Allison+Partners Health Tech

Health Tech

SPECIALIZED EXPERTISE AT THE INTERSECTION OF HEALTH AND INNOVATION

THE HEALTH TECH LANDSCAPE

We are experiencing extraordinary progress across the healthcare industry – widespread adoption of telemedicine, the acceleration of new technologies, staggering growth and investment, a heightened consumer focus on healthcare, and sweeping regulatory and legislative changes.

Yet the landscape is increasingly noisy. Emerging and established players alike are competing to put a stake in the ground as leading innovators in the pursuit of Health 4.0. In fact, 78% of respondents in a recent Allison+Partners survey put their companies in the categories of “innovator,” “early adopter,” or “early majority” relative to Health 4.0. At the same time, the health tech “gold rush” continues to calibrate, and marketing must work harder when it comes to standing out.

One thing is clear: Health tech brands have significant opportunities to capture mindshare, and doubling down on authentic, outcome-centric storytelling points the way.

About

OUR PRACTICE

Our marketing and communications specialists understand all the forces at play and use our deep expertise to help clients stake out leadership positions in today’s most important healthcare innovation conversations.

We specialize in partnering with emerging brands and category leaders alike across B2B, B2B2C and B2C-focused companies.

Hard-wired to work with disruptors and accelerators. We’ve launched iconic brands, worked with tech giants, and partnered with startups to broadcast industry-elevating innovations.

Deep roots in technology with a sophisticated understanding of the healthcare landscape. We have a legacy in health and life sciences that reaches across the entire industry.

Committed to impactful storytelling. From health IT, automation and AI, devices and diagnostics, digital health, biotech and more, we are committed to impactful storytelling through the perspectives of real people: patients, caregivers, health care professionals, employees and leaders.

FULL

SUITE OF INTEGRATED SERVICES

OUR CORE SERVICES

MEDIA / INFLUENCER RELATIONS + TRAINING

+ Media strategy development
+ Messaging development
+ Media relations execution
+ Media events
+ Media training
+ Speechwriting and presentation coaching
+ IR and legal communications training
+ Ambassador and KOL identification and relations
+ Influencer contract negotiations and program execution/management

EXECUTIVE VISIBILITY + THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

+ Landscape analysis
+ POV/platform development
+ Speaker + award programs
+ Content development

CORPORATE REPUTATION + ISSUES MANAGEMENT

+ Reputational risk analysis + strategy
+ Crisis preparation + simulation
+ Crisis management + response
+ Online reputation management
+ Litigation support
+ Stakeholder mapping, outreach + engagement
+ Public affairs + advocacy
+ Financial communications

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT + INTERNAL COMMS

+ Internal communications strategy
+ Messaging development
+ Purpose and values communications
+ Change management communications

INTEGRATED MARKETING

+ Go-to-market strategy + planning
+ Multimedia campaigns
+ Account planning / “big idea” storytelling strategy
+ Product marketing strategy
+ Customer experience planning
+ Paid media amplification
+ Social strategy + execution

BRAND + ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES

+ Product value propositions, naming + portfolio architecture
+ Customer persona definition + journey mapping
+ Integrated brand experience planning (paid, earned, shared, owned)

CREATIVE SERVICES

+ Brand identity
+ Logo development
+ Website design
+ Print, OOH + digital advertising
+ Business collateral + sales materials
+ Data visualization
+ Custom presentations
+ Event materials
+ Podcasts
+ Still photography
+ Animation + motion graphics
+ Video production; documentaries

MEASUREMENT + ANALYTICS

+ Audience, competitor and industry insights
+ Research for public release
+ Brand health surveys
+ Creative and concept testing
+ Trendspotting
+ Competitive research
+ Data analysis, story mining and curation
+ Advanced analytics + custom reporting

CATHY PLANCHARD

Global President, Marketing Innovation Team + Healthcare

CathyPlanchard is a Partner and the Global President of the Health Practice and Marketing Innovation Team, based in Phoenix, AZ.

