Fostering Brand Positivity
Kim Wijkstrom is a marketer, humanist, and lover of brands. Kim is currently the CMO of Vanda Pharmaceuticals, having previously served in this role for Perry Ellis International and One Main Financial. He began his career on the advertising side at agencies like TBWA Chiat Day, BBDO, and Crispin Porter + Bogusky, where he worked on iconic campaigns for Absolut Vodka, Apple, and Volkswagen, among others.
Kim has successfully transformed and grown iconic brands across multiple consumer-focused businesses. His diverse career has been informed by a deep curiosity and an appreciation of the intersection between science–data, insights, analytics, culture–creativity, innovation, strategy, and financial realities.
When The Continuum last spoke to Kim in December 2020, he was in his first year at Vanda and still learning to “speak science” as a pharma marketer. He told us then, “To me, marketing is about the bigger picture of understanding and identifying the brand, figuring out the objective, then building a strategy to achieve that objective. That, to me, is brand and marketing, regardless of whether it's Perry Ellis suits, or cars, or Absolut.”
While this sentiment still holds true, we recently sat down with Kim to discuss the valuable insights he learned from working in an industry with several regulatory rules.
Some of us still remember when direct-to-consumer pharma ads were not allowed, and there are people who think that marketing prescription medications to patients instead of just to healthcare providers creates more problems. What do you say to this kind of criticism, and how do you market to patients when they aren’t the ones making prescription decisions?
It's a fair question, for sure. The United States and New Zealand are the only countries in the world allowing pharmaceutical companies to market directly to patients. It wasn’t until the FDA eased restrictions in the late 1990s that we really started seeing pharma ads in this country.
It’s very different from other industries, especially because we’re not really selling our product to the consumer; we’re raising awareness that they can take to their doctor. These ads are also heavily regulated, and the FDA requires them to be “fair and balanced,” which means that we can spend the first half of a TV spot touting our product but have to spend the second half pointing out the possible side effects and potential adverse events that may be an unintended result of using our product. The FDA did approve pharma advertising, but they put it in a tight regulatory box with a giant tax on it.
I think the real benefits of pharma marketing are not so much for the products themselves but for the conditions they treat. It creates awareness around diseases and disorders that people aren’t otherwise talking about, whether that’s a rare disease or one with some stigma around it. All of the advertising for drugs to treat mental health disorders, for example, helps to destigmatize these issues because it reminds people that they or their loved ones are not alone.
One of the places where I see great value in pharmaceutical marketing is in rare disorders. Advertising definitely brings attention to the disorder and helps people feel less alone, but it also provides an incentive for pharma companies to invest in treatments despite small patient pools.
There has been a lot of discussion about the destigmatization of mental health issues during the pandemic; one of Vanda’s drugs treats schizophrenia. Have you seen decreased stigma?
There’s definitely been an acknowledgment in our society that mental health, and teen mental health in particular, is a cultural problem. I think the pandemic helped because it gave people license to admit they were struggling. That encouraged celebrities like Selena Gomez to come forward with their struggles. You certainly wouldn’t have heard anything like this twenty or even ten years ago.
From a marketing perspective, it’s great that there’s more awareness and discussion. It gives more latitude to talk about it. I will say, however, that at this point, we work specifically in schizophrenia, and there still is a lot of stigma around that particular disease.
“We must recognize that much of our messaging and advertising is not being absorbed directly by the patient but more by their families and loved ones.”
Does your messaging look different because of that stigma?
Not necessarily because of the stigma, but when you’re working in an anti-psychotic space, it does change things. People with untreated schizophrenia are often not able to advocate for themselves in the same way as, for example, someone with Non-24 sleep-wake disorder. We must recognize that much of our messaging and advertising is not being absorbed directly by the patient but more by their families and loved ones. It doesn’t change our strategy necessarily, but it is important for us to remember who we’re talking to.
You said earlier that regulatory limitations prescribe a lot of what you do in advertisements. Where do you find the creativity in your job?
