Ogilvy Health: 2023

Ogilvy Health

200 5th Ave, New York, NY 10010

212-237-4000 • ogilvyhealth.com

Quick Facts

Accounts

• Account wins: 13
• Active business clients: 60
  

Brands by 2022 sales

• Brand-product accounts held: 171

Winner | Best Medical Device Campaign
Every day, cats are robbed of their best lives by a common, yet often overlooked disease: osteoarthritis pain. Nearly 40 percent of cats suffer from it in silence, yet most of their owners don’t know how to spot its signs. What If there was a way to interpret what cats were feeling so they could get the help they need? The answer was Cat Pain IQ.

Services mix

• Advertising: 49%
• Public relations: 27%
• Medical education: 15%
• Market access: 9%

Winner

• Best Medical Device Campaign

Finalist

• Most Creative Agency
• Vision Award
• Best Agency Campaign
• Best Nonbranded Consumer Campaign
• Best Patient Engagement Campaign

Leaders at this agency are boldly declarative about their mission. “Impact. It’s what we do,” they say. “It’s how at Ogilvy Health we create, strategize, experience, and ultimately, how we influence. Creating impact at every turn asks us to ‘Do the right thing.’ ‘Do the best work of our lives.’ And ‘Do it together.’ Our ‘D.O.,’ David Ogilvy-inspired goals, live at the heart of the Impact Plan for Ogilvy Health. This is the agency’s strategic approach for excellence and growth. The Impact Plan inspires our brands and our people to impact the world, and create iconic, culture-changing, value-driving ideas. 

“We are creating transformation that enhances the world of health and wellness – and there is no better place to focus our talent and creativity. We achieved significant success in 2022 – in fact, double digit growth. The momentum at Ogilvy Health is palpable, driving our journey forward for a healthier world in 2023. Let’s D.O. it.”

Recent accomplishments

Ogilvy Health has been an industry trailblazer for 50 years, and 2022 was no different, according to the leadership team. “Impact is in our DNA, and we harness it daily to solve the trickiest of global healthcare challenges with our clients. Under the oversight of our Global CEO, Kim Johnson, our combined strength empowers more seamless solutions for clients by pushing the limits of what a truly global and integrated network like Ogilvy can offer. Services include patient and HCP marketing, PR and influence, access and payer, med ed, and med affairs – all ingrained with insight, strategy, creativity, and experience to improve patient outcomes.”

Managers say the healthcare agency relocating to 200 Fifth Avenue in New York last year allows it to work alongside the rest of Ogilvy. They add that 2022 was an extraordinary year for the Ogilvy network overall, as it received the Network of the Year designation at Cannes. “Winning at Cannes drives us to create health impact through meaningful creative work – which is exactly what we love to do most.”

One of the agency’s goals over the last year was to grow  – “but not just grow, grow intently with a growth-focused mindset for our people and through diversification of our client portfolios,” executives say. “We accomplished this by delivering double-digit growth globally, with significant diversification of our client portfolio. We saw expansion in global pharma and with health innovators, health systems, and consumer health companies. Health and wellness are everywhere we turn these days, and as the market expands, Ogilvy Health continues to find new ways to help both patients and providers create better outcomes.” 

Ogilvy Health’s 2022 wins include being named the global AOR for Eliquis, one of the world’s top selling cardiovascular brands; SpringWorks, “where we created award-winning disease education work in the rare disease category”; “a unique first and only launch with Ferring”; and a new client partnership in the diabetes category, agency leaders say. 

“Building off the significant health tech and medical device experience of the agency and award-winning work for ‘Breathless Choir,’ we will be working once again in the oxygenator category with Inogen.”  

The Ogilvy Health PR group is “also on an impressive roll,” leaders say, recently winning a new brand with Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Additionally, Shannon Walsh expanded her role as president, Ogilvy Health Public Relations and oversees teams across New York City, Cambridge, Mass., and Washington, D.C. Michael DiSalvo was promoted to executive VP, growth and innovation, Mel Brunner to executive VP, client operations, and Christine Meberg to executive VP, head of strategy and planning.  

“We are a people business first and foremost, and at the heart of our creativity is collaboration,” executives say. “One of our greatest achievements in 2022 was building and growing our collaborative leadership team, attracting the best and most enviable executive leadership team for Ogilvy Health. 

“Kim Johnson, in her first full year in 2022, set on a quest to bring entrepreneurial leaders and diverse innovators to Ogilvy Health, ensuring success in driving the agency’s Impact Plan.”

These leaders “contributed to tremendous impact in 2022,” executives say, and include Adam Hessel, chief creative officer; Liz Kane, chief strategy officer; Courtney Murphy, chief people officer; Corina Kellam, executive VP experience and innovation; Tyler Montague, executive VP client leader; Rory Leslie, executive VP, project management and operations; Cynthia Meehan, executive VP client leader; and Nick Cavarra, senior VP growth.

