru
When Darielle Ruderman joined GSK from Kraft Foods in 2000, she quickly recognized the dearth of consumer marketing expertise across the pharma industry. She made it her mission to change that, and over the past two decades has succeeded in building a reputation as a consumer marketing guru, driving growth for blockbusters such as Wellbutrin, Imitrex, Advair, Breo, Anoro, Benlysta, and Shingrix, while also helping train a new generation of consumer marketing leaders.
In her current role on the shingles team, Darielle identified that even though almost everyone over 50 is at risk of shingles, less than 40% know it. She developed the “Shingles is Sleeping” campaign to address this gap, using the metaphor of sleeping to illustrate that the dormant virus can wake at any time. The campaign shows people sleeping through everyday activities—at the grocery store, watching a movie, playing basketball, having a barbecue—with the call to action of “Wake up before shingles could wake up in you.” The campaign has successfully increased HCP discussions.
Most recently, Darielle identified two important insights: people who have had shingles are eager to share their story to protect others from suffering, and knowing someone who has had shingles is a strong motivator to talk to an HCP about shingles prevention. Darielle combined these insights to create a user-generated-content social campaign for Shingles Awareness Week, encouraging people who have had shingles to share an emoji or word that describes shingles, or fill in the blank for “Shingles was worse than ____” to help educate others to talk to their doctor about shingles prevention. Engagement was off the charts in a matter of days.
“While I’m very proud of all of the campaigns I’ve worked on, I’m most proud of the people I’ve helped develop,” Darielle says. “It has been an honor to teach people how to be good consumer marketers. Over the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to coach dozens of amazing teammates, many who are still at GSK and others who moved on to do great work at other life science companies. That’s how I’ve made the longest-lasting impact.”
