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Diamonds can have a showstopping allure with their refractive brilliance penetrating the darkest heart and catapulting value into orbit. Polished and shaped, they are headline attractions with clear messages of power, wealth and opulence.

They have attention-grabbing lustre and sparkle that illuminates fashion and glamour, but their impact is equally prized in engineering where diamond toughness cuts, drills and forces the hardest components to yield.

Pharmaceutical product campaigns rely on a spearhead of creative clarity, but their brightness can be diffused if not backed up with the gritty mechanics of penetrating compressed layers of misconceptions, complex detail and competitive noise that infect a febrile market.

Campaign headlines, imagery and graphics can become low-value paste if the bedrock of a condition, the market and patient behaviour is not fully assayed and the facets of launch and marketing plans are not cut to specific needs.

Patient involvement, from active listening to co-creation, is the sought-after carat rating for effective engagement as industry continues to shift from highly-technical content to personal narratives to reach patients who now have access to more treatments, even in the most intractable diseases, and increased awareness of their options.

“Creativity is highly prized in pharma, but it can be a misrepresented or misunderstood word because often it is almost the opposite of creating a pretty visual with a sharp headline,” says Patricia Jones, Client Partnership Lead and Patient Engagement Specialist at Amiculum, an independent global healthcare consulting and communications agency. “If you respond to deep and true insights from what resonates with patients, you might not end up with the prettiest-looking piece of communication. But you will have something that is authentic and resonates in their life and world.”

Amiculum, whose 300-strong global team has expertise in areas including medical affairs, marketing patient engagement, and creative and digital experience, works to the principle that ‘when science speaks clearly, it transforms lives’. The agency, which has a roster of high-profile clients across pharma, advocates for early patient involvement to be enshrined in corporate culture.

“Why can’t we bring patients into the conversations about creative campaigns sooner, rather than just looking through a medical or marketing lens?” asks Patricia.

“We’re trying to involve patients earlier in the process in every other area of healthcare communications, why aren’t we doing it here? Whatever we develop needs to connect with patients, and that is becoming more important with the rise of AI giving them more information and an expectation that they will have more opportunities for better health in the future.

“Their experiences and views are critical in everything we do. I remember developing a marketing booth for a client where patient perspectives were already embedded in their branding, but no one had considered asking the patients how their insights were quoted and implemented. We did this and were able to create a more effective campaign that resonated with HCPs, motivated client team members at the congress and truly represented the patient community.”

Paula Holt, Amiculum’s Creative Director, adds: “I come at it from a creative and visual point of view, but the process starts with problem-solving, asking the right questions, but maybe in a slightly different way. Creativity, in its simplest form, is really important to help communicate complex science with clarity to the right audience. We do that with the right style, tone and messaging that resonates with the audience, whether they are HCPs or patients, and it has to be present from the earliest stage to final delivery.

“The word creativity can be misinterpreted to mean the most beautiful key visual. It isn’t. It comes down to the simplicity and relevance of the message and the storytelling that conveys it. In my day-to-day role, I often find I am removing the decoration or the detail to make it even more clear and authentic. You have to really listen to all stakeholders and make sure the visual style or graphic device tells them the message quickly, because interest can soon be lost if the audience doesn’t understand or see how it is relevant.”

Unlocking patient insights is not linear and can involve a slow stripping back of layers of mistrust and confusion that radiate around patient communities. “One of the key values to our work is curiosity,” says Patricia. “We spend a lot of time talking with patients about their behaviours and what motivates them and really listening to what they tell us – that is all part of the creative process. You have to have the confidence, trust and respect to ask those questions of both the patient and the client and their brief to get the best outputs.”

Lately, a sharper focus has drawn on patient involvement across all aspects of industry and healthcare delivery. Amit Aggarwal, Executive Director Medical Affairs & Strategic Partnerships at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, recently commented: “Every patient has a unique experience and story and their experience is absolutely essential in helping shape the healthcare we receive…patients bring in vital insights in terms of their needs, their challenges and experiences and all this helps guide the creation of treatment that will help improve lives.”1

He added that “trust, transparency and co-creation” are the key factors that put the patient at the “heart of everything we do”.

Paula comments: “In most other industries, the end user is often involved very early in the process, and I feel it is important for our industry to adopt a similar approach but, too often, they are brought in further down the line and you find yourself adapting messages and visuals, to meet different objectives of different stakeholders, that could have been considered much earlier. If the patient voice is brought in too far down the line, there is a risk of the overall message being diluted and the campaign not being as effective.

“But when everything’s considered much earlier, with the patient as co-creator, that’s when really effective and clever, impactful communication happens to the benefit of the client, the HCP and the patient. It is really exciting when that all comes together and you can make a difference through design.”

Patricia observes: “The sector has progressed a huge amount in hearing patient voices and integrating their insights, but I think we are still a way off in pharma companies truly living their patient-centricity values. They should be embedded at the highest level of decision-making and incorporated into every layer, from deciding which candidate drug to take forward into preclinical trials, through the entire clinical, medical, marketing and delivery journey. It is no longer an optional extra and we shouldn’t still be justifying the value of including patient insights.”

She concludes: “Now, more than ever, we need to unleash the creativity that runs through industry and encourage open communication across the spectrum to generate understanding and trust to take advantage of the incredible progress made in the labs.

“Patient insights are a fundamental part of our ability to connect with them on an authentic level and, along with trust, that enables creativity to add that extra sparkle and impact to campaigns.

“Getting it right delivers huge benefits and we are excited by the potential to harness patient insights with creativity as we navigate an increasingly complex and competitive future.”

Reference
1. https://www.abpi.org.uk/partnerships/patient-involvement/

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