Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: advertising, communication, medical advertising, pharmaceuticals, physicians, strategy
Bruce Nicoll
I read an article in the New York Times a while back that put into perspective an issue I’ve been wrestling with for some time. The piece was called “Small by Choice, Whether Clients Like It or Not” by Kermit Pattison. Essentially, it told the story of a couple who opened a neighborhood pizza shop in Chicago, produced pizza verging on the sublime, became popular, got a fantastic review from a well known food critic with GQ magazine, and became exponentially more popular thanks to such glowing accolades. Everybody wanted their pizza. And then a funny thing happened; the owners, determined to resist the no-brainer response of growing big and unwieldy and risk seeing both the quality of their lives and the quality of their pies take a dive, had to struggle against an angry backlash from customers used to instant gratification and the privileges accruing from that old “customer is always right” mentality. The same one that has crept into agency-client relationships over the past few years. It seems many of the pizza parlor’s patrons were completely thrown by the prospect of having to wait in line to get the perfection they felt was their due. They wanted a superior experience, but in no time at all and also, by the way, without paying a premium. Sound familiar?
Healthcare advertising is full of big agencies, and with all the consolidation going on, the biggest ones are just getting bigger. Friday Morning, on the other hand, is a small, specialized boutique, a consultancy, staffed with everyone we need to conceive and execute dynamite ideas, and the confidence and experience to outsource any skills we don’t personally bring to the table. Kind of like a concierge service, if you like. We think that that’s a better way to serve the industry right now, because, while those aforementioned big agencies have (we guess) lots of happy clients, they also have plenty that aren’t over the moon with the results they’ve achieved in terms of sales.
Those big factories don’t always get it right. Sure, it looks like pizza and it smells like pizza. It comprises crust and cheese and herbs and tomato and what have you. Everyone says yes to whatever the customer asks. And it’s cheap, too. But it doesn’t necessarily make you want to burst into song. It doesn’t necessarily have physicians asking for more. For clients who understand the need to communicate with customers in a more profound way, it can leave them hungry for sales.
Maybe your campaign strategy needs some fresh ingredients? We believe that chefs who care deeply about producing something that is not only piping hot, but perfect, too, can make of the usual ingredients something uniquely satisfying to your brand requirements. If you’ve an appetite for that kind of work, we have your table ready. Buon appetito!
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