In her role, she provides strategy and counsel for the health practice, focusedon evolving the agency’s capabilities into storytelling services critical for program success, and overseesthe content, digital, creative, research,and analyticsteams.

Cathy brings 25 years of experience in all facets of branding, public relations, strategic planning, employee engagement,and executive communications.

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JAMIE RISMILLER

Executive Vice President

Jamie Rismiller is an executive vice president, based in Washington, D.C. She provides client counsel and leads key initiatives-from messaging and narrative development to high-level media relations and content creation.

With 15+ years of experience planning and implementing strategic communication, Jamie has led programs for both emerging and Fortune 500 companies, specializing in health and technology.

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GABBY DURAN

Senior Vice President, Health

Gabby Duran is a Senior Vice President, based in Washington, D.C. She leads overall strategic vision and tactical execution for multiple biotech and pharmaceutical clients, as well as their corporate, brand, and digital transformation communications work.

Having worked for more than 15 in healthcare and health communication, she has managed interdisciplinary teams to execute on thought leadership, advocacy relations, government communication, and patient-focused initiatives.

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SARAH NATOLI

Vice President, Health Strategy

Sarah Natoli is a Vice President of Health Strategy, based in Boston, MA. At Allison+Partners, she serves as the Health Practice’s “Storyteller-in-Chief,” counseling clients on the most effective narratives for their businesses, as well as advising on the appropriate channels to leverage for maximum impact.

A seasoned content strategist with deep experience in the healthcare industry, Sarah has worked at agencies and in-house with large hospitals and health systems, health tech companies, and digital health leaders.

OUR

WORK

CLIENT RESULTS

NORDIC CONSULTING

In 2021, Nordic Consulting, a global health and technology consulting firm, sought a partner with broad strategic marketing capabilities to help them achieve a One Nordic global brand strategy, which incorporated new executive leaders and multiple acquisitions over the past few years.

After a highly competitive RFP process, Nordic selected Allison+Partners to develop brand strategy and architecture, brand and product messaging, visual identity and website refresh, internal communications and change management, and a multi-channel creative brand campaign including advertising, social media, thought leadership and media relations.

Rigorous research led to Agile-inspired collaboration sessions with Nordic’s global leadership team. These sessions led to a newly reimagined WHO, WHY, HOW and WHAT of the “One Nordic” brand strategy, end-to-end brand and product messaging, a reimagined visual identity and event presence, anchored in the “Let’s Connect Healthcare” brand platform.

The new brand launched at healthcare technology’s biggest event, HIMSS, to a highly receptive audience. What had previously been seen as a niche business in a specific corner of healthcare IT, Nordic is now recognized for capabilities and scale on equal footing with “the big four.” The transformed brand struck a chord with Nordic employees and subsidiary brand leaders because it was co-created with their input and well-socialized after its development. The new brand platform, identity and campaign propelled Nordic a leap forward on its journey, already opening many new doors with senior strategic buyers.

VEDA

Veda is a health tech company blending science and imagination to solve healthcare’s most complex data issues. Its automation solutions dramatically increase productivity, enable compliance, and empower healthcare businesses to focus on delivering care—all while meeting the urgent need to decrease healthcare’s estimated $1 trillion annual administrative spend. The company uses its proprietary Smart Automation solutions to help its payer customers efficiently process provider roster data and remain in compliance with regulations such as The No Surprises Act.

When Allison+Partners began working with Veda in July 2021, the company’s share of voice (SOV) among competitors was negligible. As the healthcare industry has become more accepting of automation—particularly for administrative processes—a number of companies have entered the market with solutions that purport to reduce administrative burden. In addition, some more well established companies have added automation solutions to their product portfolios. In other words, Veda sits in an increasingly crowded space with strong competitors, making it especially important that the company has a strong media relations strategy.

