Maybe not quiet, but humour can transform the power of consumer health communications.

Natasha Weeks, Executive Director and Consumer Health lead at Virgo Health and Golin, reflects on this year’s Cannes Lions.

People don’t sit up and listen to healthcare messages when they are preachy, scary or boring. So why do we continue to produce healthcare campaigns that are scaremongering, finger-pointing and overloaded with statistical data. Focusing too heavily on the problem can cause the very people we are trying to reach to put their fingers in their ears and ignore us.

Effective communication comes in many forms but reflecting on my experience at this year’s Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity – we should harness the power of humour to drive behaviour change.

Humour was a big theme at Cannes 2024. There were 13 new humour sub-categories, including PR. It featured in many panels, including the ‘Ready Laugh Again: The Return of Comedy’ session with comedian Kenan Thompson of Saturday Night Live. “Humour is all about connection,” he said. “Humour cuts through the noise. We live in a state of constant assault on our senses, but if something is funny, you’ll seek it out. It doesn’t mean you have to shy away from tough stuff, humour is one of the best ways to deal with rough things going on in the world.”

Health is no different. While leaning into levity as a healthcare brand is not always easy, when done right there is nothing to touch it. Our Specsavers audiology campaign, The Misheard Version, started a conversation about hearing loss that has been shied away from for years. And it was all down to the shared laugh over Rick Astley’s misheard lyrics. It’s difficult to do justice to it here without the backing instrumentals but “Your Aunt’s been naked” and “You wouldn’t catch nits from any other guy” did make people sit up and listen.

People avoid hearing tests because to many, it symbolises the beginning of the end – old age – and there is stigma around hearing aids. But the impact of hearing loss can be huge – from leaving employment early to loneliness. Hearing tests are also important because they can detect the early signs of chronic diseases, such as Alzheimer’s or diabetes.

Hearing loss isn’t funny, but our key insight that hearing loss is isolating and mishearing connects led us to a humourous idea that brought people together. Humour disrupts, connects, doesn’t judge and ultimately cuts through when serious messages don’t.

We weren’t laughing at people – we were all part of the joke – even our target audience’s kids were in on it. In using humour, we made hearing loss less heavy and created a simple reminder that we need to get our hearing checked.

And it worked. By shifting the conversation around hearing loss with a humorous, engaging campaign we were able to increase hearing tests by 66%.

Jury President Kat Thomas, on awarding the Grand Prix to The Misheard Version for Specsavers, said: “Healthcare is not a sexy category, and it was a very challenging brief, but they leant into humour in an all-in way to really tackle the stigma.”

Consumer health campaigns fundamentally need to engage audiences to prompt behaviour change, and humour is a powerful tool to do this. I look forward to seeing more healthcare campaigns utilise the power of humour – and take the stage at next year’s Cannes Lions.

We are so proud to announce that our ground-breaking work for Specsavers has won six awards at the 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, including two highly prestigious Grand Prix. The creative campaign, which we worked on alongside our sister agency, Golin, also won a Gold Lion and three Silver Lions across the Audio & Radio Lions, PR Lions and Health & Wellness Lions.

In fact, the Grand Prix in the PR Lions made history for Golin and Virgo, as we became the first-ever PR agency to win PR Lions Grand Prix awarded for our creative idea.

In a bold move to address hearing loss, we transformed one of the most famously misheard songs into an unavoidable nationwide hearing test. Partnering with singer Rick Astley, we re-recorded his 80’s smash hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” with intentionally incorrect lyrics. Within eight hours, over 20 million people played the new “misheard” version, doubling online searches related to hearing loss and propelling it to a nationally trending topic in the UK on Google. Specsavers exceeded its hearing test booking target by an unprecedented 1220%.

WATCH THE CASE FILM HERE

Cannes Lions Audio & Radio jury president and chief creative officer at Colenso BBDO, New Zealand, Simon Vicars, shared the jury’s verdict, saying: “The Misheard Version by Specsavers is a brilliant example of creativity turned up to 11. A nationwide hearing test, disguised inside an iconic song. Creative to its core and recklessly ambitious in its execution. It powered business results and broke into culture. Thank you, Specsavers for making us laugh, for committing properly to this idea and for making our jury’s biggest decision an easy one.”

Al Wood, chief creative officer at Golin London, reveled at the work’s impact: “An incredible result. This was an earned-first idea that started in laughter, but ended up changing how Brits hear. It owes its success to so many people – and it means the world to see that collective work recognised and celebrated on such a global stage.”

This MedComms day 2024 we asked Nicole Scullion, Senior Medical Writer here at Virgo Health to tell us about her journey into the world of Medical Communications and what a typical day might look like.  

Describe your role to a friend… 

Medical writing involves working with pharmaceutical companies to help educate doctors, patients and the public on their products in a number of different ways. For example, through the creation of educational materials or at events such as congresses. While you are often sitting at a desk researching or developing content, you also have the opportunity to travel.  

What area of MedComms do you work in? 

