ABOUT

Background:
Up to 1 billion people, nearly one in six of the world’s population; suffer from neurological disorders, from Alzheimer and Parkinson disease, strokes, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy to migraine, brain injuries and neuroinfections, with some 6.8 million dying of the maladies each year, according to a United Nations report.
(Source: World Health Organisation)

Target Audience:
Our target audience reflected a global community of neurological researchers and surgeons spanning the full spectrum of commercial, charitable and academic institutions. Socially and culturally diverse, our audience did however share a number of common traits – chief amongst these being a universal mistrust and dislike of marketing.

Incorporating what can only be described as some of the most intelligent people on the planet – our target audience really did include brain surgeons.

Objectives:
Taconic’s Global Director of Marketing set us a clear objective: ‘Persuade researchers in private biotech companies, universities and charities to meet with our sales team. We want them to see us a trusted partner.’

Challenges:
Our primary challenge was to overcome the open skepticism and general dislike of conventional marketing the target audience harbored. This skepticism was fueled by the view held by many within the target audience that private companies could not be trusted and that their agenda was built around the vast sums of money involved in neurological research – indeed this is a multi-billion dollar industry with companies recognizing that whoever finds a cure for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or Dementia will become of the most profitable companies on the planet. It was therefore crucial that we ensured all marketing activities coming from Taconic reflected the integrity of the brand and communicated a common and shared sense of purpose with the target audience.

The brief required a very human response to a very emotive subject matter. It therefore followed that the campaign itself would adopt a similar tone. Research indicated that many of those classified as being, ‘the target audience’ had been motivated into their profession through personal experiences within their family involving one of the many degenerative neurological conditions. Armed with this knowledge, we set about creating a campaign strategy that would resonate with the target audience not only on a professional level, but a personal one as well. Whilst doing this, we had to carefully respect the emotions surrounding the subject area and maintain the integrity of the Taconic brand.

The solution – a very personal and tactile integrated campaign that told the true story of a ceramics artist and how Alzheimer’s and the death of her father through the condition had influenced her work.

This true story formed the bridge needed for the target audience to find common ground with Taconic and recognize how the knowledge bank and services offered by Taconic could help speed up the route to a cure for degenerative neurological conditions. We recognized that traditional media channels adopted by brands within the scientific community would not deliver the impact or communicate the integrity of the message. Research had also led us to recognize that our target audience spent a great deal of time within their workspaces /offices.

It therefore followed that a personal route would be more relevant than either trade press or digital. We commissioned the artist to create a series of ‘pieces’ inspired by the medical and scientific scans she had saw during her father’s treatment. Interpreting these brain scans of neuro-pathways into porcelain broaches, each unique piece was presented to one of the target audience as the starting point for a conversation.

Each detailed and fragile piece of artwork was made from porcelain so that it would deliberately degrade over time – reflecting the effects of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s on the human brain. Upon receipt of each piece of artwork for their office / workspace, the target audience was invited to view a short video ‘about the artist’. This served two purposes:

• It addressed the natural interest of the target audience as to the inspiration and authentic nature of the artwork pieces;

• It resonated on a very personal level with the target audience – the true story reinforcing the integrity of what Taconic Biosciences was working to achieve;

Results:
The effectiveness and relevancy of the campaign strategy provided Taconic with an emotive, relevant and tactile solution with the capability to open the door to a sales channel with an estimated value of £26 billion pounds in the UK alone for research into Alzheimer’s and a further £10 billion for Parkinson’s. These figures increase significantly in the United States with Parkinson’s research valued at $28 billion and Alzheimer’s care conservatively valued at £200 billion.