Archive for 2009

Wow what a year. As we tidied away our desks on the 23rd it gave me a chance to reflect on what has been a pretty whirlwind year for us at hive. In place of  a long state of the nation style post (NY resolution No.3) and having had my expense spreadsheet signed off by Jas and sat for our end of year figures with FD Angelo. I thought it would be good to review the year in numbers.

So here goes. 2009 saw;

1 patient centered strategic approach
28 early adopting brand managers, community liasions and communications managers
7 client companies
17 pitches
4 losses
12 wins
1 decision still missing in action
100% of clients retained
1 new technology agency born - ebee
1 new office in Soho, London
1 new office in New York
75 blog posts
16 cases of wine
2 biggie parties
250GB+ of data (new server just installed) 
22 dozen external meetings
19 workshops
10 great newbees
1 huge thank you to everyone we have had the pleasure to work with in 2009

Ps. Would it be to much to add in 4 caipirinhas, and one very wet brazil ? I write this from down the road from Rio, where I am seeing the New Year in with a bang. At last 1 proper holiday  

Have a great New Year, looking forward to catching up with you all in 2010.

 A stumbled across Hugh Macleod’s gapingvoid blog whilst looking for a book for a client’s Christmas presents. Hugh is a cut through illustrator specialising in cube grenades – little anarchic illustrations for businesses.

It features a lovely list for those of us who want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever.

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kinder garten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

11. Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.

18. Avoid the Water cooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for your self.

23. Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time.

24. Don’t worry about fin ding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due even tually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

31. Remain frugal.

32. Allow your work to age with you.

33. Being Poor Sucks.

34. Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.

35. Savor obscurity while it lasts.

36. Start blogging.

37. Meaning Scales, People Don’t.

37. When your dreams become reality, they are no longer your dreams.

I might paste this into my NY resolutions. Beats the hell out of “go back to the gym”.

Last week we went to Berlin for the Christmas party. It’s because last week was so outrageous that this blog is only being written now.

Jas toiled for weeks on the plan – Bratislava? Devon? Stockholm?, Soho?  Tim’s house? Guillaume’s Circus?….

….We ended up in Berlin. Leaving Wardour Street in the morning, 18 of us piled on to the bus. 18! It’s amazing to believe what a huge family we have become in such a short space of time. All bright eyed and excited, we set out on our German mission.

Arvinder Grewal, of new found fame in channel 4’s The Family just happened to be our chauffeur – we tried to be cool, but we were all starstruck, each requesting  a signed photo.

By the afternoon we were sipping Gluhwein in the Berlin Winter Wonderland, by the evening Jas was shaking booty on the dance floor. Michael had his first night in a legitimate hotel.

It was great to have the two new Claires, Bhupi and Krystal join us for their first Hive party. And, Bhupi in particular taught us how to party – so hard – that when the alarm went off at 7 to catch the bus home, he slept straight through. And when we knocked on his door, he slept straight through, and when we rang his mobile, he slept straight through and when the hotel reception called his room phone, there was still no answer and when our Ryanair flight took off from Berlin he was still sleeping like a baby.

Awesome night. And Bhupi now knows Berlin airport like the back of his hand.

Next year we’ll head to Bognor Regis.

We offered the use of our offices to Epilepsy Action early this year as a handy central location for their weekend chair meetings. In return, we’ve received some key insights from the team as to how patients can be helped to cope with the condition. Since then, we have become firm friends with Barbara, Janet, Marie, Mary, Phil and the rest of their London forum.

We had the pleasure of seeing the group on Saturday as they came to the new Hive offices to hold their end of year meeting. I thought it started well, arriving in plenty of time to let them into the offices…until I realised that I had left the office keys at home. A mad call to Kate hoping she was in town, a mad dash from Kate to drop off her keys! Thanks Kate. We all decamped to Starbucks next door in the meantime.

All dramas sorted, 14 people settled into our boardroom to hold their meeting. My husband Simon and my two boys headed to Hamleys for some hard core toy shopping. Three hours later, I rejoined Barbara and the gang for Christmas nibbles and drinks. It was great to see the guys again and we look forward to sharing our space with them in 2010.

Just back from a really inspiring evening held by a client for 250 pharmacists at Wembley Stadium.

Alongside chicken satay and chardonnay was a really fresh approach.

Half way between stand-up and business school the slide presentation avoided a focus on products, ingredients, features or benefits. And elevated the discussion to value and driving an understanding that customer satisfaction was the common ground that existed between the audience and organisers.

The two hour presentation waxed lyrical on the value placed by customers on the interaction and the urgent requirement for pharmacy to wake up to engaging their customers in the non product elements of the consultation.

Delivered in a fresh, unusual and pretty compelling way it’s the first time I have seen this challenging approach and style of presentation given live with customers on a mature brand.

It’s pretty common to train and educate on launch brands during a med ed’ phase, but this focused on Business ed’ and went down a storm.  It provided a real opportunity for the company to demonstrate commercial expertise, partnership . Probably most importantly  it elevated the discussion from product flogging to a genuine adult to adult dialogue. A business talking to another business for mutual gain, rather than supplier and stockist fulfilling the usual adult child  cliché.

I hope to be able to get some footage to show you.

I have been contemplating a pitch Shep’ and I did last week  that for a first-time-for-us covered ‘prosumption’ as part of an approach to develop digital understanding and better resources.

In is woolliest form prosumption is useful when we are developing materials for a sub group of consumers when you just can’t follow the traditional; write/art direct/code/build, test, review and rebuild approach. Whether than be for time or budget reasons.

Prosumption is the mixing of  consumer and the producer to produce a new hybrid – the Prosumer. In what (another new word for me this week) I now know to be a portmanteau – a blend of two words and their meaning.

