In the healthcare industry where there are strict laws about brand advertising, media campaigns without branding are often used for marketing. The objective is to create awareness so that people ask their doctors about a particular disease or preventive or treatment options for a particular condition. These campaigns could include ads or scientific articles, which are also often published under an HCP’s name after his/her approval. The scientific articles do not bear the sponsoring company’s name or product. What is in for the sponsor then? Well, the sponsor is trying to expand the market for a particular type of product through an indirect marketing route. The stakes are high because while it is a single sponsor spending the money, if the market indeed expands, some share will invariably go to their competitors as well. Hence, there is a lot of thinking and strategy regarding the content to be written for such campaigns.

A layperson reading the article would probably not realize that it is a sponsored campaign. However, somebody who is a part of the marketing or medical affairs team in the healthcare industry can easily detect that this is part of a sponsored campaign. There is nothing wrong with this type of indirect marketing as long as the information provided is unbiased and scientifically accurate. The HCP under whose name it is published would therefore carefully scrutinize the written content. Even before it goes to the HCP, the medical affairs team of the sponsor would scrutinize it minutely to ensure it is unbiased and the scientific information is accurate. However, there is a catch here. The medical affairs team and the HCP would only check for accuracy and unbiasedness. On the other hand, the worry for the marketing team is that the people reading the content will be laymen and not doctors. Hence, the content they require needs to be appealing to the readers and yet pass the scrutiny of medical affairs and the HCP. If it is written like a scientific publication, people would not be interested in reading it. It needs to generate some emotion- either curiosity or excitement or some concern/worry. Only then will people enquire further with their doctors and the market will expand. What it needs is a high dose of creativity along with science, to get the message across.

So how does one write a piece that is scientifically accurate and unbiased, yet appealing to the readers? Since it is not a journal publication it does not mean that one does not require references. While the references will not get published in the media (unlike in a journal article), you will need to provide supporting references to the medical affairs team and the HCP for approval. Here are some tips that might help.

• The title: I think whether the people will eventually read the article depends a lot on the title. For e.g., in a journal publication, one can write a title as factual as ‘Hypertension increases the risk of myocardial infarction.’ Imagine such a title in a newspaper article. Would you read it even if it said ‘High Blood Pressure increases the risk of getting a Heart Attack’? Too boring to generate interest isn’t it? Or maybe those with blood pressure do not wish to get further anxious by reading such an article and would rather turn the page. They do not want to hear from the newspaper what their doctor is probably already telling them. Instead, how about a title like ‘Heart’s melody under threat from pressure points’? or ‘Orchestrating Harmony under pressure’? I think these certainly sound better than the first option. They don’t directly give away what the article is about. Words like melody and harmony evoke some emotion and generate some interest.
• Ok, you have generated enough interest through the title to make people start reading it. Now if your story starts with x% of people have high blood pressure and y% suffer heart attacks every year, z% die due to it, these might be the warning symptoms of an impending heart attack, steps you should take to keep your BP under control etc- the reader will stop there and go no further. The article needs to focus on something that either the doctor is unlikely to be telling them routinely or reinforce the doctor’s message in a more palatable or interesting manner. It needs to talk about science without appearing too scientific.
• Say you started the article with – when did you party last time? Enjoyed the drinks, the snack with the drink? Dance through midnight? Did you feel anything unusual on the next day? Hangover of course, but anything else? Perhaps some giddiness? You thought it was the hangover, but it could have been the blood pressure swaying you. Or did you feel very tired? You thought it was the dance but maybe your heart was struggling a little. This is a more conversational approach and as you can see requires some creativity. Now once you have written these sentences, medical affairs would expect you to back them up with evidence. So, your claim of alcohol swaying the blood pressure or the incidence of heart attack being higher on the day after high alcohol consumption needs to be followed by ‘Studies have shown that’……and your data needs to come in here. These are the references you will need to provide for medical affairs and the HCP approving the article. Please note that these examples I have mentioned are fictitious and I do not mean these are facts proven by data. Let this not be your next campaign 🙂
• Building further on the start, the article needs to have a mix of creative content backed by adequate scientific data eventually moving towards a call to action. As an example, maybe the call of action that the marketer would like at the end of this article is that people with high BP should definitely get their BP checked once a week, or check their BP if they feel giddy or too tired, or any other call to action. Once again, as mentioned above, these are fictitious examples and call to action. I have not checked if any such data exists and the examples were used just for writing this article.

I hope this piece has provided you with some insights into the difference between writing for a journal vs writing for a media campaign. Best luck for your next mega campaign!!