Video - Healthcare PR and Thinking Outside the (Black) Box

Transcript

MultiVu held its second panel discussion on May 15, 2019 in our New York headquarters.

The theme was Healthcare PR and Thinking Outside the (Black) Box.

The panel featured members from Spectrum Science Public Relations and MultiVu’s Healthcare PR Tacticians. They discussed strategies and approaches around branded and unbranded campaigns and what happens when there’s a black box warning.

During kick off conversations with clients, what are you looking for in terms of best practices and guidance?

Amanda Peck, Sr. VP, Spectrum Science Public Relations: It's really important to have those conversations with your client to understand where they are and also see as much information as you can get from your client in terms of you know, what they're sort of larger business objectives are, what the strategy is, sort of thinking also above just PR across functionally all the information that you can get from your client at the start is ah, you know, vitally important to make sure that that you're really working as a partner.

Leslie Wheeler, EVP, Spectrum Science Public Relations: You have to think through like where they are in their lifecycle. Like is this a product that is about to be launched? Has it already been launched? Um. You know so you definitely need to weigh the pros and cons and understand kind of where it's in the marketplace.

You have to understand the big the large kind of ecosystem of what's happening within the brand. Um. You know. Are they going to be doing, launching a new website…. are they going to be launching a you know, advertising campaigns?

We all know the social media landscape is evolving. What about media relations? What changes are you seeing there?

Risa Chuang, Director, Media Relations, MultiVu: Some of the biggest changes that we've noticed are you know, just definitely in pitching media tours and pitching at our content, is there are a lot less independent stations and a lot more owned and operated stations like Tribune and Sinclair and they all tend to take the same types of stories and we're finding there all covering them in the same way. So, it's common to see one affiliate and then see the other affiliate and they're saying… they are using the same exact words. So that makes it a little bit more complicated. Um. Breaking news is… there's more and more of it than ever before we find there's breaking news every other second um, and that makes it really a lot harder to compete for airtime and overall a lot of stations are a lot more sensitive to heavily branded content. So, when we do get their attention and they do want to participate in the satellite media tour or air our content, there's a higher expectation that it's going to be customized to their audience and fit their needs.

With satellite media tours, how do you capture a local station’s interest to take the interview?

Leslie Wheeler: Being able to give them the stats in that local, the state was like you know tremendous in terms of getting them to do the interview. But even when they were doing the interviews the interviewers were really um, interested in like the stats because you know it has impacting their community. So, I definitely think it, you know, it’s good to have localized stats and the local angle as much as possible.

Considering the stringent regulations the healthcare industry operates in, is a creative approach ever realistic?

Amanda Peck: I think sometimes when you're working in a more regulated environment that kind of forces you to be more creative and you can be more creative, right? And I think also you know partnerships with third party organizations… influencer partnerships as well. Like these are other ways that you can kind of tell the story in a really authentic way and get your message out there in an authentic way um, within this you know, regulated environment.

Can you speak a little bit about how to extend the life of a campaign?

Leslie Wheeler: I think that sometimes the clients again want to maybe do everything all at once. And I think we need to you know you need to say like OK maybe we need to do you know national now and then we do local market you know a month down the road. So, I think we're always kind of looking at you know how we can kind of continue the momentum. So, you know you might not do a satellite media tour at the very you know launch of a campaign you might do a satellite media um six months you know down the road. So, I think you need to look at [the] kind of all the tools and all the channels that you have, and you need to figure out like when to activate and when to pull which lever.

Is paid still a four-letter-word?

Leslie Wheeler: Several years ago, paid was a little bit of dirty word and people were like, oh my God, I don't want to do paid I want earned, earned, earned, and I think people are definitely coming around with doing more paid opportunities. And there are some really great paid opportunities out there. I mean some of them can be a little bit expensive. But again, you need to look about how you can squeeze every little penny out of that paid opportunity and really kind of amplify it. So, you know I definitely think paid is a great way and a great you know avenue to you know think about extending your campaign.

ABOUT THE EXPERT: Larry Cardarelli

Larry Cardarelli started in business news writing and producing for CNN's Lou Dobbs. He also freelanced for the BBC, Fox, and ABC News and several independent production companies. In 2004 Larry joined MultiVu as a producer. He was promoted to Senior Producer in 2007, and Executive Producer in 2012. As Executive Producer, he led the development of the Creative department as the PR comms industry was experiencing significant changes. In 2013, under his leadership, his team brought in $600k in net new creative production revenue. A year later, that number exceeded $2M. Larry was named Vice President of Production and Creative in 2015.

Larry's avocation is food and wine. He's worked in several New York City restaurants including the former New York Times 3-star March restaurant; he has written for Food Arts magazine; and attended the certificate program in Restaurant Management at The French Culinary Institute in conjunction with Cornell School of Hotel Management. Larry is a James Beard nominated TV food producer.