Reading around what I thought was a new internet thing. I find it’s almost as old as Ian, and much older than I am. In 1972, Marshall McLuhan and Barrington Nevitt suggested that technology would drive the consumer to become a producer (‘democratisation of media’ -  I hear Gemma (AD at AMV) shout). In the 1980 book, the term was coined by a futurologist named  Alvin Toffler who predicted this coming together.

The approach results in individuals working together blurring the barriers, between need for something and capability to provide it.

The conclusion of much of this work is that once mass market saturation and standardisation have brought us all happi(ish)ness, the market evolves  to initiate a process of mass customization. Giving consumers exactly what’s wanted with the assumption that this delivers a risk free relationship and a guaranteed happy customer.

Pretty interesting? It does make you think that once we all have perfectly tailored good, where will we go next? Ultimate rebellion should see us go full circle and start buying goods at George at ASDA perhaps?

Anyway fairly standardised fingers are crossed here. We hear Wednesday this week.

PS. I am really trying to avoid puns in headlines. Really sorry.

It’s been a week of pitches, proposals and lots of thinking. The week has nearly exhausted a roll of Magic whiteboard paper my preferred method of kicking the hell out of something.

I thought that I had run the course of this weeks of boxes, arrows and discussions when a great pitch rocked in, and kicked it all off again. Tough problem, great brand and a brief that requires us to “challenge, challenge, challenge”. Problems to solve always seem to be like London buses. Nothing for ages, then dozens of 139s all in a row.

For me next week sees implementation kick off across a number of projects  proposed. Getting beyond the thinking and getting to the nitty gritty of getting it done, tested and out there.

On the way into the office this morning I was sat opposite a  tube ad that seemed to speak to me. Cheers Engels – clearly an agency man through and through.

This week has been one of trains, literally I’ve been to Hull and back. Via Colchester. In fact I am on one now – Peterborough is whizzing by my window.

When I get a week with more than a days worth of travel I make sure I have my bag (the new and awesomely well designed Eastpak Pacer available at their delightful Carnaby St. store) packed with a business read.

This week What Would Google Do? Has been my company. I think Google is probably one of only a few organisations we could seriously ask this question of, without answering; ‘be smug and self satisfied’. Its changed business, moved the rules of market places, and I hate the word but I think a paradigm has shifted. Ahhhhhhh!

Anyways, the book looks at the economy, demand and supply and the whole long tail economics thing that we are all familiar with. But the section that shouted out at me was a statement that has prompted something I think we might try.

Jeff Jarvis, author of WWGD, and made famous for Dell Hell, says that in this world of interconnected customers- kill your ad agency. We produce ads, so get your hands off that door knob and cancel the cab. I think Jarvis is referring to the behemoths, the ‘advertising is at the heart of what we do’, 30 sec TVC are the only love guys, you know square glasses and a 7^th floor pool filled with  moccachoccachino.

With this blood on your hands, he suggests re-engineering the model, (please remember to wash bloodied hands prior to handling models) and making customer service the only focus. He shouts at us to consider this the new marketing. For us to strive for the best and let the interconnected market place champion this awesome service. Let the buzz create and drive your brand. In a market where interconnectness is a bit wonky – then I guess you could encourage it. This is what got me thinking.

It’s a good read, I barely remember Doncaster, and it made me wonder whether we could create a way for our clients to assess us publically, after every job, so that we could share the real us, the experience,  and move away from the powerpoint us. Perhaps it could grow and all agencies could be part of this showing the experience of working with them.

I would love a point of view from anyone who uses agencies out there. Is this feasible? Would it be worthwhile? Could agencies bin their ad spends, and rely on a platform of service visibility?

PS. Want a real example of  this new interconnected world? Now this blog has been published, search for ‘Eastpak pacer’. I’m there – bigging it up  Google P1, 6 down. No need for an ad – just a quality product, provided faultlessly with me and my opinion. How cool is that as a demo?

Just finished reading Rob Walkers book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are that delves into the attitudes of the global consumer in the age of plenty, and, didn’t making us look at all good.

This amphetamine paced tour of senseless consumption spans Viking cookers to custom high-tops.  And along the way  walk I been introduced to a diverse cast of characters like Red bull entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz, and an assortment of white guys without any discernable urban credibility who’ve managed to build clothing empires around hip-hop and street culture, and even viral marketers who pretend to be customers, proselytizing to others about the merits of products (and apparently not always disclosing their affiliations).

By presenting both uber-consumers and the professionals who deal with trying to sell us the stuff to fill our endless appetites, or the holes in our souls, Walker indirectly addresses what he coins the “pretty good” problem: What distinguishes a product when assembly lines or underpaid third-world workers can make even the cheapest products “pretty good?” Since quality really isn’t much of a criterion any more, there must be other signifiers, and that’s where our subconscious steps in.

Walker’s key point echoes many in the intangible brand benefit camp often written about in the planning world. Most of us have been inundated with advertising for our whole lives, so on some level we know that we’re being sold … which is why some hipster crowds gathered around PBR (a cheap red neck beer – cheers Google) precisely because they weren’t being given the hard sell. So if somebody cracks open a can now, knowing that the trend is played out, what does that act of consumer disobedience say about them? Now that PBR is so “yesterday,” shouldn’t that make it cool again? If a hipster cracks open a can in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, are they still being cool?” It all gets pretty meta.

And that’s Walkers thesis. He coins his own portmanteau for the way that advertisers can take advantage of that and calls it “murketing.” Murketing, then is that nexus between murkiness and marketing where buyers can project their own desires or aspirations on to the products that they buy. In examining the psychological motivations that drive this rampant consumerism, Walker references some of the best psychologists and researchers on the subject, including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who’s Flow should be required reading for anyone with an interest in being happy and who’s The Meaning of Things happens to be a little more topical.