In my current role I cover three therapy areas: surgical imaging, immunosuppression post-organ transplantation and oncology (neuroendocrine cancer). At Virgo, I have also had the opportunity to explore additional areas such as women’s health and nephrology. Within these therapy areas, my work spans various medical education projects, including advisory boards, symposia and the development of educational materials such as core decks, publication summaries and infographics.  

A typical day at work? 

My daily routine varies based on client needs and upcoming events. As a mostly remote worker, I connect with internal teams, have client calls and create or edit materials from home. Currently, I am focusing on finalising content for a symposium taking place in the Netherlands this week.  

When I visit the office, this provides an opportunity to attend training, brainstorms and team meetings in person. It also gives me the chance to catch up with team members that I may not interact with daily. 

What 3 skills are most important to your role: 

• Attention to detail 

• Communicating confidently with your team and with clients 

• Being able to interpret data in a creative way 

How would you describe MedComms? 

MedComms is a very dynamic and varied industry which serves as the link between the scientific community, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare professionals, patients and the wider public. While translating complex scientific information, MedComms allows for creativity, collaboration and strategic thinking. 

How did you land on a med comms career? 

I attended the University of Liverpool to study a BSc (Hons) degree in Biological Sciences, followed by an MRes degree in Biomedical Sciences and Translational Medicine, with a focus on oncology and uveal melanoma. After completing my master’s degree in 2019, I discovered medical writing while searching ‘jobs for biology graduates’. My journey began over four years ago as a Trainee Medical Writer, soon progressing to Associate Medical Writer, Medical Writer and joining Virgo in August 2023 as Senior Medical Writer. 

What advice would you give people interested in MedComms careers? 

For anyone starting a career in MedComms, I would recommend networking and connecting with professionals already working in MedComms to seek advice and learn about their experiences. LinkedIn is a great tool for this as you can connect with so many people in the industry (including recruiters) and find out about MedComms specific events.  

I would also advise preparing as much as you can for the application process as this typically involves a few interview rounds in addition to a writing test.  

My final piece of advice is that starting a new career can be challenging, so give yourself grace during this time. It may be daunting at first and it may not ‘click’ immediately, but as you settle in, you will find your rhythm and purpose.   

Lastly, tell us something surprising about yourself! 

I am not an outdoorsy person at all, however, I forced myself to climb Mount Kilimanjaro!   

Data Comms sits at the core of our industry, so it’s time to inspire more communicators about the dynamic role it plays in healthcare communications

By Lizzie Wright, Executive Director and Laura Strain, Executive Vice President.

Data sits at the heart of our work in pharmaceutical communications, flowing into and influencing everything that we do on a daily basis. It is critical that to run a successful campaign, we understand the science and can effectively interpret the data so that it resonates with the different audiences we work with.  

Yet data communications itself – the communication of scientific data from clinical trials and real-world studies – seems to have a bit of a bad rep. We ran a small survey of pharma PR pros¹ at mixed levels and experience and found words such as “dry”, “formulaic” and “difficult” came to mind, with most people identifying data comms only as writing a press release and a Q&A for clinical trial data. 40% stated they were not confident in data comms and 11% stated they would avoid it at all costs!  

Part of the reason why we see such a variety of perspectives on data comms is that we cannot communicate about a lot of the work we do because of strict regulations and confidentiality. Therefore, it’s hard to show the power of the specialism and break down the barriers and perceptions of data communications.  

In communicating data, we get to be at the heart of change – changing treatment decisions, changing the result for patients to changing stock prices. Granted, we are a small part of this change, but we are part of it.  

Communicating data goes way beyond creating press releases and Q&As. Truly understanding the data allows us to propose more robust communication programmes to our clients. The science impacts high-level strategic scenario planning workshops all the way through to attending congresses and how we speak with media.  

In understanding the power of data and learning to critically assess it, pharma comms pros can contribute to high-level strategic discussions with senior clients and attend scientific meetings around the world to witness first-hand the impact and response to some of the most ground-breaking medical and scientific research being conducted across the world today. 

While behaviour change or disease awareness campaigns tend to inspire more communicators in healthcare, if you have a passion for the science and research it could be that you need to rethink how you perceive data comms.  

We’ve been working in data comms for over 10 years each and have been to congresses all around the world, from Orlando to Amsterdam and New Orleans to Paris. Data comms is truly at the centre of cutting-edge science and innovation, helping scientists communicate their success and continue the great progress they’re making, and after all, that enables all the rest of the pharma communications to happen. 

[1] N=28. Conducted on LinkedIn in November 2023

• Lizzie Wright completed a PhD in cardiovascular medicine before starting in pharma PR and has worked at agencies in the UK and US for 10 years. She is currently a Executive Director at Virgo Health.
• Laura Strain completed a PhD in genetic predictors of diabetes and obesity, starting her career as a medical writer before transitioning into pharma comms. She has 15 years of agency experience, and is currently Executive Vice President at Virgo Health.