Over the past year, Ogilvy Health and its leadership team have received several awards: Johnson was honored as a Woman of Distinction in Health, Hessel was recognized by Lürzer’s International Archive as the No. 1 creative director, and Meberg received an industry PR award. Mary Brown, executive VP, client lead, won a DTC Perspectives Agency Vanguard Award. 

In the unbranded space, the Breathless Ballad Challenge for Boehringer Ingelheim won multiple awards, including at the Shorty Impact Awards. “We swept the London International Awards with 12 nods for clients including Simparica Trio, New York Festivals Health, FOUR PAWS, and CYCLE Kids,” executives say, adding that the agency also took home nine Vetty awards for Zoetis brands including Apoquel, Solensia, Simparica Trio, Zoetis B2B, and won for its work for FOUR PAWS. 

At the beginning of 2023 Walsh received an award for “reaching the pinnacle of her career,” executives say.

Structure and services

According to the leadership team, Ogilvy Health is organized to deliver commercial growth solutions to clients including brand development and promotion, insights, intelligence and strategy, experience and innovation, PR and influence, medical education, and market access and payer. 

“Clients partnering with Ogilvy automatically have access to these well-integrated commercial disciplines and importantly, working with the most creative agency network in the world,” executives say. “We tap into our network colleagues daily to connect teams and ensure collaboration to bring the best expertise we can to every client relationship. We’re able to offer seamless solutions across Ogilvy and WPP in more integrated ways than ever before. 

“This is where impact really comes into play. It’s what we do. It’s what we offer our partnerships. And to create that impact we’ve come up with a strategic approach that helps drive every client brand team to produce their very best. 

“The Impact Plan at OH inspires our people and our brands to impact the world, creating iconic, culture-changing, value-driving ideas. We are creating real transformation that influences all aspects of health and wellness. 

“How is Ogilvy Health’s impact reflected in across these arenas? By transforming the standard of care; shifting behavior change; generating users and revenues. We work to help our clients inspire impact. We do this by being agile, which is relevant to everything from brand growth to introducing the world to a cure for a rare disease. By being inspiring, committing to collaboration and creativity and by being concrete, providing clients with measurable business goals.” 

Future plans

In 2023 Ogilvy Health will continue to prioritize our people as our greatest value,” agency leaders say. 

“By blending the best of our experienced, tenured talent with the hiring of exceptional new talent, we will achieve impact, increase diversity, and deliver exceptional work and business results for clients,” executives state. “We want to explore the aspirations that inspire groups of people in health and wellness. 

“And to do this, Ogilvy Health is using the concept of Alchemy to reveal the nuances that help transform people into healers. Alchemy is an Ogilvy Health initiative developed to understand the cultural chemistry and emotional magic that runs through the lives of sub-
cultures of providers, caregivers, and patients within the modern world of health and wellness. Because ultimately, connecting with people is about audiences, not channels. It is about insight, not data. Solving, not selling. 

“For our launch, we dove into the culture of oncologists. Dissecting how these oncologists see their environment in a 360-view helps us bring this knowledge to clients for deeper insights and to create more impact for the patients they treat and their outcomes.”

Parent WPP partnered with SeeHer, the leading global movement to accurately portray women in marketing, advertising, media, and entertainment, to unveil “Health on Her Terms (HOHT).” 

“The research study revealed critical gaps and opportunities for women, and people who identify as women, across reproductive care, weight, diversity, and mental health,” Ogilvy Health leaders say. “These data-driven insights have helped us understand our patients better and impart the learnings to our clients. Research shows that women say they’re likely to be loyal to brands who tackle entrenched and pervasive taboos in media – and speak to them authentically and with dignity. And we want to do just that.”

New York Festivals (NYF) and Ogilvy Health entered a partnership to share what executives say is “an exciting opportunity” for the next generation of creatives: a student creative brief competition. 

For the first NYF Health Student Challenge, entrants will be asked to create a new social campaign for A Walk on Water (AWOW) — a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring athletes with unique needs through surf therapy. Students will be provided a creative brief and the work will be judged by Hessel, who is also the NYF Health Awards executive jury president. The 2023 NYF Health Student Challenge winner will not only receive a trophy from NYF Health, but a paid internship at Ogilvy Health in New York.

Agency leaders say this year, they plan to target client growth in health and wellness categories that are lacking support, including women’s health, pediatric health, and mental health. “And on the heels of these topics, we will lead the industry in discussing areas of unmet need with this year’s sponsored series of talks titled, ‘Emerging Impact  – The Power to Shape the Future of Health” at South by Southwest Conference & Festivals. Our team’s takeaways from South by Southwest each year reinvigorate the agency, our clients, and their brands with cutting-edge health trends and innovative solutions, and Ogilvy Health is helping to lead the conversation.”