The conclusion is that objects are only as totemic as we let them be. Walker even begins to hint at what might be a really interesting corollary, but it is left largely unexplored. For us, as product and communications guys, if we’re pondering the future, one must wonder what sort of value we can add to society.

In a potential post-consumer future, where we’ve harnessed algae to transform sunlight into electricity and where every home has a rapid prototype machine that uses organic compounds, how will we define wealth? Suddenly when everyone has access to flawless and pristine stuff, it’s that scuffed up and worn armchair that has real value. Because even though I may love my sleek modernist furniture in ways that might not quite be healthy, if my house was burning down I’d rescue the painting I found in a junk shop.

Ian handed me a fascinating article on ‘Should patients be paid for taking their medication?’. (He also said it was high time I wrote a blog. )The story described a trial where patients with mental illness were paid £15 for each fortnightly visit to their clinic where they were administered their depot.

My immediate answer was to say, of course they bloody shouldn’t be paid! Treatments are prescribed to make people feel better and help them function in the world, surely that is incentive enough?

Hold on, I thought – it’s plainly not enough. Poor compliance is a fact of mental healthcare. It’s easy to speculate on why these patients would avoid their medication. We need to ask about the conversations they are having with their HCPs. Are professionals helping patients reach an informed decision about treatments?

Well, at least one survey says not really. Here, 59% of patients taking an antipsychotic reported that other treatment options had not been discussed. Almost two thirds said that they hadn’t been given written information prior to starting their medication. And 46% said hey hadn’t been warned about its potential side effects.

The NHS and HCPs need to look at the way they are engaging with patients. How many have read the NICE guidance on patient adherence and choice, published in January? And how is the NHS supporting them in implementing change?

Of course, it’s not easy for anyone. The befuddling thing about informed choice is that patients can refuse medication, and the professional’s obligation is to respect this decision. But what if the individual is antisocial, or a danger to self or others? Why are we paying these guys, really – what are the savings down the line? To make a judgment on this pilot, we need to know more about these patients other than that they are poor compliers.

If the scheme sees the light, bitter laughter will accompany jokes about kids being paid to go to school and likewise to adults for behaving on a night out. No-one’s going to like the idea of a pay-for-peace society. Whatever happens, let’s hope these patients get something positive out of it.

Did you ever visit us on Regent Street? Did you catch any of the guides’ commentary from the tour bus below? Then you know that Soho, a former royal hunting ground, is named for a huntsman’s cry – SoHOOOO!

Now the clarion has called us to W1F.  Monday morning, after convening in a café, we were led through the doors of National House, 60-66 Wardour Street.

We walked into our new office on the 4^th floor. It’s great. Come see.

So much thanks again to Jas, Tim and Ian who chose the premises wisely. And spent all weekend shifting, cleaning, sticking. We have a much larger, shinier foorspace now, art on the walls, lots of light. Plenty of storage. Our own boardroom, a perfect little kitchen and two charming loos. I would happily live here.

The bits
My favourite bit is the nap/ reading area. It’s a quiet corner with about 30 foam cubes that you can arrange into a bed, or a fort.

The faithful pink sofa, that lived at Tim’s when our old premises got too crowded, is back in business

Unfortunately we couldn’t get the vending machine up the stairs/ lift. We are looking into crane hire.

Kinsey is still hankering after a piano. Pipe down girl.

We’ve got a microwave and a sweet dishwasher, and a new fridge called Candy. Michael keeps threatening to bring in his Breville (grease) devil.

1950 steel lockers arrive end of October.
The launch
So we spent our Monday all energized and excited by the new space. It was hard to work with a party flirting at a distance like the brush of an intrepid fox. We’d been told to look sharp, but the evening plans were secret. At 6.30 we went to a cocktail bar. On the way, I looked in the Starbucks window to check my face out. Someone sitting at the counter ducked out of my sight. I thought this unusual, but my attention was diverted to the right by Justin Lee Collins.

Anyway, we had a few cockies and shot the breeze. Two hours later, Tim made some calls behind his sleeve. Time to wend through the streets…back to National House. Our office had been transformed into a restaurant. A handsome silver service situation with candles, flowers, wine. Tim’s wonderful sister Nicky stood by in chef ensemble…guess who was evading my sight in the coffee shop!

Wine was poured, starters delivered:  tuna carpaccio on a futon of baby leaves. Nicky’s walnut bread was stunning. She served up beautiful beef fillet with silky fennel and creamy potato roundels. Two tarts turned up for dessert: passionfruit and chocolate amaretto.

The time, the place, the moon – all perfect.

The office turned out to be a great dancefloor. The nap area came in handy as a chillout space. The cubes tend to separate if used for bouncing.

I got home at 3.30am.

We are still working our way through the cheeseboard, the cakes and the whole honeycomb. Jas threw the biscuits away yesterday. Everyone got the hump so she got more. So in a way, we haven’t stopped celebrating.

We arrived in our offices on Regent St. on January 2, 2008.  We were met by the cable guy, and a chap bearing four desks and a Viking direct man.

The afternoon saw us laying Cat5E  under the floor, relaying it properly and me running around Regent Street looking for someone to make us a giant wall sticker to give our space a little something, a place hive could call home.

Two dozen launches later it’s time to move, and my view is obscured by boxes and bubble wrap and Debbie disappearing under a mountain of shredded paper.

The new office is taken shape, oak, foam, glass, plastic, and dozens of wall stickers being applied. The next 72 hours sees us move from a place we once thought of as a massive office, and now consider to be too small, too cramp and not central enough.