To increase media presence, A+P prioritized SOV as a KPI, and leveraged a major milestone moment for Veda—its successful Series B funding round. The account team set a goal of introducing the company to at least 25 healthcare reporters, as well as developing at least three proactive pitches to secure media coverage. As a result, the A+P team secured 29 pieces of coverage for Veda in 2021. In addition, the account team brought together Veda’s leadership to build a PR message house that could serve as the basis for all media outreach and interviews. From that foundation, the team was able to work closely with the company’s founders and executive team to map spokespeople to subject matter and secure media interest. Over the course of 2021, these efforts resulted in Veda’s SOV increasing from 8% to 23%.

GOODRX

GoodRx is best known for offering consumers free access to transparent and lower prices for brand and generic medications. Since its IPO in 2020, however, GoodRx has expanded far beyond the discount pharmacy space to offer support across both the patient and provider journeys. GoodRx Care provides low-cost telehealth appointments to consumers; GoodRx Health is an online health resource that’s powered by a 50+ in-house editorial team made up of doctors, pharmacists, and healthcare experts; and GoodRx Research is a robust research arm dedicated to providing consumers and physicians definitive information and nationally representative data about the U.S. healthcare system.

The company’s Communications lead came to Allison+Partners with an ask to raise awareness about the breadth and depth of its business among key stakeholder audiences, including media, consumers, healthcare providers, and policy-makers. Allison+Partners created an earned-first communications program designed to address company challenges while driving coverage, building awareness, and elevating the GoodRx presence. We spread the team across four workstreams to ensure that the program reached the full spectrum of target audiences.

In the first month of the program, the team exceeded KPIs for both quantity and quality of media coverage. Headlines spanned a wide range of topics showcasing the depth of GoodRx expertise—from the equity of the Covid-19 antiviral rollout, to how to live with gun violence, to how to ensure supplements don’t negatively interact with prescription drugs, and more. Key publications included MM&M, Giddy, Verywell, and Motherly. The team continues to engage with reporters daily on behalf of the brand and surface new opportunities for GoodRx’s large team of subject matter experts.

STORYLAB

Introducing storylab

To us, health is deeply personal. So are the stories we tell.

Storytelling is an art and a science. At Allison+Partners we’re obsessed with precision. That means we know our audience’s values, the culture that influences them, and the experiences that motivate them to engage with brands. We also know how and where to make connections. Connections that drive even greater performance and engagement through optimized experiences, whether an earned media pitch, a piece of visual content, an event or an influencer partnership.

Through this new offering, we bring together experts from across the agency to create the perfect mix of creativity, authenticity and impact through the lens of our clients and the people they touch every day. As investments in storytelling continue to increase across the industry, health tech communicators need new solutions to help their brands break through. That's exactly what we help them do, with a hand selected team of seasoned experts who span health, tech, corporate communications, brand, editorial, and more. Storylab teams collaborate with account leads to bring all the experience of our agency to bear for our clients' benefit.

As health tech brands increase investments across channels, compelling storytelling is more critical than ever.

A recent Allison+Partners survey of 500 health tech leaders showed that in addition to doubling down on earned, health tech companies are also devoting more resources to owned, paid, and shared storytelling.

50%

Content Production

48%

Paid Digital

48%

HCP communications

We pull expertise from across the agency to dimensionalize your narrative.

At the heart of Storylab is the creation of an editorial and news-minded collective of writers, editors, videographers, academics, healthcare wonks, tech geeks, data nerds, trend spotters, and pop culture addicts. Like reporters, our team members are assigned to the client “beats” that best align with their expertise and know-how. Your Storylab team will be united by one common purpose: to dimensionalize your story across multiple verticals and channels in a way that creates relevance, walkability, and conversation with key audiences.

We bring together nearly a dozen experts on a recurring basis to create meaningful and relevant editorial calendars that cut across paid, owned, and earned channels. Each member of the Storylab team has its clients top of mind during conversations with reporters, influencers, thought leaders and content planners. 

