A Creative Review by the Experts
Each month, this department pays homage to memorable advertising and marketing campaigns. The highlighted executions have been identified by leading creative executives for their noteworthy use of copy, art, photography, whimsy, uniqueness, etc. — in combination or as single branding elements. Creating good pharmaceutical advertising and marketing requires agencies to think out of the box and clients who dare to be different. PharmaVOICE is pleased to give these vanguards their due recognition. February 2007 Creative Review The headline is married to the visual Title: Lethal Obsession Agency: Paling Walters Client: Roche Creative Director: Frank Walters Art Directors: Paul Byrne and David Dalley Copywriter: Carmel Thompson Account Director: Kathryn Ellis Photographer: Paul Bevitt Once in a great while an idea surfaces that makes you wish you were the one who conceived it. It’s an idea so simple that it could be used in a campaign for years and yet so captivating that the audience looks forward to its next iteration. These ideas, though, are few and far between, especially in pharmaceutical advertising. Some people attribute this rarity to regulatory restrictions, while others point to the technical nature of the target audience — as if to say physicians are not consumers as well as healthcare providers. Some advertising agencies, however, such as Paling Walters, have a philosophy to “do the right thing, not just the easy thing.” They apply classic consumer principles and make conceptual thinking and stimulating executions look effortless. The Paling Walters campaign for Xenical gets to the heart of the matter: the foods we’ve grown to love can hurt us the most. In this series, the artist shows various icons of death infused into the food composition — an execution so subtle that the viewer will probably need to take a second look to catch the pay off. Married to the visual like the title to a masterpiece, the headline “lethal obsession” poetically emphasizes the problem addressed in the advertisement. For a brand that has the potential to be dismissed as simply another diet pill, the communication shift from losing weight to saving lives has made the difference. The take-away message is clear, the story is simple, and the execution is flawless. We can all only hope our next idea is as magical. For Marvin J. Bowe III, VP, Creative Director, The Navicor Group, the use of consumer principles in this Xenical ad make conceptual thinking and stimulating execution look effortless. Navicor, Westerville, Ohio, is a division of inVentiv Communications, an inVentiv Health company. Xenical