Ten minutes ago we took the over dramatic step of taking the wall sticker down to survey the damage done to the deposit. It took me a little by surprise, but I am a little sad, this office is our first, the street has been good to us, hosted loads of friends, and sheltered our current band of people.

Monday morning sees us unveil the new Soho office to the gang. It’s a jump from what we have got used to – light, windows on all sides, rooftop views, 6 times bigger, much more what the team deserve. I hope everyone loves it, it’s a dramatically different vibe, and having been in charge of build and funkying it up – I am a little nervous –  this lot are a tough crowd.

Give us a day to get settled in – pop in and see for yourself. With our new space we able to go back to our old share-the-space ethos and of course you all are welcome, pop in – the biscuits are on us.

As many of you know we move offices at the end of the week to our new London office in Soho. Not content with the organisation chaos that comes with one office move (ask Tim what a dishwasher looks like these modern days) we have also been finalising arrangements for New York. This is it, our other new office. It’s our first formal entrée into the US. Based in Chelsea, with great views and full agency facilities we now have a lovely space in Manhattan. Many thanks to Roxanna, Kate and Lois for helping us. As ever, you are all welcome to beapart there too. For now though we don’t have people permanently based there so London is still your best bet. But watch this space because we aim to change that very soon.

Ian rocked into the office this morning, fresh from a PM magazine all agencies round table shindig with a number of agency leaders, MDs etc.

These mornings are a feast of fun for us in the office, a usually calm, collected and considered Ian, can barely contain his overnight simmer. He positively is busting for a chat, and Jas and I can almost feel him ready to boil over.

Anyone who encounters Ian will know it’s pretty hard to get a rise out of him (I can lay claim to managing to do this almost once – in an incident, involving my 6^th Nokia N95 in 2 weeks and a pint of cider. Although Vodafone’s dismal approach to customer service is co-culprit)

This need for an outburst lasted all through our first-thing-Friday People meeting until he could take it no longer. No AOB? BANG. The topic of this rare eruption?  Innovation, advertising agencies, the nature of conceptual creativity i.e. the ability to do a different more connective ad, versus innovation – the ability to provide solutions our clients are not expecting. Jas shouted INCOMING and we all hit the deck.

What stuck me – is the clear struggle Ian was having with wanting desperately for the industry, or more specifically agencies to grow up and evolve and stop boring each other with tales of clients, late adoption blah, blah (anyone still awake?), With the pleasure he was getting from seeing innovation being falsely encapsulated by an obsession with the ad, what goes into an A4 page, and whether illustrative style, or a bloody banner can be seen as ground breakingly progressive. blah blah blah.

I think what we were viewing can encapsulated by the term Schadenfreude. In fact I know it is because I have just spent ten minutes on Google trying to spell it. I was eventually able to confirm this is the case and that the term definitely isn’t German for pork chop.

I think one could argue that Communications holding companies buy ‘established innovation’ i.e change that’s margin friendly. Be that agencies that show high levels of creativity, an unusual regional speciality, or  integration model. It certainly was the case with the three I have been under (although I can only speak for healthcare). Their model is set up to buy novel agencies at the top of their game, and make sure that they keep doing what they are good at, never deviating too far from a formula that got them purchased. No risks and certainly no investment without return.

I was told that the agency world’s approach to innovation was ‘bloody stupid’ by a clever  guy, Craig, I often sit  next to at the  Company of Cutlers in Sheffield. He put it a bit like this; his world; the stainless steel industry is split into revenue from commoditized and specialist products. And all the players in the market know this. (To me it’s a bit like artwork, design, traffic and the sexier agency products services). They know that the commodity business is always under margin pressure and threat (when was the last time a page of artwork cost £400?). And they know that the specialist products migrate to becoming the commodised ones (conceptual writers at medical writer rates).

Sheffield steels answer to this reality is to set up R&D, cap the maximum margin and devote the remaining resource to innovation, partner with academia and the great and the good to push constantly what drives ultimate value – providing services and products that are first to market. Find ‘unused to’ products that meet existing needs but do so either more efficiently or in better way.

Given this I couldn’t figure out why agencies don’t have R&D. Why don’t they someone tasked with research, with finding new ways of solving established problems.

Is it because 20% margin and 4 out of 5 on the annual review is fine, and innovation requires investment and less short term returns?

I’ve been sitting here waiting to type this blog for about twenty minutes, trying to decide what to write about the launch of eBee.

I could mention the guerrilla marketing at the digital marketing awards.

I could mention that it was a night of firsts for me – first company I’ve launched, first time I’ve ever used spray paint, first time I’ve been asked to remove it.

I could tell you about all the people who have  made this possible: clients, patients, a team of inspirational, passionate individuals and the 5 months spent pre launch collecting amazing technologies to play with and developing the technical development capacity to make them work for brands.

I could tell you how lucky I feel to have been asked by the founders of Hive (the mothership) to turn a business concept founded on ‘borrowing’ innovation from other industries, making it healthcare relevant and turning them into reality.

But instead I’ll just invite you to visit and you can decide what you’d like to know for yourself

Post the PM digital awards last night what I really needed was a dark warm room, a duvet and to be entertained. Fortunately part of this was possible, unfortunately only after having to go to Brighton to hunt down insights into Nurses/virology/technology for 9am. The skedaddle back to Town for 3pm proved all a bit of a blur.

This entertainment came in the form of an afternoon with Paul Smith, sharing his views on inspiration, business, customer satisfaction and being polite. Equipped with wild gesticulations, vivid facial expressions, and a bit of dancing he provided a total inspiration for us. It was hard not to be enthralled by him and totally hit the mark – a perfect replacement for what could have been an afternoon of Murder she wrote.