Consumer

When we set out to develop creative programming, we consider the following:

Purpose: Brand’s need to find their purpose — a reason to exist — to secure a spot not just on consumers’ shelves, but in their hearts and minds. People buy brands that reflect their own values and beliefs. We help brands understand and live their purpose. To stand for something bigger in the world. To solve a societal problem or unmet need.

Cultural truths:
To be awake as a brand means owning a larger cultural truth. And putting everything you have behind it. We're working with health, wellness and CPG brands like Seventh Generation to address #climatechange as our generation's problem to solve. We ushered Driscoll’s into Justin Timberlake’s dream berry world and broke the Internet. Showed Impossible Foods you don’t have to be a tech company to snag the Top Tech Award at CES. We do it by leveraging trends. Creating cultural moments. Surfacing meaningful brand truths.

Truth: We believe leveraging trends is so mission critical to driving brand love, we created TapIN, a creative lab of 30 passionate trend seekers who uncover and communicate insights in real time, agency-wide and directly with brands we support. We swiftly match blossoming trends with consumer insights to help clients engage their audiences through quick-turn activations that result in creative social content and earned media attention.

And, finally, we marry technology with a human touch.

In our world, success comes from a combination of technology and the human touch. We are seasoned storytellers and media pros who pair data and analytics with trusted influencer and media relationships — opening doors to genuine conversations.

Corporate

A strong corporate reputation drives new business, improves valuations, attracts talent and insulates organizations hit by crisis.

It’s hard to build – and easy to lose – especially in today’s fast -paced highly critical social media environment. We help companies reach key external and internal stakeholders to create and maintain reputational value. Through best practices in corporate and financial communications, influencer relations, crisis and issues management, executive visibility campaigns, social impact and CSR, content marketing and digital strategies, our clients are able to transform and achieve market leadership. Our Public Affairs team focuses on the intersection of clients’ business, goals and passions with the current political and economic landscape. We have an eye for identifying issues and strengths alike to equip you with insight and tools for an actionable public affairs program. With strategic public affairs management, Allison+Partners can limit the risk and bolster the opportunity. By applying proven methods based on insight -driven strategies, our award - winning global team will drive your success in unexpected ways. We help focus your strengths to envision and execute programs to help you meet tomorrow’s reputational business needs.

Purpose

Over the past few years, Purpose has been pressure-tested. While Purpose has protected many companies, giving them clear guiding principles, we’ve also seen companies collapse due to inauthentic, performative and ornamental activations – which consumers, employees and media are quick to call out. Increasing expectations paired with growing skepticism from stakeholders across the spectrum means companies must double-down on genuine Purpose with corresponding ESG action, all reinforced by clear and consistent communications. When done well, Purpose creates the consistency, connection and community employees and other stakeholders seek – especially during uncertain times.

Companies that unlock Purpose pull-through will be rewarded by healthy recruitment and retention, better brand loyalists, increased performance and impact and a future-proofed organization for today and tomorrow. Our team has the proprietary data and a wide range of capabilities and experience to help your company achieve Purpose in an authentic way that connects across audiences.

Technology

Since the agency’s earliest days, technology has been one of our core areas of expertise. We thrive on our ability to help technology companies establish leadership positions in their categories. Technology helps shape culture and in turn, culture impacts how we use the technology at our disposal. Our efforts are informed by those cultural trends coupled with real-time research that allows us to execute programs and drive meaningful business results. Whether a new product launch, the evolution of a service, or a financial event, we’ve been there before and can lend our expertise to ensure success.

Brand Engagement and Strategy

Brand has tangible power – driving growth, improving talent acquisition, and helping create a more resilient business. But relentless market disruption brings forth unexpected competitors from every corner, offering customers and employees exponential increases in choice. It requires a business to deliver brand impact through everything it does and says.

