The Bloc: 2023

The Bloc

32 Old Slip, 15th Floor, New York, NY, 10005 

212-524-6200 • jmatthews@thebloc.com • thebloc.com

Quick Facts

Accounts

• Account wins: 12
• Active business clients: 23
  

Brands by 2022 sales

• Brand-product accounts held: 21
• $25 million or less: 23

Services mix

• Sales materials: 25%
• Professional digital/web/mobile: 24%
• Market research/data/analytics: 20%
• Payer marketing: 20%
• UX design: 5%
• Consumer digital/web/mobile: 4%
• Direct marketing: 2%

Client roster

• AbbVie 
• Acorda Therapeutics
• Amarin 
• Amgen
• BioGen
• Bristol Myers Squibb
• Embecta 
• Galera Therapeutics
• Idorsia 
• Iveric Bio
• Lexicon
• Lundbeck
• Merck
• Menarini
• Northwell Health
• Novaliq
• Novartis
• Organon
• Otsuka/Lundbeck
• Pfizer
• Regeneron
• Sanofi
• Takeda

The Bloc’s campaign for Regeneron’s Evkeeza demonstrates the synergy between great craft in the work supporting the bold and life-saving message of the brand.

“In 2022, The Bloc experienced ups and downs during year three of the coronavirus pandemic,” the agency leadership team says. “While we celebrated successes from account wins, award wins, and consistently great day-to-day work, we also experienced client setbacks, including account losses. Throughout the year, we planned for the next phase of growth and expansion, which we will realize in 2023. Our true inspiration continued to come from our community of Bloc’ers. Our most valued asset is our people.”

“With the goal of stable and sustainable growth for our people and business, we expanded the agency with a mix of organic growth and the addition of new clients. Intent upon living out our mission to ‘Be Great to Do Good,’ we made significant strides in laying the foundation for The Bloc’s future success.”

Recent accomplishments

The agency had several account wins in 2022 including CyclASol from Novaliq; Immunologu U from BMS; Mozobil/Thymo from Sanofi, RSV  Vaccines and Prevnar from Pfizer; Palforzia from Nestle Health Science; Zimura from Northwell Health and Iveric Bio; consumer health from Menarini; and omnichannel consulting from Biogen. 

The Bloc also added talent last year. In April 2022, Christian Bauman joined as chief creative officer. “He brings to the agency an impressive track record and an unwavering commitment to client work and growth,” leaders say.

Jay Appel came into the executive team as the agency’s first chief digital and growth officer. “Jay joined us from BMS, where he was worldwide omnichannel lead, and brings a robust track record of digital and transformational growth to the table,” executives say. “He oversees our digital/innovation and growth teams.”

In July 2022, Itiya Wolman joined The Bloc as senior VP, director of operations. “Itiya has spent the bulk of her career in project management and operations and is passionate about executional excellence and all things delivery,” executives say.

In February 2023, Margaret Haskell rejoined The Bloc in the role of senior VP, director of strategic planning. “Margaret started her planning career at The Bloc 15 years ago, and, after the last six years building her leadership and skill set at other health-focused agencies, she has come home,” executives say. 

The Bloc also expanded its services capabilities with several new offerings. These include Bloc Intelligence (BI) Suite.

“Fueled by our commitment to answering our clients’ key business challenges, the need for an evolved analytics offering is critical,” agency leaders say. “We looked at building out the modern analytics offering. Throughout 2022, we focused on targeting high-opportunity customers and enriching engagement with real-world behavior, where activation and conversion are likely to be high. 

“It allowed us to find customers who may hold high value for our clients, and by looking through big third-party data sets, we are able to understand what HCPs do and what they say. For 2023, we’ve launched a new analytics suite at The Bloc.” 

According to leaders, the service is broken out into five parts: BI Pulse (reporting and data visualization), BI Customer 360 (data integration platform), BI Outcomes (business growth and ROI), BI Real World (big data integration, including a licensed real-word data set), and BI Foresight (predictive analytics). 

“More advanced analytics allow us to answer deeper questions related to business goals and ultimate impact,” executives say. “While many are stuck at the what, we look for the why. We are constantly thinking about the business challenge and objectives when putting together a measurement plan and committed to more deeply understanding customer needs and barriers to help them evolve and prioritize targeting/messaging. We are always looking to optimize based on business implications.”

