McCann Worldgroup recently picked up a big win in Reckitt Benckiser consumer products--thanks in part to its healthcare and pharma arm McCann Health.
In an internal memo to McCann staffers, McCann Worldgroup CEO Harris Diamond wrote that “RB, whose business spans the Health, Hygiene and Home categories, has been growing organically with us including at McCann Health, based on their recognition of the value of our creative and strategic work in building their brands.”
McCann Worldgroup picked up global assignments for two RB germ protection brands, Lysol and Dettol, shifting the work from Havas Worldwide, which will still continue to work for RB in a newly named role as “lead strategic and creative partner for new strategic initiatives.”
Amar Urhekar, president of McCann Health Americas, deferred to Worldgroup on his agency’s contribution to the win, but did talk to FiercePharmaMarketing about the effect of the changing dynamics in health and pharma marketing that are bringing healthcare agencies closer to consumer agencies.
“When we say healthcare marketing or communications, the mind goes predominantly to Rx or pure pharma work. But it’s not about pure Rx any more, it’s more about managing health in the larger context of …overall health, wellness and well-being,” he said.
Those changes mean that healthcare agencies are more often targeting consumer audiences and working more closely across network sibling agencies. McCann Health now works often with digital agency MRM/McCann, brand experience agency Momentum, and traditional agency McCann, to name a few, Urhekar said.
But he did emphasize that even though healthcare work is becoming more patient-centric, it still requires back-end industry expertise in decoding and communicating science, as well as navigating and following regulations.
“That is truly going to be the agency model of the future for us where we remain the experts at the core of who we are and what we do, but then we add on more seamless services from other parts of the McCann Worldgroup network,” Urhekar said.
- see the report at Ad Age
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