At the Cannes Lions 2022 International Festival of Creativity, the largest gathering in the marketing community, the health and pharma advertisements fell short of the big prizes, potentially indicating a trend in healthcare marketing, according to a June 28 End Points News article.
Among the health and wellness prizes, no pharmaceutical company won. Instead, beer company Heinkenen took home the gold prize for its vaccination campaign. The Grand Prix prizes in the pharma category also went to a non-pharma company, going instead to Dell and Intel for their voice app for motor neuron disease patients.
For one attendee, Patricia Corsi, the chief marketing officer for Bayer Consumer Health, it represents a wake-up call for the industry, which has been taught to have a conservative approach to advertising. She wants to see more creative, out-of-the-box thinking from healthcare marketers.
"We really believe that there is a great opportunity for us to raise the bar in this category," she said. "Work in health and wellness consistently across the years has not been the most inspiring."