Disease Awareness Campaign Development: Our Strategic Approach
Our pharmaceutical and biotech partners are known for the innovative medicines they create, but they also play an important role in educating communities about medical conditions. In addition to reflecting a company’s commitment to a disease area, disease awareness campaigns increase knowledge and understanding, create new hope and bring together patient communities.
To build impactful disease awareness campaigns we begin by working with our partners to understand their market environment, assess stakeholder understanding of the therapeutic area(s) and patient experience, and establish shared goals for what their disease awareness campaign needs to achieve. Often our clients have new insights on the patient experience that can be powerful to leverage as educational tools with the patient community. As we develop these campaigns, we focus on the science and the mental and emotional impact that medical conditions can have on people’s lives.
Steps to developing and implementing impactful disease awareness campaigns:
Assess the environment
We take a holistic approach to understanding the issues, patient journey and stakeholders around a particular therapeutic area or condition. We aim to understand the patient journey in all its complexity, from symptom onset to ongoing management. Along the way, we seek to understand where patients and caregivers receive information about their medical condition, how diagnoses are received and what information is available about treatment options. We also aim to understand who are the credible sources of information, often including patient advocacy groups, caregivers and healthcare providers. Our research methods may include desk research, surveys, one-on-one interviews, focus groups and/or advisory boards.
Understand the current state of disease awareness and unmet needs
No one knows what it’s like to live with a medical condition like the people who live with it every day. We begin disease awareness campaign development by understanding the patient experience and unmet needs. What are the gaps in awareness, knowledge and behaviors that we can identify that a campaign should address? How can our campaign deliver real value for patients and caregivers, in terms of information and tools? Is there a need to create a community based on shared experiences, or enable action based on shared goals? We aim to discover the narrative of people’s experiences and create a positioning for our campaign that reflects a powerful human truth.
Develop an insights-driven plan
With an understanding of stakeholder experiences and unmet needs, we develop disease awareness goals and activation plans using a combination of paid, earned and owned tactics. To develop an integrated campaign, we often collaborate with various functions within client partner organizations and their agencies. And we collaborate externally with stakeholders, including advocacy organizations and individual activists in a therapeutic area.
Campaign activation
Powerful campaigns involve strategic messaging, authentic voices and collaborative activation efforts with stakeholders. Disease awareness campaign activation often involves a variety of tactics to engage stakeholders and prompt action, such as:
Engaging influencers to gain additional attention and reach broader audiences
Generating new data about the patient experience to enhance understanding of the patient journey
Promoting an engagement campaign around patient storytelling focused on the experience of people living with a condition
Hosting educational events or webcasts with expert speakers and/or individuals who live with a disease
Launching a disease-focused website with interactive educational content
Creating engaging social media content and engaging communities to provide educational resources
Engaging media to help tell the story via media tours and/or creative pitch ideas
Convening stakeholders in a roundtable or coalition to work together to achieve change
Publishing informational content via op-eds, blogs, newsletters and/or advertorials
Each medical condition is marked by nuance and full of human experiences. Our approach to disease awareness campaign development tries to capture that in a way that is customized and true. Through insights, strong messaging, multi-stakeholder engagement and creative execution we create disease awareness campaigns that inform and inspire mobilizing communities and drive meaningful change.
