Evoke MicroMass: 2023

Evoke MicroMass

100 Regency Forest Drive, Suite 400, Cary, NC 27518 

919-851-3182 • info@micromass.com • evokegroup.com/evoke-micromass  

Quick Facts

Accounts

• Account wins: 5
• Active business clients: 24

Brands by 2022 sales

• Brand-product accounts held: 21
• $100 million-$500 million: 1
• $500 million-$1 billion: 3
• $1 billion or more: 11
• Products not yet approved/launched: 4

Services mix

• Creating and optimizing patient experiences: 85%
• Creating and optimizing healthcare provider experiences: 15%
  

Client roster

• Albireo
• Amgen
• AstraZeneca
• Boehringer Ingelheim
• CSL Behring 
• CVS Health
• Cytokinetics
• EMD Serono
• Genmab
• Gilead 
• GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare
• Harmony
• Incyte
• Janssen Pharmaceuticals
• Merck
• Novo Nordisk
• Pfizer
• Sanofi Genzyme/Regeneron
• UCB 

Finalist

• Agency of the Year, Category II

In 2022, many agencies grew but Evoke MicroMass flourished – spurred by our bold new Human Dynamics approach with roots in behavioral science, we saw 53 percent  growth in agency revenue and 43 percent employee growth, bolstering our heritage as the industry’s preeminent experts of patient communication,” management says.  

Recent accomplishments

Fifty three percent growth in agency revenue over one year isn’t a typo,” executives say. “For Evoke MicroMass, it’s what happens when you build around the right philosophy. We use a distinct blend of social and behavioral sciences to dig deeper into the patient mindset, unlocking marketing solutions based on behavioral research and data, not hunches. We call this strategic approach Human Dynamics, and it infuses our work with empathy, purpose, clarity – and facilitates meaningful change for patients. This, in turn, supports Evoke’s mission to make health more human.”

“And our clients have taken notice. The vast majority of our growth in 2022 was organic from existing clients.  Client continuity also played a critical role – a 95 percent client retention rate provided a stable base for growth.”

Created for Gilead, mBC Unspoken is an unbranded metastatic breast cancer awareness campaign. Built from the experiences of people with metastatic breast cancer, the campaign shares stories told by patients, performed by actors, that say what’s been taboo, uncomfortable, or just unspoken for too long.

The agency’s legacy brand from Gilead, Trodelvy, recently ramped up its business focus on patient marketing, leveraging Evoke MicroMass’ ability to deeply understand patients’ motivations and needs “into the lock-step partnership for their growth goals,” managers say. 

In 2022 the agency won the pitch for Trodelvy’s DTC work, “a massive upgrade to complement our burgeoning DTP AOR duties,” executives say. “Our results with Trodelvy achieved an incredible 500 percent revenue boom for us this year, positioning the brand for important moments with metastatic breast cancer patients in 2023.”

The Novo Nordisk business grew 10 percent as Evoke MicroMass became the digital AOR for Wegovy, and AOR for a connected device, Dialoq, which automatically records insulin doses on select pens. “The upcoming Dialoq U.S. launch will be supported by an evergreen, unbranded campaign educating HCPs on the relevance of connected devices to their practice and management of patients with diabetes,” executives say. “These new opportunities were in addition to our longstanding role as the obesity franchise patient support experience experts. And Merck, for whom we’ve worked on Keytruda’s KEY+YOU program for years, netted us 20 percent revenue growth as we pitched and won patient support AOR for all its growing oncology portfolio.” 

According to agency leaders, “Our garden of new growth in 2022 featured five new clients, six brand launches, five campaign relaunches, and 12 brands with new indications.” 

In order to support this growth, leaders say the agency needed “inspiring people at the intersection of science and creativity to help us fully implement the work ahead. We added strategists and human psychology experts to scale up our proven behavioral science techniques to apply across broader experiences – helping our brands tap into more success with greater insight into the motivating factors behind conversions. 

“We also doubled our creative department staff from roughly 30 to 60 with the addition of multiple industry-recognized veterans.”

One key new service was the creation of a behavioral design team to bridge the agency’s behavioral science team with the creative department, according to managers. “In order to elevate the production quality of the work itself, we partnered with Oscar-winning content creators to bring our clients the more nuanced and emotional storytelling element that their brands were seeking.”

Evoke MicroMass hired 70 new employees in 2022, which leaders say is 43 percent growth from the previous year. “And we’ve had an 88 percent employee retention rate – compared to the industry standard of 75 percent – showing our understanding of the humanity within our work extends to our people as well,” executives say. “It’s this sort of focus that’s helped MicroMass be part of Evoke’s recognition as an MM+M Best Place to Work this year.”