Paul built his archetypal British label on a foundation of playfulness, an impeccable eye and a steely business sense. Since setting up his first shop with wife Pauline Denyer in 1970 – he’s been knighted, had his own exhibition and owns 230 ‘individual’ stores worldwide. But more than any of this, he proved to be a total gentleman, true to himself, and elegant in his honesty. Classically quirky to the core.

His views on globalization, homogenization, and characterless multinational organisations were bluntly put. He willed us to strive for character and difference, to not just repeat what is successful, and role it out country to country but to strive to build on that success, to challenge it, or risk becoming yesterday.

His views on success and happiness were nicely encapsulated in him recommending we all ask ourselves “what’s the point of you”, defining what we love doing, and doing it. No more complicated than that.  Awesome.

Given we know over 300 of you read this blog every week we thought we’d try something. If you are, or know, someone who would like to beapart of Hive then we would love to hear from you. We are actively recruiting in junior account management, art direction and digital project management. We’re looking for people who share our aim to place patient centred brand planning and programming at the heart of the pharmaceutical strategic process.

We’ve grown quickly, but carefully and if you’d like to join 16 slightly mad individuals its a lot of fun, very challenging and enormously rewarding. Give us a shout if you are interested.  beapart@hivehealth.com

Currently loving this campaign done by M&C Saatchi and DSGi marketing team in a sector that’s normally chucking boredom our way. It’s having all the easy to identify retailers featured moaning like mad.

I thought the planning and insight that went into the writing was spot-on. We’ve all done it, gone to see what we like in John Lewis, and gone online to order it. I feel understood and not such a cheap skate!

I also love the nice end-line too: “Dixons.co.uk. The last place you want to go.” Awesome.

Typically, the idiots have hit back and raised the prospect of legal action further fueling the bubbling media coverage of this campaign. A Harrods spokeswoman said: “Not only is this is a low-down swipe by Dixons, but it is potentially misleading to customers who may think we offer a similar range of product, whereas in fact there is relatively little overlap. “Our lawyers have sent Dixons a letter demanding that it substantiates the claims, but in the meantime customers might like to know that one of the few brands…”  Stopped reading – what a wally.

Thursday saw us in Manchester launching a biggie campaign to help patients discuss treatments with healthcare teams, solve problems with therapy and understand their treatments better.

We took an art gallery in Manchester’s trendy side and mounted an exhibition showing the issues at hand, the thinking behind the campaign, its development and the execution of some of the work of which we are so proud.

Catherine, who was responsible for one of the best briefs we have seen, was our curator for the evening, introducing how the collateral fits into the world. It’s a totally proud moment when you see your work being presented so fantastically, it brought a tear to my eye.

The show travels to three other venues, where it will be rolled out to community groups, opinion leaders, charities and internally.

It was a resounding success despite the usual courier mishaps, lost packages, countless hours hanging and discarded Dewalt batteries we closed the launch with rounds of applause, a real sense of purpose.

The morning saw us discuss with much mirth Jas dropping a 6ft high flower arrangement an hour before the kick-off! How we all laughed.

When we started, 4 of us sat in the big room we now find cramped and jammed. We often catch one of us casting a gaze from the photocopier beaming with pride at the people we have and the culture we have built.

As mentioned in a previous blog we move next month, in the mean-time we have more people than desks, and its changing the way we work. Our laptops are becoming our place of business and the location is too often, (for me anyway) Flat White in Brewer Street, a client’s office, a random desk  or even the kitchen table at home.

We are finding our mobile devices are defining how efficiently we work. The availability of bandwidth is trumping office space. We’re all becoming digital nomads. No longer tethered to Ethernet cables but free to work in whatever space we can get hold of or whatever space free our minds most.

The area we work in – Soho is geared for this. Everywhere has Wi-Fi, every table has a laptop, a latte and a nomad. Yesterday saw me grab a table for an hour proposal writing , co-create a tender document with a partner agency in Chiswick, join Kate on a conference call to chat through a web project, and Skype our  illustrators in Kolkata  who are running tight on a deadline due to their freak weather conditions.  How mad is that? All from a wooden table with the best coffee in London.

Walking past a pub on the way home yesterday evening I spied my old creative director supping a pint. 10 minutes later the old days were back; him, me, lager and discussion. He is talented as hell – scarily so, sharp to the point and fiercely no-nonsense talking. He makes me wish I was more instinctive.

We got talking about briefing and about how we need to reframe expectations of briefs to be more understandable; to drive to what is special, where the stand out come from, and what’s its going to do for you.

4 (or is could have been 5) in we stumbled upon the conclusion that a good metaphor is the job market. In many cases, a brand like a candidate competes to become occupied, it competes against other candidates, it needs to be relevant to the role specified, to have experience and stand out amongst a crowd.

We thought this was amazing. Writing this on this very bright morning  having woken up in my clothes it seems to make sense but it’s not as brilliant as it was at 1 am – but it’s tidy.

We’re very excited about our move to Wardour Street in a month or so. Tim is leading the build, making lots of calls and interrupting meetings for last minute eBay bids. He has plastered the walls with whiteboard plastic so that we can display, explain and necessarily defend our suggestions for the new office.

I thought I’d post what what we had in mind and update you later on what made the cut.

Perfunctory: A well-stocked stationery cupboard, meeting room, recycling bins, bicycle storage, colour, generous coat rack, giant teapot/urn, paper store, artwork prep area (glue room), library/ inspiration shelf, showers.

Inspired: Film nights, nap area, magnetic blackboard paint, bubble chairs for do-not-disturb moments, bubble chairs with built-in headphones, lockers, giant lego, colouring books, coffee machine, heat sensitive wallpaper, a very quiet area , a great big vending machine full of….

