It’s boots on the ground, or rather in the office, for SK Life Science’s latest sales push aimed at getting its target, i.e., neurologists, to pay attention.
The unconventional approach of “The Shoe Drop” continues the theme of the company’s successful immersive “Step into Their Shoes” experience that debuted at the American Epilepsy Society annual meeting in December of 2020 for anti-seizure med Xcopri. Instead of the standard pamphlet or business card, an SK sales rep brings in a box of thick men’s work boots to tell the story of Matt.
After scanning a QR code on the tongue of the boot, the HCP is taken to a video about Matt’s struggles with epilepsy. The 9-minute video features Matt recalling how epilepsy affected and changed his life’s path starting with his first seizures at age 13. He suffered from 24 seizures a year, and this continued until he joined a clinical trial of SK's now approved epilepsy drug Xcopri, which got him where is he is today—zero seizures.
“The pandemic has forced everybody to be able to be a different salesperson,” said Stephanie Loiseau, senior director of marketing for SK Life Science. “You have to think really outside the box, no pun intended. From a marketing standpoint, we had to think differently. The idea was 'what can we do not only to try to get access, but then also engage better with the physicians and create a 'wow' factor so that there's something that stands out?’”
And stand out it does; six weeks in and SK is already seeing great results from the effort, with in-person rep visits up by 14%, Matt’s video being seen 71,000 times and SK reporting that more than 30,000 people have visited xcoprihcp.com, the HCP-specific website for Xcopri.
Thanks to the success of the campaign, Loiseau says there are more shoes representing more patient success stories in the works.
“Whether it's a heel or a sandal, the idea is to bring different patients stories forward. I think those are the things that really motivate (physicians) to do more for their patients. Seeing other patients have success, especially in a space that has just been so complacent—there really haven’t been any new drug therapies that have any efficacy results that Xcopri is bringing. So when you're able to bring that hope by putting patients' stories in front of physicians, it really inspires them to do that for their own patients as well.”
Xcopri is SK’s first approved drug and received its FDA nod in November 2019 after a decade in the works. The launch was in May 2020, mid-pandemic. In August of 2021, SK launched a digital campaign featuring sports influencers all who have epilepsy.