Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness: 2023

Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness

375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

646-746-5000 • sswnewbiz@saatchiwellness.com • saatchiwellness.com

Quick Facts

Accounts

• Account wins: 12
• Active business clients: 18

Brands by 2022 sales

• Brand-product accounts held: 40

Services mix

• DTC/DTP: 60%
• HCP: 40%

The year 2022 was a cornerstone year for Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness (SSW),” agency leaders say. “We launched a new agency positioning centered around a powerful call to action for all our employees, clients, and partners to embrace the Wellness Effect  centered around two words: ‘Do Well.’ We updated our strategic process, set new record-breaking heights for the standard to which we hold creative, and invested heavily in our data and technological capabilities. We’ve also changed the way we build wellness experiences for our customers, harnessing the power of de-identified health and consumer lifestyle data through a first-of-its-kind HCP and patient segmentation tool, WellnessStyles.” 

Recent accomplishments

Everything we do and offer as an agency is in the service of improving the wellness of our employees, our end users, and our clients’ business goals, inspiring everyone to ‘Do Well’ together,” declares the agency leadership team, adding that the launch of SSW’s new agency positioning meant a large investment in culture initiatives “to bring to life our agency’s values of authenticity, courage, trust, creativity, belonging, and kindness for our people.”

In addition to monthly agency Town Halls, newsletters, and new hire programs, SSW rolled out several new wellness initiatives in 2022 and early 2023. “We’ve introduced new wellness services and benefits to our employees who commute into the office, including meditation coaching, sound therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic services, and massage therapy, to name a few,” executives say. “We remain dedicated to fostering an environment of inclusivity, equity, and belonging at SSW, and have rolled out month-specific programming for our employees to celebrate our diverse cultures, such as Black History Month and Women’s History Month. And, we’ve piloted several new programs for employee recognition and service rewards for high performers.”

Jennifer Shirley, president

Leaders say the agency made several strategic executive hires to bring these initiatives to life, including Jennifer Keegan, senior  VP, talent; Jay Patel, executive VP, experience strategy; Noel Castro, executive VP, HCP strategy; Josh Green, executive VP, account director; and Sasha Stollman, executive VP, director of content production.

2022 was also marked by significant new business wins and strong organic growth from existing SSW clients, according to agency leaders. 

“Although we’ve long been known as a blockbuster DTC TV agency – we’re proud to say that energy is still in our DNA – in 2022 we prioritized, pitched, won, and onboarded several new clients in the rare disease space, including hemophilia, thyroid eye disease, and gene therapies,” executives say. “We can’t provide the names of these clients or brands for the purposes of confidentiality, however, we can share that we are excited to continue to build on the reputation SSW has in the industry, pushing beyond what’s expected of us to truly become the full-service, integrated health and wellness agency of the future.” 

In addition to these fresh relationships with new clients, the agency had a strong performance with current clients, including nine successful brand launches, managers say.

“We’re also proud to share that in 2022, our existing women’s health and health equity practice grew, as a part of our commitment to improving health equity and access among historically disenfranchised groups,” executives say. “We’ve spent the last few years building out this specialty group at our agency, and in 2022, SSW worked on several women’s health and health equity projects. From starting an honest conversation about hot flashes and menopause to encouraging Black women to get screened for endometrial cancer, we’re proud that the creative work we launched over the past year has focused on starting important health conversations.”

For people experiencing the rare condition eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), trouble swallowing was constantly being dismissed as “all in your head” or “the result of poor eating habits.” So Saatchi & Saatchi created the EsophaCrew, a cast of animated characters who gave them the validation and advice they needed to understand their condition and see a gastroenterologist.

Structure and services

At SSW, we design end-to-end customer experiences that motivate, engage, and support people throughout their wellness journeys in ways that transform not only brand and business outcomes, but also health and wellness outcomes for patients and HCPs,” the leadership team says. “We do this by harnessing our unique Wellness Effect process. Our award-winning work spans health and wellness categories from moisturizers to mental health and from oral care to oncology.”  

Future plans

There’s always room to grow and new frontiers to be explored as an agency in an industry like health and wellness advertising,” executives say. “We’re proud at SSW to be an agency that not only embraces change but leads it. 

“Over the next few years, we plan to invest in new technologies and processes that will increase efficiencies in the way we solve our clients’ most complex business problems.” 

Managers say the agency is building out an internal innovation team composed of experience strategists, creatives, data scientists, and tech specialists “to consult across brands and bring our most cutting-edge capabilities to a variety of our boldest clients.”  

Philanthropy/citizenship

At SSW, we have a lot of heart for projects that allow us to ‘Do Well’ with charitable and community partnerships,” the leadership team proclaims. “We’ve partnered with countless organizations over the past few years on pro-bono initiatives that align with our mission to unleash the wellness effect in every person through meaningful, personalized experiences. We encourage you to explore and discover three of these engagements and their corresponding case studies on our website: Deaf911, the Prescription Paper Pill Bottle, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.”  

In addition to these client partnerships, and as part of the new positioning, the agency also encourages each employee to give back to their communities by covering non-billable volunteer hours and matching charitable donations.

meditation
wellness
therapy