Fanciful: Picnic benches (but why not?), astroturf, piano, fish tank, juicer, hammocks, naughty step.

Aint gonna happen: Allotment , oompa loompa, kittens, massage area.

You don’t need a whole new office to nip out and get: Drinking squash, a flippin’ great thesaurus.

And who really needs a: Cereal dispenser, sandwich toaster.

Still wide eyed and charged with energy, I would describe my work experience at Hive a bit like spending a week in a sweet shop! I’ll have to calm my sugar rush before I produce any sensible comment.

The week kicked off over a coffee with Tim so I could understand the far reaching benefits of the Hive model. He was kind enough to offer me a choice of experiences and my hesitancy to close any doors too early prompted a somewhat vague answer; “a bit of everything “, I said.

Within the hour I was whisked off to a podcast recording with Helen. Talk about head first into the glamorous side of marketing! This challenging task was a great blend of analytical thinking and creativity that filled the day. To top it, at lunch we celebrated Jas’ birthday at a superb Indian restaurant just around the corner.

During the week I had a taste of the other great activities at Hive, from research to editing. Having spent time with Kieran learning about executing ideas, I fully grasped the idea of a patient focused healthcare agency. However, it was the client side request for the advertising that specifically intrigued me in addition to the innovative solutions at Hive.

It was with this interest in brand planning that I was fortunate enough to speak with Kathryn, who suggested that I would make most immediate use of my experience on the client side of pharmaceutical marketing. This made so much sense considering that my most simulating experiences so far involved understanding the raison d’etre for the various strands of client briefs. I thought to myself, “I want to be the person who writes these briefs!”

It was from this perspective that I continued with my work experience. The week ended even more glamorously than the start; an all day photo shoot! Working with an acute eye for detail for nine hours certainly works cogs, but by the end of the day we had a master piece to show for it!

On my way home from the photo studio, I was clear in my mind that I’d enjoy nothing more than working with the talented creative and strategic professionals at Hive from the client side.

So thank you to the entire team for my short, sweet and incredibly useful time at Hive!

At the weekend a palm reader told me I would write a book someday. That and I’d meet a handsome man with a head of blond hair, a white van and a posh voice, but I digress. I’ve never seen myself as much of a writer but perhaps, after being ‘persuaded’ to write this blog about myself, it might inspire me to action. So bear with me as I grapple with some words and phrases and try vainly to bring these together into a short summary as to how I came to join the Hive team, what I think of them so far (!), and my hopes and aspirations moving forwards; passing my probation could hang on this.

With three and a half years under my belt working in a small Med Ed team in a large agency I was looking for a new challenge. Meeting the directors at Hive quickly confirmed that this could be it. A committed team, with a new approach to healthcare comms; placing patients at the heart of the strategic process with lashings of healthcare professional insight. Also a pharmacist by trade, I’ve seen the effect of poor communication and a lack of consideration for the individual time and again, so this certainly makes sense. Sealing the deal though for me was their evident commitment to innovation and creativity in their approach, whatever the problem. Why do something as you’ve done it before, if it can be done better and in a novel and interesting way?

I’m being asked for my opinion on lots of things. I just hope that they really do subscribe to the “no idea is a bad idea” concept as I cautiously tender my suggestions for the new office…

If you are in-and-around 30, at some point in the next couple of weeks you have to pay your respects to John Hughes by watching his back catalogue on Sky.

Having watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Breakfast Club this week  I was transported back to sunny days, teen angst and North Devon College. Brilliant.

I have just been told by Michael that JH started out as a copywriter working on KFC. Now I know this – I think you can kind of see it. Really sparse scripts that drip with authenticity. Defined characters, superbly handled tone and reality. It smacks of TV commercial talent. That stoned-library-dance-scene still makes me laugh out loud.

I am confident that Ferris Bueller was our James Dean. With this in mind we are giving away a DVD copy of Ferris Bueller’s day off to the best JH film quote submitted via comments.

Having met Helen at a Cambridge-milk-round-thing, I got in contact and last week completed a weeks work experience. Part of the deal was that I promised to summarise my time for anyone who has the foresight to want to try this out!

As the week drew nearer and the more I thought about it, the less I realised I knew about the company, heathcare, communications and hands on science. My cluelessness was sorted in my first day after a chat with Ian – its dead easy – their world is all about conversations, stories and who’s involved.

On arrival at my desk, I was greated by my pretty full timetable for the week. To the inexperienced work experiencer this probably sounds like a bit of a nightmare. WRONG.  My week was full things to do, which was brilliant. Whatsmore, these things didn’t involve any photocopying or tea making, but casting, filming, editing, proofing and the odd lunch, amongst other stuff.

This is part of the reason my week was so good. I got a varied look at what goes on at Hive and all the different modes of communication they utilise. All the team were patient and took the time out to help me out and explain things.

It was interesting to get an insight into what I now know as strategy/marketing/branding of new and old drugs as well as looking at novel ways to converse with the end user.

To me it seems Hive likes to look for a different angle on things, which is challenging and creates a good bit of office banter.

It was good to be a part.

Digging around for free multimedia content I found this charming little healthcare story. Produced in 1948 by Halas and Batchelor  an animation company founded by John Halas and his wife Joy Batchelor two pretty inspirational people. The company started small and grew to be the largest and most influential animation studio in Western Europe. From small beginnings in 1940, they made over 2000 films and earned an international reputation for fine animation extending the medium to explain complex ideas with clarity and humour.

8 1/2 minutes seems crazily long now given our obsession with the 30 sec TVC and the interuptive nature of much or our marketing. But watching this the charm, execution and humour grabbed me way and beyond my usual attention span. It’s pretty interesting to see that COI communications seems to have taken a backward step when it comes to explaining change to the man in the street.