The Bloc in 2022 launched a Consulting division. “Given some of The Bloc’s recent hires who have deep experience standing up various organizations and capabilities from within biopharma, The Bloc has started to offer an array of consulting services – primarily in digital strategy, analytics, and omnichannel – to provide recommendations for the people, processes, and platforms required to accelerate adoption and increase the impact of these capabilities within a client organization,” managers say. “In most cases, the plans being developed in these arenas are also being executed, supported, and measured by The Bloc, along with the pull through via change management strategies required to ensure success of the proposed solution(s).”

The agency started a Learning and Development division for several reasons, the leadership team states. “While The Bloc has always led the charge in developing unique content and experiences, more of the focus has been on external customer engagement and behavior change,” executives say. “In 2022, we expanded our outreach to help our clients with their internal challenges as well. Through the development of internal learning and development experiences for marketers, medical, and market access, The Bloc now offers an approach to ensuring tailored learning experiences to instill best-in-class launch capabilities in cross-functional and global market teams. These solutions are helping our clients attract and retain talent, engage according to preferred learning styles, and leverage social community to share best practices across functions and markets.”

While leaders claim the agency “took a step back in 2022 to focus on bringing on new leadership and solidifying our client relationships,” The Bloc did receive several industry accolades. 

“We were thrilled to be recognized by MM&M with Best Use of Market Access Marketing – Gold,” executives say. “We are also thrilled to be hosting the Clio Health Awards jury in May 2023 at The Bloc’s offices in New York City.”

According to the leadership team, the most important factor that led to the agency’s 2022 success is its “People First” approach, “as we continued to navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We continued to offer a fully flexible model, enabling Bloc’ers to work from the location of their choice and also enabling us to source amazing talent across North America. Toward the end of 2022, we announced a shift to a hybrid model to get the hallways of 32 Old Slip buzzing again, while still offering the flexibility that is so important for our people.” 

Structure and services

Executives highlight The Bloc’s full suite of services, including branding, strategy, omnichannel, CRM, global, medical communications, customer experience planning, channel planning, social, market access, consulting, adaptation, and analytics.

Future plans

We are at a transformative time at The Bloc,” agency leaders say. “Our ways of working and living have changed, and we will continue to embrace our flexible model to ensure our people can be successful in supporting our clients’ business outcomes by delivering world-class health solutions. 

“Going forward, we will continue to invest in our people and our business to fuel growth. We will combine our deep strategic and creative heritage with technology solutions that deliver compelling experiences across every conceivable platform. Our next generation of thought leaders will stay ahead of the curve for our clients and continue to set industry trends that others will follow. 

“We will enhance our creative edge, attracting top talent across disciplines and clients. We will pilot new technologies and processes to improve workflow and enhance output. We are consistently working to drive growth and are currently pursuing a unified global strategy, with plans for deepening and broadening our global capabilities to service our clients. Above all, we will continuously strive to be the preferred partner for all of our clients.”

According to managers, 2023 will mark the evolution of The BlocPartners, which they say is the leading global network of independent health creative agencies, to The Bloc, “the only health-native global agency with world-class local talent and a centralized operational structure.” 

“We will combine our local roots in 34+ markets with our leading expertise in data-driven, applied behavioral and medical sciences to boost global strategy, creative impact, customer experience, and brand success.

“We are very excited to share that we recently launched The Bloc’s office in Munich, Germany, via a joint venture with longtime partner ServicePlan Health and Life. We are focused on unifying and advancing our capabilities in Europe, starting with a strategy for growth in the largest European health market. Our network is now present in 34 markets with over 1,300 employees across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.” 

Philanthropy/citizenship

The Bloc has historically matched 100 percent of any individual or Bloc team charitable contribution and made a commitment last summer to match 200 percent of any donation to programs and organizations supporting racial and social justice, according to the leadership team. 

“We are proud that in 2022 we continued our charitable giving, supporting organizations including UNICEF, Jed Foundation, Movember, American Heart Association, Brooklyn Public Library, Global Giving, Humane Society of the United States, Working for Women, International OCD Foundation, International Rescue Committee, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Pat Tillman Foundation, Razom Ukraine, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Tea Arts and Culture, World Central Kitchen, and the Wounded Warrior Project,” executives say.

In the wake of the devastating 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, The Bloc has also matched employee contributions to organizations helping those affected. 

Additionally, “We’ve maintained our long-term partnership with Working for Women, an organization focused on supporting economic independence for women; we look forward to expanding this partnership in 2023,” executives say.

The Bloc CEO and President Jennifer Matthews (PRNewsfoto/The Bloc)

therapeutics
vaccines
medical
big data
hospital
markets