Pharmaceutical ads often become formulaic because of the regulations. The first thirty seconds is usually a bit of a collage of diverse, happy people potting plants, throwing frisbees, or otherwise having fun – and the next thirty seconds is the warning. You do get to be creative in that first half; it’s where you get to distinguish yourself, but I also like to see more creativity in the materials that wrap around a commercial spot.
So much of the printed advertising you see for drugs is just bland and boring. It gets institutionalized and anodyne, and you can’t even tell the difference between a hospital advertisement and a drug advertisement. When we created our brand wrapper–the visual look and feel for Fanapt, we wanted to do something a little different. It has this sort of Roy Lichtenstein comic book look, with various illustrated characters. We’re hoping that when someone walks into their psychiatrist’s office, our colorful brochures will stand out.
One thing that is unique about the pharma industry is that you build a brand around a drug and push it out so everyone knows the name, and then, at some point, you lose your patent, and anyone can make that same drug. How does this impact marketing?
At launch, there is a sense of urgency to achieve broad awareness and generate momentum to gain market share. We know going in that our years of advertising a specific, brand-name drug is limited. Most pharma companies put all their efforts into those early years, knowing that once it goes off patent and generics enter the market, it doesn’t pay to spend money on marketing.
One example of atypical antipsychotics is Latuda. They spent big and became a market leader based on mass market broadcast spending. Once their patent expired at the beginning of the year, the advertising spend rapidly decreased. Sure enough, their market share is slowly receding as well.
The companies that manufacture the generics often seize the opportunity to step into the vacuum of a brand going off-patent, but interestingly, there’s an increasing amount of evidence challenging the quality of the generics.
Are there lessons from pharma advertising that you think can be applied to other industries?
Honestly, I think it’s the opposite. Pharma should be inspired by all the other marketing out there and embrace creativity whenever we have the chance. There are a lot of rules, but there are also opportunities to loosen the conventionality. There are some examples of pharma ads that break through with creativity—we can all sing the “oh-oh-oh-Ozempic” song at this point—but there’s definitely room for improvement.
“Again, I think if we embrace creativity—and maybe add a dash of optimism—we can make marketing better in the coming year.”
It’s impossible to talk about marketing and advertising these days without talking about AI. What are your takes on the role of AI in our field?
I worry about it for sure. I think generative AI is absolutely devaluing the creative person and the creative product. If you can feed it a prompt and it comes back with an article, slogan, or piece of art that’s basically reworked from stuff other people already made that already devalues the creatives, it’s a form of plagiarism, really. This is part of what the SAG-AFTRA strike was about. Recently, there was a story about a random local dental plan using a deep fake video of Tom Hanks as their advertising without his permission. This sort of thing is really disturbing.
And then there’s all of the disinformation and misinformation that AI perpetuates or sometimes downright makes up. We all remember the lawyer who referenced entirely fictitious cases in a court brief because AI told them they existed and supported his cases. Obviously, people need to be more careful how they use it, but it’s not good enough to do that on a case-by-case basis. Marketers and advertisers need to get together to set some ground rules. Pharma marketing Is really about education, and it would be frightening to let AI take over.
You're one of our last interviews for 2023, so we're calling on you to make some predictions for the coming year. What are the big trends or changes you think might be happening in marketing in 2024?
Next year is going to be tricky because it’s an election year. I think we will see more ad avoidance from consumers who don’t want to be constantly exposed to nasty political ads, and I can’t blame them. As marketers, this gives us an opportunity to do something more positive. I hope and believe that in the coming year, positive advertising that drives stories will emerge because there is a great hunger for something not divisive. I thought the best new advertising campaign of 2023 was probably the Barbie movie. I know some people felt it leaned too hard into gender politics, but it wasn’t intended to be divisive. I think it can be an inspiration for great, fun campaigns with smart product and media extensions (I loved the Progressive insurance tie-in). Again, I think if we embrace creativity—and maybe add a dash of optimism—we can make marketing better in the coming year.
December 13, 2023
