17615: On Escalating The Exclusivity Of Account Reviews In Adland.

 

Advertising Age spotlighted a twist on account assignments, whereby a brand charged its White media agency to conduct a creative review for its first White advertising agency.

Or was it really a twist? It’s not the first time a pitch turned into an exclusive, closed, and clandestine affair—although the scenario offered an uncommon maneuver to maintain the status quo in Adland.

The brand is Humann. Yet the new partnerships appear to favor White humans.

P.S. to Humann: Your self-hype boasts being “The trusted name in cardiovascular health.” Research shows people of color in the US are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease and poor disease outcomes. Did you choose the best media and advertising partners to reach such critical audiences?

How media agency Eden Collective conducted a creative review for one of its clients

By Brian Bonilla

When cardiovascular-health supplement company Humann went looking for its first creative agency of record late last year, it did not hire a consultant or issue a request for proposal. Instead, it took the unusual step of asking its media agency, Eden Collective, to conduct the search.

Launched in 2009, Humann built its business around a supplement called SuperBeets that supports healthy blood pressure. The company has seen strong growth lately, expanding from a limited retail presence to more than 180,000 points of distribution in the past 20 or so months, said CEO and co-founder Joel Kocher. Humann is also diversifying into cardiovascular health more broadly, with cholesterol, blood sugar, omega and CoQ10 products.

“Our aspirations changed. Our ambitions changed. So naturally, the way you run your business has to change along with that,” Kocher said.

Eden was managing Humann’s media when Kocher began reconsidering the company’s in-house creative model. When he laid out his ambitions to Eden CEO and founder Alison Monk over coffee in New York, she was frank: “I don’t think you’re going to get there without an ad agency; a creative agency that can deliver the goods,” she recalled telling Kocher.

Monk initially suggested hiring a search expert. But Kocher persuaded Eden, which it had already entrusted with its strategy and business data, to lead the assignment. (Eden was hired as Humann’s media AOR in February after previously working on a project basis.)

How the process worked

That coffee meeting led to a four-week process that replaced lengthy questionnaires and rounds of pitching with a detailed video briefing and two primary interactions: an initial chemistry meeting designed to become a working session, followed by an in-person presentation by the finalists.

Six independent agencies were initially invited before the field was narrowed to three, with Humann ultimately selecting independent agency WorkInProgress as its creative AOR. Kocher declined to identify the other contenders.

Monk, who felt up to the task because she also spent much of her career on the creative agency side at shops including Grey and Digitas, said the review’s scope was intentionally broad because Humann hadn’t yet determined if it was looking for a long-term creative agency or a shorter-term solution.

“It was an amorphous ask: What do we need?” Monk said. “So we went through a range, and Joel and I sat down and said, ‘OK, let’s look at a couple of folks that skew more project-based, and let’s also look at deeper, more AOR-like partners.’”

The review began in mid-December with a mandate to reach a decision by February, ahead of Humann’s planned retail launch of a broader cardiovascular product suite in April. Monk said Humann’s executives spent “dozens, if not 100 hours” preparing for the process.

Rather than ask agencies to complete what Monk called a “27,000-page RFI,” Eden sent agencies a video featuring Kocher and his executive team, along with supporting materials.

The extensive briefing covered Humann’s history, its origins from research conducted at the University of Texas, its Nobel Prize-winning scientific roots, and information on how nitric oxide—a key ingredient in its products—works. It also detailed the brand’s past creative, evolution from direct-to-consumer to Amazon and retail, recent packaging redesign, consumer research and customer profiles, product expansion, media strategy and competitive landscape.

Agencies had one week to review the material before a two-hour meeting with the company.

“It was a chemistry meeting, but it became a work session because of the information we were given,” said Evan Russack, co-founder and partner at WorkInProgress. “As an agency, we value those moments deeply because they allow us to ask a variety of questions—important backgrounders—but also to determine if this is right for the agency.”

Russack said the video conveyed the leadership team’s personality, passion and communication style while giving agencies unusual access to Humann’s founder and CEO from the outset.

“It was really helpful that a media agency was running the pitch, because we typically have a ton of questions related to media, and we were able to get them all answered,” Russack said.

Each of the three finalists received a $15,000 stipend. WorkInProgress used the money to research consumers’ relationship with the supplement category, then incorporated the findings into its communications strategy and creative, Russack said.

Why WorkInProgress won the pitch

To Monk, WorkInProgress stood out for its “funnel fluency” across different marketing needs. Specifically, she was looking for shops that understood the difference between what she called “salesmanship” versus “showmanship.”

