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.