Agency Avoids 'Bells and Whistles' Approach to Win New Biz
The Win
In March, Belsito & Company in New York earned new PR business from Gilead Sciences in San Francisco to support Preveon, Gilead's AIDS drug in phase III clinical trials.
The assignment is to educate the medical community, AIDS patient advocacy groups and the media about Preveon's treatment benefits.
Main Competition
Belsito's closest competition during the final round of presentations were Ruder-Finn and Fleishman-Hillard.
Pitch Team
Belsito: Christina Anbar, healthcare director; Marybeth Belsito, president; Tara DiMilia, media relations director; Diane Levine, senior account executive and Charles Dai, assistant account executive.
Assignment
Gilead was looking for an agency partner that could demonstrate its expertise in the key areas of promotion for an AIDS drug like Preveon, such as:
- strong community relations, specifically among the AIDS advocacy groups and industry thought leaders;
- strategic medical communications targeting healthcare professionals; and
- media relations.
Homework
The agencies pitching the Preveon business had about six weeks to prepare, from early December to mid-January. Belsito spent 75 percent of this time on research, says Anbar. It looked at strategic opportunities for Gilead to solidify its reputation in the AIDS/HIV marketplace.
The research involved combing through several FDA transcripts from recent advisory meetings to provide an overview of the most pressing AIDS issues the FDA's advisory committee has evaluated.
The Belsito team also kept a consistent dialogue with Gilead, asking relevant questions about the Preveon business that demonstrated its "deep learning curve" on the communication issues, says Sheryl Meredith, Gilead's associate director of corporate communications. In addition, the agency spoke with several AIDS thought leaders to identify what their drug treatment informational needs were.
Presentation Strategies
Belsito's extensive research resulted in a polished, focused and professional presentation, says Meredith. It wasn't just Meredith who had to be impressed. Gilead used a team approach to assess which agency should become its promotional business partner, which included representation from the COO, corporate communicators, sales, marketing and clinical professionals.
The presentation focused on how Preveon could fill some of the informational voids among AIDS advocacy organizations, medical community and the business and trade media.
Preveon, is positioned as a "salvage therapy," most effective for those who have had disappointing results with other AIDS therapies and need to intensify their treatment.
The positioning challenge is to define salvage therapy and educate the medical community and media on how Preveon fits into the highly fragmented AIDS therapy big picture.
Belsito's presentation strategies included:
- a poster board with hundreds of AIDS organizations broken down by priority that should be targeted;
- a media analysis;
- quotes from AIDS thought leaders that highlighted their informational needs.
Pitch Tips
Winning this new account had more to do with demonstrating how the agency could achieve the basic marketing/communication goals rather than showing off its innovative flair for "thinking outside the box," says Meredith.
It was important to first show how the meat and potatoes promotional work would be done for Preveon before spending significant time and resources on simply being unique, which is the path some of the competing agencies took.
In addition, what nailed the account for Belsito was its attention to campaign detail, willingness to ask probing research-based questions and chemistry with the Gilead team.
Belsito's presentation mapped out a clear framework for what Preveon's marketing position should be and where the strongest targeting opportunities are while paying close attention to budget parameters.
(Belsito & Company, Christine Anbar, 212/586-8877; Gilead Sciences, Sheryl Meredith, 650/522-5505)