Maryellen Royle, President, Tonic Life Communications
Maryellen played a strategic role in the planning and implementation of an internal initiative for long-standing client Janssen entitled BioExperience. With BioExperience, Janssen opened up its manufacturing and supply chain doors to advocacy partners to highlight the people and processes behind the development of biological therapies. Due to the overwhelming success of the first tour in April 2015, three additional tours were scheduled to provide an opportunity to healthcare professionals and managed care groups to experience the program. Maryellen and the Tonic team were able to effectively highlight Janssen's decades-long experience and commitment to patients. The tour has been well received by more than 30 journalists and will continue into next year.
In response to Janssen’s desire to build meaningful relationships with health bloggers representing a wide range of chronic health conditions, Maryellen’s team created HealtheVoices, the first-ever conference developed exclusively for online health advocates and bloggers. Recognizing that health advocates are hungry for opportunities to meet and network, Maryellen spearheaded the creation of a blogger advisory panel, which helped shape and recruit other attendees. Tonic developed the hashtag #HealtheVoices15, which created buzz around the conference, and more than 60 experiences and up-and-coming health bloggers attended. Twelve health conditions were represented, and social media outreach extended beyond 1 million hits. The widespread interest connected attendees onsite and also generated conversation outside of the event. Maryellen’s team created enduring content materials, such as the video project that highlight patient experiences. Advocates and communities were connected and inspired to take action, and the perception of Janssen was overwhelmingly positive, as they were mentioned in more than 90 percent of the social media posts coming out of the conference.