All ‘new’ industries strive for legitimacy, a movement that is often accompanied by an entire lexicon of terminology and process. For a long time we have been developing terminology and processes that seek to formulate an approach, clarify our position and differentiate our offer. The world of  demand chains,  brand onions and disruption is one that all clients and agencies occupy.

Case in point is the numerous phrases that describe essentially the same thing — brand essence. Some networks have gone so far as to trademark their terms and the processes they use for determination. End result = terminology galore and as much process explanation as strategic clarification.

Spending some time on holiday last week – I revisited Kotler (it was this or be left with a book about a girl in love with a complex man she couldn’t love in the world within which she had to live and her struggle to make do with an empty life with a simple but good man who provided everything he could but not enough for her to be happy) – a comparitively magnificent book on marketing that I first brought to enlighten me when I first came into the industry. It’s a dry read and although wanders into the theoretical it’s pretty refreshing in its lack of terms.

I like Kotler’s steadfast use of the term Unique Selling Proposition (in my mind a potential forerunner of brand essence), a concept developed and named by Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Company. A 50 year old term that has stood the test of time and been universally adopted. Some argue that with the advent of product parity it has evolved into the Emotional Selling Proposition. ESP is certainly a concept much closer to our common understanding of “brand essence,” as its focus is on the brand’s intangible differentiator. Although I find it hard to believe that me-too products are a recent phenomenon I think that the ‘U’ still stands up whether that be a feature led ‘portability’ or due to some emotional unmet need like ‘popularity’. Either way to be unique emotionally or functionally is still to be different.

This book seems to either have been penned prior to or has ignored the multitude of copyrighted verbs describing the logical processes for develop brands by agencies needing with some irony, you guessed it – a USP. I would love to see each agencies model worked through with their own brand – please someone in procurement construct this legend! Two birds (process understanding & agency offer) with 1 stone. Please, please, discounted please.

Reviewing the alternatives to Rosser’s, here is a collection of words and phrases used to describe what is unique about a brand:  Brand Essence, Brand Soul, Brand Heart, Brand Mantra, Brand Promise, Signature Strength, Core Strength, Core Attribute, Brand Description, Brand Differentiator, Brand Uniqueness, Brand Individuality, Brand Meaning, Brand’s Central Nature, Brand Proposition…

Any more?

 As usual Tom Fishburne’s nailed the process here.

Ps. A note to purists: I admit that there may be shades of difference between some of these terms. You could make a case that brand personality and brand promise, for example, mean two completely different things. My point is that the differences are largely semantical and do little to advance the clarity of the branding process.

Being alright at business and communication strategy paid off this week.

Ian and I have worked together for years, our relationship is based upon a love of business, strategy, people, solving problems and a really good wrangle. It’s this that got us to Hive – thank god for the wrangle and gardening leave! 

Every now and then one of us gets an invite to help a mate out with a business. It usually starts off with – ‘I am a bit stuck with growth/selling/marketing/what we do/core offers/branding etc’. What follows is often a moderately informed conversation taking what we have learnt from pharma strategy and transferring this knowledge to their industry. It’s good for them, and really helps us look at our core skills and apply them to different business – its business case studies in the flesh. The best type of learning.

This time around the company in case was a Helicopter management company. Ian and I invited to an afternoon session with the management team. We were tasked with helping them crystallise sources of growth, audience segmentation, prioritisation and marketing. This company manages a load of £6-11 million choppers owned by big billionaires who are flown all over Europe, or even flown into town to do some shopping.

It’s afternoons like this that I really enjoy and learn loads from. But also it leads to an appreciation of pharma. We often kid ourselves that our industry is very different to others that we forget that we are packed with transferable skills. Knowing how to market to patients and HCPs is pretty much exactly like any consumer or business to business world. What we know is useful to so many.

Anyway, the thoroughly interesting meeting finished, we with a new found understanding of the billionaire aircraft market, and the management team with load of decisions made/avenues to explore. I was getting slightly nervous about trains from Surrey as I needed to get to Camden for a birthday do.  Across the table came the best offer I have had for a while, ‘we are flying up to town to pick up X’s girlfriend, who is doing some shopping – we could drop you off on the way’. No sooner had it been said I was packed and stuffing diagram filled flipchart paper in my bag.

I left Ian driving back to Hampshire as I boarded the £6 millon Eurocopter,  sat reclined in grey leather, followed the river at 165mph and was dropped off just in time to make the first pint in Camden.

Got to love healthcare.

On Wednesday, Kieran and I went to see the BP ‘Classified’ exhibition at the Tate Britain. Two things stood out for me and really got me thinking. 

The first was an oil painting by Gillian Carnegie. Using only black paint she’s created an amazing picture of trees, which seems to have more texture and atmosphere than a coloured painting would have had.

But what made her decide to do it in just black?

The second was a collection of sculptures by Jake and Dinos Chapman. At first glance they look like traditional aborigine sculptures, but when you look closer there are numerous references to McDonalds. It’s a comment on our lack of understanding and appreciation of the culture that this type of art originates from, and also on our own culture, and the predominance of huge commercial organisations such as Maccy D’s.

Again, it’s such a clever idea, but what made them think of it?

At Hive, our business is built on doing things differently, thinking in a different way. But it’s all too easy to get stuck thinking ‘differently’ – and then different becomes the same. The challenge is to keep finding the inspiration to think outside an ever-changing box.

We just won a pitch. A product we have been chasing for months. Hive day one started with a call to this marketing manager then I made up 2 office chairs to sit on. Seriously, its been this long.