According to managers, Ogilvy Health Innovation Lab continues to set the agency apart from the rest by telling stories and delivering creative and content strategy through a wide variety of technologies and approaches. 

“Our Innovation Lab transforms information into tangible, exciting and innovative experiences,” executives say. “We create VR data visualizers, AR visualizers, touchless in-person, self-driven experience and gamification to give our clients the ability to reach their audiences in unique and interactive ways. The Innovation Lab brings personality and intrigue to assignments which propels viewers to truly engage with the information they are absorbing. Come visit our Innovation Lab sometime!”

Philanthropy/citizenship

Big hearts create big impact, so it’s no mistake that we lead with heart at Ogilvy Health, executives state.  

To help the estimated 1.2 million dogs that have been orphaned in Ukraine due to the ongoing war, Ogilvy Health created the FOUR PAWS campaign. Additionally, the agency created a campaign for CYCLE Kids, which provides bikes to kids who can’t afford them, to inspire a company to donate to the organization. 

“We sought to inspire potential donors by helping them see that to a kid, a bike is not just a bike – it’s the first taste of their own independence, personal potential, and self-confidence in life,” agency leaders say. “It helps not only with their physical fitness, but their mental health, as well. Our goal was to communicate that if we can ‘Get them riding, we can keep them rising.’” This campaign won at the LIAs.

Tapping into the legacy of an awards show that has been held in New York City since 1957 – New York Festivals Health – Ogilvy Health transformed the potential weakness of its age into a strength, positioning the show as an ongoing leader in elevating great ads when it comes to health. “The ‘We were into health when New York wasn’t’ campaign was born out of a heritage that New York Festivals Health was health focused even when people in NYC weren’t,” executives say. This print campaign won at the LIAs and is being expanded into radio advertising as well.

Ogilvy Health’s monthly #everydaymatters cancer awareness social media series, “with life-enhancing, snack-sized tips, and interesting facts” about cancer also recently  won a gold award at the Cancer Awareness Advertising Awards. 

One of the most recent efforts is a campaign being developed for A Walk on Water (AWOW) – a nonprofit organization honoring athletes with unique special needs through surf therapy. “Stay tuned to see how this inspiring creative will turn heads in 2023,” executives say.

Another effort within the Ogilvy sphere of health was “The Morning After Island,” which targeted Honduras when it was the only Latin American country that banned the morning after pill. In the campaign, Ogilvy partnered with a women’s rights activist group, which founded an island in safe waters where women were brought in weekly to take the pill, without persecution or worry. “This caused enough attention to have lawmakers listen to women and new legislation was created to allow the pill,” executives say. “Truly outstanding.”

Managers say the agency will continue to partner with Women Who Create for discussions on diverse representation in the healthcare advertising space. “These honest and meaningful conversations will help women of color in our industry feel seen and heard and help to propel us all to enact organizational changes for future progress. We’ll also partner with WWC to invite their rising college seniors to apply to our OH internship program. The interns not only work on day-to-day account activities but are involved in a project from brief to completion where a winner is selected after the final presentation.”

Ogilvy Health is a member of and supports the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame and its Future Famers program. The agency has two inductees into the program this year – Allison Rubenstein and Leal Morehouse. Hessel is also a board member.

“Always championing for our people and their growth, we actively participate in Ogilvy’s 30 for 30 program to help further the development of women in leadership roles,” agency leaders say. “A distinguished class of Ogilvy staff are being fast-tracked for their inevitable futures in leadership.” These include Julia Weiss, director of UX and content strategy, Meberg, and Monique LaRocque, executive VP, account management, Ogilvy Health PR.

Additionally, Ogilvy Health partners with Community for Hope, an organization that helps individuals, including veterans and their families, overcome mental illness, addiction, homelessness, and poverty by providing housing and support. Ogilvy Health sponsors the group’s annual gala and has also produced a video for the gala for the past two years. Karen Campbell, senior VP, account management, served as vice president and secretary for the charity and is currently a board member, as well as chair of its development committee.

In partnership with the nonprofit JED Foundation and other organizations, executives say Ogilvy Health helped launch Let’s Talk NYC, a program aimed at increasing communication around mental health among New York City high schoolers by encouraging students to reach out to school staff and providing staff with training to help them support students. 

Ogilvy Health led the creative development for the campaign, which served as the basis for social content, discussion guides, and a series of ads illustrating the pressures students face and the impact on their mental health, while encouraging them to seek help from a trusted adult.

(top row left to right) Kim Johnson, global CEO; Adam Hessel, chief creative officer; Corina Kellam, executive VP, innovation and experience
(bottom row left to right) Rip Patel, chief financial officer; Liz Kane, chief strategy officer; Shannon Walsh, president, PR

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