“Brands with high awareness can do more showmanship and only focus on entertainment, because they don’t have to explain who they are and what they do,” Monk said. “We’re talking about a complex product in a quickly commoditized category, with lower-quality value players nipping at their heels.”

The strategic challenge was to make cardiovascular health relevant beyond older consumers or people already managing a medical condition. Humann also sought to differentiate itself in a supplement category where Kocher said few companies have meaningful clinical science. That said, he acknowledged that the company had “over-rotated on science” with previous creative focused on testimonials, especially from doctors and researchers.

All participating agencies argued Humann needed a stronger emotional connection with consumers, Kocher said.

“Our formula was: give me a point of relevancy, give me a benefit—a reason to care. Then give me the science. Then make it credible,” Russack said.

For Kocher, the defining moment came about 10 minutes into the first meeting, when he asked how the agency views the brand. WorkInProgress Creative Director Josh Shelton responded by characterizing Humann’s existing brand personality as “cool Cheerios.” Kocher embraced the comment, which he recognized as “ostensibly an insult,” because it defined the brand as a management tool for an existing condition rather than one relevant to consumers who think proactively about wellness, longevity and performance.

“I thought, ‘Finally, someone had the guts to call it for what it was,’” Kocher said. “For me, that was the defining moment. I’d made up my mind right then. Ten minutes in, it was game over.”

Kocher actually bought a box of Cheerios that he planned to send the agency—but WorkInProgress beat him to it. Two days after the meeting, a package arrived at Humann via FedEx, with Cheerios boxes decorated with what Kocher described as “cool Ray-Ban shades” stickers.

The process also convinced Kocher that Humann needed an AOR rather than a project shop.

The first campaign, backed by an investment “approaching $50 million,” according to Kocher, will break in early October.

Monk said Eden does not intend to turn agency reviews into a business line. Its role grew from its knowledge of Humann and its position as a strategic marketing partner, she said.

Russack had not previously encountered a creative review run by a media agency, but said he wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes more common.

“We’re all looking for really good partners who have subject-matter expertise we don’t possess, and have a working style that matches ours so we can deliver results for brands,” he said.

17384: BHM 2026—Illinois Department Of Public Health.

Illinois Department of Public Health goes straight to the heart of the matter, calling out the disparities and inequities Blacks have historically experienced with healthcare.

 

Maybe the headline should read: When It Comes to US Healthcare, Black History is Unhealthy History.

17183: Trump Cutting Drug Prices & Promotions.

 

Adweek reported President Donald J. Trump signed a memorandum that may lead to debilitating adverse effects for practitioners of pharmaceutical advertising.

 

Trump already declared, “You know, we’ve cut drug prices by 1,200, 1,300 and 1,400, 1,500%.”

 

Looks like he’s gonna make producing drug promotions at least 1,500% more difficult too.

 

Pharmaceutical Ads Face Closer Scrutiny Following Trump’s Memorandum 

 

The president is taking aim at direct-to-consumer marketing

 

By Mark Mwachiro

 

The media advertising business could be impacted by President Donald Trump’s memorandum aimed at cracking down on pharmaceutical advertising.

 

Using existing regulations for enforcement, the Trump administration will reach out to pharmaceutical companies via cease-and-desist and/or warning letters, alerting them to follow current regulations pertaining to drug advertising, specifically direct-to-consumer advertising, which they believe have been flouted over the years.

 

The memorandum, signed Tuesday, places Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary as the leads on this issue.

 

Kennedy had earlier proposed banning pharmaceutical advertising, but the memorandum falls short of doing that.

 

The duo is tasked with ensuring transparency and accuracy in drug advertising, including by increasing the amount of information related to any product risks.

 

Digital and social media drug advertising will also be scrutinized as the administration looks at whether pharmaceutical products are advertised with the proper disclosures and whether these platforms are abiding by the current rules.

 

And the role of social media influencers will be looked at when it comes to their transparency and disclosures when promoting or endorsing a drug product.

 

According to CNN, current regulations require drug ads to not create a “misleading impression” and to provide a “fair balance” of information.

 

A senior official in the Trump administration told CNN enforcement by the FDA in the past few years has not been stringent enough, with only one enforcement letter sent in 2023 and none issued in the past year.

 

For instance, during this year’s Super Bowl, a Hims & Hers ad promoting weight loss drugs aired during the game without including information on safety and side effects. This raised the eyebrows of politicians and others, who highlighted it as a prime example of pharmaceutical companies ignoring or circumventing the current regulations.