Structure and services

We began 2022 by being welcomed into the fold of Evoke,” executives say. “Being part of this global platform allows us to support our clients with incredible access to the end-to-end capabilities across Evoke’s full suite of pharma and healthcare expertise. We’re able to share resourcing across agencies and expand what we’re able to do with purpose, integrating our philosophy with those partners that share our desire to make health more human.

“For example, our continued partnership with Evoke Melt – a previously independent digital development and production company – has seen such past success that they also were acquired by Evoke this year, elevating our partnership to new heights of creative and interactive possibility within the platform. Evoke Melt has been a part of our enhanced production competencies, as we’ve built a stronger network of digital development, animation, broadcast, and customer experience partnerships. By working with other Evoke platform specialty agencies we will have an increased capacity to bring talent and technology together in pursuit of better patient solutions.”

Leaders maintain that with such great access comes great responsibility to maintain hold of the agency’s core principles. 

“Our commitment to Human Dynamics is present across the full suite of services we provide for brands. The behavioral science methodology we’ve developed has resulted in more thoughtful and compassionate experiences across both patient and HCP audiences, helping to change behavior so that every interaction has impact. We want to see the person and move the patient. We’ve moved our eye toward empathy to create a new department, Behavioral Design – combining our strategic expertise with human-centered insight for change – to help brands rise above the fray with a look and feel that commands their patient’s attention and lets patients know they are seen.” 

Future plans

With our roots as the preeminent patient communication experts, a good portion of our 53 percent growth has come from growth in the pharmacological space,” according to the leadership team. “We anticipate expanding our Human Dynamics approach across a wider spectrum of the healthcare spectrum to include categories such as connected device, clinical trials, and behavioral therapeutics. And we will leverage the breadth and depth of specialty agencies across the Evoke platform to augment our services and enable us to deliver end-to-end marketing support for our clients, no matter their needs or their product’s life cycle.” 

While the COVID public health emergency was declared ended in May, “we all know what the pandemic has brought permanently to the workplace: the prospect of being fully remote,” executives say. As a result of this, in 2022, the agency “fully embraced the Evoke philosophy of work wherever it is you work best.”

Evoke MicroMass now has 42 percent of its total workforce located outside of the Cary, N.C. home-office area. “We are reimagining how we use our office space and processes to support a fully remote workforce,” executives say. “We plan on preserving culture and personal connections through tent-pole days and company-wide get-togethers that are hybrid gatherings for team building and teamwork.”

One of the agency’s top values is that “no one is here by mistake,” executives say. “We’re aiming in 2023 to make ‘here’ an authentic space – whether it’s virtual or not – that employees can return to every workday with principled intention, united with a shared belief that everyone brings something significant.”

Philanthropy/citizenship

Nowhere does our agency’s purpose shine more than in our philanthropic endeavors,” managers say. “Making health more human often means strengthening the health of your community, so everyone can feel more viable. As our numbers grew, our sustainability group identified a need for the agency to recycle much of the e-waste that was building up.” The agency held a “Great Reboot” recycling drive, partnering with a local electronics recycler to turn in more than 50 electronic items to help employees declutter and use tools more responsibly. 

“Giving back is also important at Evoke, and our parent company, Inizio,” executives say. From November 14-18, every agency across the Evoke platform joined together to dedicate a day of their working week to their local communities through Inizio’s Community Action Initiative. 

MicroMass employees volunteered 374 hours last year, pledging their time to help eliminate disparities in healthcare and allowing eight organizations to continue their mission with more boots on the ground, managers say. “In further support of these efforts, we made an end of year donation to our of our community action partners.”  

The agency’s concern for disparities extended further into its DEI initiatives. They provided more than 50 DEI training sessions in 2022 and 85 percent of the entire Evoke workforce attended. Evoke MicroMass team members currently serve on the Executive Leadership Inclusion Council (ELIC) and Global Diversity Action Committee (GDAC) for the Evoke platform where they’ve learned that the transformation as individuals and a company doesn’t just happen on the job. 

“We also took the time to educate ourselves on ways in our own individual lives to help be a supportive ally to all. That is the root of how we challenge our biases to impact change, that is how we will continue to strive to make health more human.”

(top row left to right) Noah Lowenthal, executive creative director; John Hamilton, executive VP, growth; Phil Mann, senior VP, director of client services; Phil Stein, global finance director; Rob Peters, executive VP, strategy
(bottom row left to right) Rosanne Johnson, president; Samantha Reardon, VP, operations; Amber Eaton, senior VP, director of client services

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