AstraZeneca's lauded 'Take it From a Fish' campaign scores again at Clio Healthcare awards

The Clio Healthcare award winners for 2015 are out, but pharma has come up a bit short. Pharma companies claimed a total of just 17 of the 110 awards, and only four were given to branded pharma products. The other 13 were for disease awareness campaigns backed by pharma companies.

In fact, none of the four branded campaigns won an actual statue, but instead were shortlisted. In this contest, that means they made the cut--but their award translates to a kind of fourth place. Seven of the disease awareness pharma entries won third-place bronze awards.

Screenshot from the "Take it From a Fish" campaign--Courtesy of AstraZeneca

One awareness push--AstraZeneca's ($AZN) "Take it From a Fish" work--got a second-place silver Clio. That campaign, which took home the grand prize at the summer Cannes Health Lion show, features two wise-cracking grocery store fish on ice talking about the importance of lowering triglycerides. "Fish" also won two bronze awards in digital and social categories.

AZ took two more bronze awards for its "Breathless Moments" campaign, created by McCann Health for asthma awareness in Africa. A key part of that work, built around the fact that 70% of Africans with asthma are undiagnosed, were outdoor events where AZ created a breathalyzer checkpoint to measure drivers' lung function.

Novartis ($NVS) also won two bronze awards: One for an awareness campaign about meningococcal disease co-created with well-known photographer Anne Geddes, backing its vaccine Bexsero; the other for a digital effort, "Living Like You," to show what it's like to live with multiple sclerosis. Otsuka Pharmaceutical won one bronze for a direct marketing campaign about prejudice against people with brain disease.

Of the branded work, the shortlisted drugs were Novartis' multiple sclerosis treatment Gilenya, Boehringer Ingelheim's Pradaxa, Galderma's rosacea drug Soolantra, and Genentech's trio of cancer drugs Herceptin, Perjeta, and Kadclya.

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