 

In addition, the Trump administration intends to do away with a 1997 provision allowing ads from pharmaceutical companies to include only a brief excerpt of a drug’s side effects, while directing consumers to a more comprehensive rundown published elsewhere.

 

This loophole enabled an increase in advertising spend as pharmaceutical companies could create shorter spots that were welcomed by TV networks.

 

“The Trump/FDA crackdown could make current D2C drug ads unworkable,” eMarketer healthcare analyst Raj Leventhal said. “The administration wants to revert to pre-1997 D2C drug advertising laws. This would require drugmakers to disclose all product side effects and risks in-ad. Drug ads on TV are typically less than one minute long, meaning that this rule, if enforced, would effectively nullify every pharma commercial in its current form.”

 

Pharmaceutical ad spend has grown from $12.2 billion in 2015 to an estimated $39 billion in 2025, with the most significant gains occurring during the pandemic, according to marketing intelligence firm WARC.

17120: Considering Inequities In Healthcare Marketing.

 

Advertising Age reported consumer health giant Haleon is launching a global creative review to likely award its business to a White holding company.

 

IPG, WPP, and Publicis Groupe currently serve the client, underscoring the obscenity of worldwide pitches.

 

After all, IPG may soon be gone and WPP should be gone, possibly narrowing the exclusive field of competition.

 

Additionally, a global review means holding companies have the advantage and may be viewed as the only options for a client like Haleon. In short, non-White agencies will be eliminated from consideration—or relegated to subservient “partner” status and ultimately experience Prime Redlining.

 

The healthcare industry has always presented disparities and inequities to people of color. Looks like ditto for healthcare marketing and agencies of color.

 

Haleon launches global creative agency review

 

By Ewan Larkin

 

Haleon, the consumer health giant spun out of GSK, is looking to streamline its agency roster, Ad Age has learned.

 

The maker of Panadol tablets, Sensodyne toothpaste and Centrum vitamins has launched a global creative agency review aimed at consolidating work currently primarily spread across three advertising holding companies.

 

Interpublic Group of Cos., WPP and Publicis Groupe currently work with the company, according to a person familiar with the matter. The pitch is said to be handled by R3. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the incumbents are pitching for the business; none of them immediately provided comment. R3 couldn’t be reached for comment.

 

Haleon declined to comment.

 

IPG and WPP are currently pitching for another consumer health company, Bayer, in a review that encompasses global creative and media responsibilities. Bayer owns over-the-counter drugs such as Claritin, Aleve and Alka-Seltzer.

 

Haleon spent $1.2 billion on global media in 2024, according to estimates from COMvergence. The company had measured U.S. media spending of $492 million in 2024, up from $429 million in 2023, per MediaRadar.

 

Haleon has made other agency moves over the past year. In February 2024, the company hired Brandtech Group’s Collectively as its principal influencer marketing agency in the U.S. under a three-year deal. That marked an uncommon commitment in a space where year-to-year assignments are the norm.

 

Contributing: Bradley Johnson

16982: BHM 2025—For WPP, BHM = Black Health Misrepresentation…?

WPP presents a BHMish salute by spotlighting a healthcare heat shield—State of Black Health: What Now.

 

What’s the state of Black health—in terms of representation—at WPP? Recent admissions indicate an unhealthy state indeed.

16841: Performance-Enhancing Media Schemes.

 

Advertising Age published an advertorial—which feels the content of a PowerPoint pitch deck—from CMI Media Group, hyping media opportunities to connect sports and pharmaceutical marketing. The opportunistic authors gush it’s a perfect match.

 

Right, sports and drugs make a dream team.

 

Why sports are the next big win for pharmaceutical marketing

 

By Mark Pappas, Kelly Morrison and Melanie Lysaght

 

Consumers are used to watching paid actors implore them to ask their doctors about any number of pharmaceutical drugs or treatments. But when more than a third of Americans say they follow or pay attention to sports teams, leagues, or favorite athletes at least semi-closely, according to a 2023 Pew Research survey, there is a whole field of underutilized marketing opportunities available for pharma. CMI Media Group’s proprietary 2024 Media Vitals™ research across healthcare consumers and professionals showed that 2 in 3 patients/caregivers regularly engage in sports content.

 

We also know that doctors are consumers too, and in digging into healthcare professionals, we found that they have a strong affinity with sports, with 72% stating they regularly follow at least one sport or league.

