GSW tackles health-care communication
For health-care companies, conveying complex topics in a highly regulated environment can be difficult.
Many turn to GSW, a full-service health-care communications agency with deep roots in central Ohio.
President Dan Smith spoke with Columbus CEO about the Westerville company’s early years and subsequent growth that led it to become one of the world’s largest health-care-focused advertising agencies.
Q: How was the company formed and what do you do?
A: It’s our 40th anniversary. Three principals started the agency, that’s the “G,” the “S” and the “W” — Bob Gerbig, Chris Snell and Rick Weisheimer. Blane Walter took over the CEO and president’s role roughly 20 years ago, and Blane really mobilized the agency to go after — still our largest client today, and now it’s a 20-year relationship — and that was Eli Lilly. I like to tell the story that if you look back 20 years ago, we competed for three, we call them agency-ofrecord assignments, which basically means you’re the (client’s) agency of choice to work with in the advertising space. This was a national pitch for three assignments, and each of their key categories was oncology, diabetes and central nervous-system disease. And so those three brand assignments really propelled and launched the agency. I kind of came in right after we acquired Lilly (as a customer), and we were in this massive growth trajectory to really begin servicing the health-care market. And Lilly was really the beachhead that started that.
Q: So you have a few big clients that really account for a lot of the business?
A: Yeah, we do. We do compete nationally — our roster is nationwide. We work on the West Coast with companies like Amgen and Gilead; on the East Coast as well. And then our largest Midwest client is Lilly. (Our clients are) focused predominantly on prescription pharmaceuticals and biotech. But we work in all the other verticals — diagnostic, surgical, hospital-based business. Anything in the health-care space is something we’ll evaluate to compete in.
Q: Is all of the work that you’re doing pretty similar for each of your clients, or does it vary depending on what their needs are?
A: It varies quite a bit. When I started 17 years ago … most of our work was designed and built for the health-care professional audience. And it was all print. And to stay relevant today, there’s been an evolution. It was really changing an agency that was pure print to, today ... I’d be willing to safely bet that 60-plus percent or higher of what we do today has a digital component to it. So we’ve evolved with the time to bring solutions forward, more from print to digital and a combination of digital and print. Now we’re doing DTC (direct to consumer) work, DTP (direct to patient) work, a significant amount of work for the payer audience, or business-to-business.
Q: What else has impacted the agency since you’ve been with GSW?
A: Our market has changed dramatically in that time period, and we’ve tried to stay ahead of it and change with it. Our market is heavily, heavily regulated. So anything we talk about promotionally, we follow FDA guidance to how we can promote. We follow the label — there’s a label that’s directed for patients, and then there’s a label directed for the health-care professional. And we adhere to those by working in conjunction with our client’s regulatory team. So it’s a very highly regulated space. It’s interesting, some people view that as restrictive. I actually think it dials up the creativity because you do have to be creative within a set playing field that’s established for the safety of the audience, which are the patients. People that stick here love it here. I think (they) love that challenge. The thing I love about it is you’re promoting for what’s best for the patient, for patient access to information.
Q: What are some challenges on the horizon?
A: There’s fewer and fewer innovative products that are hitting the market. But a lot of the common diseases and things we’re facing today have lots of options involved, and so our client base is struggling to bring enough compounds to market for their growth, which triggers pressure on spend on their side. So spend has to work harder. I think what we’re seeing is it plays into where we’re already going, which is this integrated response. It’s still one of the few industries that spends a significant part of their promotion directly, where there’s sales reps visiting customers every day. And there’s big expense with that. I think there’s value in it, but what I think we’re seeing is there’s greater balance of coupling that vehicle — that promotional angle — with indirect, direct promotion, digital promotion.