Meanwhile, operational barriers impede brand delivery: lack of a shared view of the customer, KPIs that compete rather than complement, and “purpose on paper” that isn’t alive in the day-to-day. We help brands clear these barriers to become equal parts Dynamic, Relevant and V.I.T.A.L.:

Dynamic – on-brand innovation in HOW the brand appears and WHAT the business does, accelerated by a shared WHO and WHY of purpose and values

Relevant – a clear view of the customer, adopted and used by all employees, fueling value-adding integration across business units, workgroups, and external partners

V.I.T.A.L. – Vision, Inspiration, Trust, Alignment and Leadership are the five pillars of brand strength that energize the organization and drive measurable brand performance

Brand is a team sport, requiring lean-in and buy-in to create business impact. Through brand strategy and storytelling, brand operations support, product marketing strategy, customer and employee experience, we’ve helped hundreds of clients achieve just that.

Editorial Services

We are indie filmmakers. We are print, radio and TV journalists. We are ad agency veterans and content strategists. We are a group with deliberately different skillsets united in our commitment to cut through clutter to find the chewy center of a story. And while some prefer clients to sit quietly on the bleachers, we invite you to play along. Editorial means so much more than articles. We create TV and radio spots, videos, social assets, websites, podcasts, ebooks, and digital thought leadership content. And that's just for starters. While we’ve won some big awards, we don’t rest on that success. We challenge it. That’s our story. We look forward to helping you craft yours.

Health Tech’s

Post-Pandemic Pivot

New: 2022 Industry Research

The Allison+Partners Health practice is deeply invested in understanding the business of healthcare and the forces at play that impact our clients' businesses, which is why we launched a large-scale research initiative to explore the impact of the pandemic on the health tech industry. Our goal was to understand the effects of the record-breaking infusion of capital into the digital health space and rapid adoption of technology across the healthcare ecosystem over the past two years.

We found that health tech is primed for a pendulum swing. While B2C solutions took center stage in 2021, B2B infrastructure solutions will dominate in 2022 and beyond.

Download the report to dig into the key findings and data from our research, as well as the implications of this post-pandemic pivot for marketing and PR professionals in the B2B, B2B2C, and B2C spaces.

RESPONSIBLE STORYTELLING IN HEALTH: MOVING FAST WITHOUT BREAKING THINGS

When the COVID-19 virus thrust us into a global pandemic, all eyes were on the biopharma industry. From headlines and the nightly news to conversations with friends and loved ones, it became impossible not to hear about the In a culture now hyper-conscious of health information, communications professionals must deliver responsible brand narratives – casting a vision with authenticity as the North Star. Three key practices can empower this transparent healthcare storytelling.

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PESO, PESO, PESO: LOOKING BEYOND EARNED TO ELEVATE HEALTH TECH

Strategically leveraging the full range of Paid, Owned, Shared, and Earned media - parallel to business goals - can amplify the stories of health tech companies in today’s content-saturated media landscape.

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LESSONS FROM SXSW: SHOWING UP UNEXPECTEDLY TO ENSURE HEALTH COMPANIES BREAK THROUGH

As the health tech investment space floods with eager newcomers, illustrating broader themes can distinguish narratives otherwise overlooked. A+P elevated an emerging biotech client by identifying deeper business learnings beneath its meteoric rise – a case study in telling provocative stories.

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POST-PANDEMIC TELEHEALTH: THREE KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR COMMUNICATORS

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was virtually all talk and no action when it came to telehealth (pun intended). Patients were intrigued by the idea of connecting with care at the touch of a button, but most were too nervous to follow through and engage online with healthcare professionals. Similarly, many providers expressed high levels of interest in diversifying care delivery models, but ultimately most found the regulatory and reimbursement barriers to entry were simply too high to make telehealth a priority.

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GET IN TOUCH: HEALTHSLT@ALLISONPR.COM