 

Not only are sports fans a captive audience, but they’re a loyal and growing one. Athletes themselves are natural advocates for health and proactive health practices, but just like any other demographic, many athletes have personal backstories or causes that predispose them to promoting certain treatments or prescription drugs. And who is a better spokesperson for health and wellness than a professional athlete?

 

For the pharmaceutical industry, which is really just now able to speak directly to consumers the way over-the-counter drugs have always been able to, finding meaningful partnerships with athletes could prove to be their biggest score of the season.

 

CMI Media Group is focused on putting a health lens on a lot of the sports partnerships we work with because we believe this is an opportunity to reach both patients and providers via America’s pastime—sports. 

 

Innovation doesn’t have to be expensive

 

When it comes to speaking to sports fans, brands don’t need a Super Bowl budget to reach a dedicated fandom. There tends to be a mental sticker-shock when we mention sports partnerships to clients—the first thought tends to be NFL multi-year sponsorship opportunities that carry sizeable brand investment, which can cost millions of dollars. But there are so many partnership opportunities with professional sport leagues that come with a lower investment point of entry, especially when looking at omnichannel approaches.

 

Pickleball, for example, is the fastest growing sport in America right now both professionally and recreationally, and it is significantly less expensive than going straight to the NFL, MLB, or NBA. The crazy rise in popularity of women’s sports dovetails perfectly with the many women’s health brands that we work on, and niche sports like surfing, racing and extreme sports all have highly marketable audiences.

 

We’ve found success working with athletes within certain leagues where we can craft condition-specific initiatives with impactful tactics that align to client objectives, like partnering with the NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancer program.  It's a good way to stand out in an extremely crowded marketplace right now, and we work with both clients and athletes to come up with something personal, authentic, and unique. For instance, our influencer team has been working with a number of NASCAR drivers who aren’t quite Earnhardt-level household names, but they still have a massive following on social media. These opportunities aren’t forced, rather they are germane to the athlete as well as the condition and the brand. 

 

Regardless of your brand’s budget, there's a way in with sports partnerships, and there are many scalable opportunities. We’ve even found it’s been a good testing ground for some of the bigger pharma companies that were initially a little hesitant to try sports as a channel or market for their products.

 

Athletes have personal causes too

 

Professional athletes might be great at promoting sneakers and electrolyte drinks, but they shouldn’t be limited to the obvious. And, many are able to speak about conditions or issues that are relevant to them personally without the involvement of their sports league. For instance, if a soccer player has a personal history with diabetes and can promote a new insulin pump with empathy and authority, they can do that through both their personal social media and through omnichannel campaigns without the pharma brand having to deal directly with the major soccer leagues.

 

That is one way in which we can start on a smaller scale and then scale up. We’ve found we’re able to make a much more genuine and meaningful partnership with individual athletes, as opposed to slapping a logo on an ad and just playing that everywhere. Making sure the messaging is authentic and reaching the right audience is important, but even when we focus on a targeted audience, doing it through the lens of sports offers an innately larger, broader audience.

 

Sports fandom is always in season

 

There is a strong emotional component to fandom—one that extends well beyond the sanctioned season or the team’s playoff run. Whether a favorite team has 162 games or 17 in their given season, fans will buy merchandise, discuss new recruits and follow any and all team news year-round. Fans are natural ambassadors, and aligning brands with them is the rising tide that raises all ships.

 

Not only is this true of professional sports, but college allegiances can be just as diehard. And, considering many universities either have or are affiliated with major research centers and initiatives, the link between pharmaceuticals and sports runs even deeper. (Remember which university’s clinical research lab produced the first COVID vaccine, in partnership with Moderna? Thanks, Vanderbilt! Go Commodores!)

 

Because college colors don’t bleed, we’re able to leverage partners regionally (think: Ivy Leagues, the SEC or Big 10) and target consumers nationally. There are a ton of ways to go after college sport fandoms—streaming services like CTV, in-person signage and activations at campus events and games, radio, digital buys—and they are all much more affordable than many of the other options out there.

 

Overall, while sports certainly lend a cool factor, our strategy goes beyond with data-backed knowledge that sports is a way for healthcare brands to reach their audiences. Patients, caregivers, and professionals are active in the opportunities around sporting events, presenting a channel for meaningful engagement. Considering the reputation boost that the pharma industry gained following the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a smart, strategic time to align pharmaceuticals with fan-favorite athletes. Pharma brands want to be associated with health and vitality, and that really hits at the nexus of sporting as well. Celebrating the human body, being healthy and pushing the limits of what humans can achieve is, at their core, what both pharmaceutical research and athletics are each about.

16834: Not Kidding With Kidneys.

 

Get answers to the headline from LiveOnNY.

16734: Wild Wild West Side…?

 

Habilitative Systems, Inc presents “How Wellness Is Won” with odd cowboy imagery. Maybe the company is acknowledging—especially for people of color—the healthcare system feels like the Wild West.

16724: Worth Less, More Or Less.

Inspired by the Trial for #ClinicalEquality campaign from FCB Health New York.

16723: Worth Less Shows More Bias.

 

MM+M spotlighted the latest patronizing propaganda from FCB Health New York’s Trial for #ClinicalEquality campaign, an initiative designed to expose the racial and ethnic bias in clinical trials.

 

As pointed out in a previous post, the revelation that people of color receive unequal treatment from the US healthcare system is hardly surprising—in fact, it’s common knowledge—and arguably offensive coming from a White advertising agency likely fishing for awards versus advocating for justice.

 

To compound the cultural cluelessness, the new advertisements feature AI-rendered images of Black patients. So, in addition to using an executional method that has displayed bias, FCB Health deprived talent of color from the opportunity to receive payment and recognition for appearing in a national campaign. Surely the hardest-working man in Black advertising could have been tapped.

 

In short, the advertising stunt presented parallel prejudice: unequal representation in clinical trials and underrepresentation in commercial concepts.

 

AI portraits highlight the lack of diversity in clinical research

 

The Worth Less campaign is the latest initiative from FCB Health New York’s Trial for #ClinicalEquality.

 

By John Newton

 

The initial inspiration for the Trial for #ClinicalEquality, a longstanding initiative from IPG Health’s FCB Health New York, struck seven years ago. In the course of looking at clinical trial data intended to support a creative campaign, the agency realized they didn’t reflect the people it hoped to reach.

 

“It wasn’t an isolated incident,” noted IPG Health chief medical officer Dr. Sommer Bazuro. “We needed data to reflect, first, the racial groups within the overall population and, second, the disease incidence and mortality rates for that specific population.”

 

Since then, the Trial for #ClinicalEquality has highlighted the costs of a lack of diversity in clinical trials — to both individuals and society broadly. One study, for instance, found that there were no Native American participants in diabetes clinical trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov from March 2000 to March 2020.

 

The lack of diversity undermines public trust in scientific research and results in lower-quality data. Also, financial costs accrue due to health disparities that could be reduced with trials that are more reflective of the populations impacted by certain diseases.

 

Worth Less, the initiative’s latest campaign, features 15 portrait-like images that were created using generative AI licensed from Adobe Stock. Its overarching goal is to call attention to the ethnic minority groups impacted by clinical inequality.

 

The campaign’s name is designed to be read two ways, asking whether the lives of patients of color are worthless as well as whether they are worth less than other patients’ lives. The photo captions highlight the wider implications of failing to include patients from certain demographic groups in clinical trials with statistics: “1% of clinical trial participants are Asian, yet chronic hepatitis B affects them the most” and “2% of patients in dementia clinical trials are Black, yet they experience this disease at the second highest rate.”

 

Bazuro believes that many patients and physicians simply assume that clinical trials are reflective of the communities impacted by specific conditions or diseases.

 

“Most people, even those who have been in healthcare for years, don’t realize that it’s not happening,” she says. “They don’t know that when their physicians talk to them about medicines, that they cannot be 100% confident that someone who has their particular background was included. That’s something that troubles physicians.”

 

The Worth Less messaging centers on the financial implications of non-diverse trials. Bazuro explained that the perceived greater expense of diverse clinical trials is a common concern — but that the societal costs of lower-quality data, mistrust of the healthcare system and disparate outcomes need to be considered as well.

 

“We know how the world works: If you can’t fund it, it’s not getting done,” added FCB Health New York chief creative officer Kathleen Nanda. “That’s just the reality of business and, very often, health is a business.”

 

The campaign website includes a host of statistics, including one explaining that, from 2003 to 2006, medical expenses could have been reduced by $230 billion if inequalities faced by patients of color had been eliminated.

 

“We want people to understand the urgency of data equality and clinical equality and to take action,” Nanda said. “We want this problem to be seen and to be fixed by a bunch of brilliant different minds. It’s not just what we are doing; it’s what our community is doing that we’re really, really excited about.”