It’s a biggie, a parent proof product. “Oh I’ve heard of that” replacing “What’s Commerce Anxiety Disorder”. My mum even wanted to star in the behavioural change application mock-up.  She got her dream. She had to be 67 and meek and mild – which caused a few issues as she has been 47 for as long as I can remember.

Today we visited a big glass building with fountains and manicured gardens, went to discuss examples of our work that correlated to their problem. “Makes sense but where has it worked before” – A cry we can now answer with examples and metrics.  Team back at the office nervously waiting. Hoping we closed the deal. Jackets on and shoes all shiny. We got it. This afternoon I made up our 15^th and 16^th chair.

Our new clients mentioned the passion (probably more nerves and need than anything) and about how different our offer is. It got me thinking and wandering around the web on my return in post win daze and stumbled back across a blog I haven’t been to for ages http://headrush.typepad.com/. The blog champions passion in business. The blog that I crashed into covered the difference between what we now consider “old-school marketing” (otherwise known as The Four P’s — product, price, promotion, and placement — heavy on advertising and “branding”) and the “neo-marketing”  which we consider our end of town.

Here are a few ideas on some of the differences all a light read on a Monday am.

I have always loved the Communiqué Awards.

I attended as a young receptionist in 1997, when a last min cancellation led to a free place. Packed with PRs, booze and disco I was awed by the scale of such an event.

>>FastForward a considerably amount of time.

The evolution of our agency can be tracked by our approach to awards do’s. Year 1 saw us crash them all. The SAS of healthcare – business cards in hand, old contacts to be hunted out – driving business, mindful of our outgoings. I even remember being particularly proud of myself when I was thrown into an awards do in Chelsea by the security whilst pretending to be drunk and lost outside. As I brushed myself off and walked into the tent, I saw Jas coming out of the kitchens carrying a tray and Ian vaulting the outside wall, undergrowth-covered suit and all. Brilliant.

This year sees us attend the multitude of do’s a little more legitimately – We even paid for a table! I hope we never lose the ability to act like we did in the early days; efficient, streetwise and none too serious..

The Communiqués this year saw over 300 PR and Med Ed entries received and judged by a panel of communications professionals. One of those entries was for us.

The submission date for Best Small Consultancy landed during a day when it all was happening for us – two pitches, 1 review and a rather boozy board meeting. Staggeringly the resulting page saw us be shortlisted to a list of 4 agencies.

The subsequent interview, held with 15 big hitters, covered such delights as people, differentiation, margin and funding. We emerged eventually, confirmed as finalists. That surreal afternoon –Ian, Jas and I answering questions with seeming sense – was one we have recounted to each other many times. Thoroughly enjoyable – it all made so much sense.

Last night we attended the awards do to hear the announcement of winner. Our whole team was crammed on a table with more champagne than the table could bear. The tension built and the announcement was made and guess what?

WE DIDN’T WIN!

There is nothing worse than seeing a whole table disappointed at a result, gutted. Despite being totally over the moon to be a finalist, and to be highly commended,  it’s still a punch when you lose.

However, we did manage a clear victory in a dance-off with the award winners and will just have to make do with Highly Commended.

We hope being in the finals gives new clients the confidence to try our offer, to pick up the phone and let us share our approach. We really are a little different.

Damn. 

Every now and then we head out to see an individual talk about some mildly relevant subject. Last night – saw us be invited to Super Contemporary and a few hours with Wayne Hemingway – talking to 50 of us about design, inspiration, and life.

The Design Museum has joined forces with Beefeater 24, to bring a series of talks and gin to celebrate the fearlessly progressive spirit of London’s greatest creative minds, past and present. We were lucky enough to be invited along. Read more about Wayne here.  

Wayne was pretty insistent that us in the creative world;

1.  Stick to our guns and hold on to our principles despite the risk of missing out on short term cash. Do what you want to do, not what you need to do. 
2. Know our customer as well as we can. Research them, be with them, and understand them. For God’s sakes don’t hide in the office. See the white of their eyes. 
3. Understand that environments need to be built that fosters creativity. Gives space to make mistakes. Let the kids do it their way. Expect anyone to be able to do anything, give them the freedom to conclude themselves.
4. Champion the evolution. Humans instinctively want something better. They know when they are making do, OK is not a natural human state. But only very few ‘intolerants’ make a difference and change it. So be one.

At no time did regulatory, PI, sales aids or brand planning feature. But the 2 hours was so valuable and a real delight. How can this be beaten? Well – the next one sees us with Paul Smith. We have a couple of tickets spare – shout if you want to come along –  beapart@hivehealth.com.

Apparently when the Romans used the term Genius they referred to a disembodied thing that lived  in the walls of an artists studio. The artist was a channel for this being  and when their creativity bombed it took the heat, when they soared they were kept in their place by the assumption that they were part of this process but not the foundation for it.

I found this out via this little gem with Elizabeth Gilbert, a writer and loved her view on ego, creativity, struggle and the role of hard slog and luck.

Guillaume is here, our new art director and a maestro of multimedia and graphic design. He is an inspired artist, working away from the dayjob on a number of digital projects.

Guillaume stood out in interviews as a most talented, kind individual with a fascinating career backdrop. He has worked in places as diverse as Mexico, where he re-designed the façade of the World Trade Centre, to the British Council, where he loitered on the contemporary art scene.

We were  firstly attracted to his digital expertise: what clinched it is that he is also  a fantastic art director. He has worked for the likes of Damien Hirst,  BMW, and some jeans company called Levi’s…and loads more.

He is getting on with some great work for our nascent digital business e-Bee. Thanks Guillaume for joining us at Hive, and for putting up nicely with us calling you “Giam”.

Jackson’s impact on American pop music cannot be overstated. His signature vocal style, dance moves and military-inspired fashion sense also influenced pop culture worldwide.  Thriller will alway remain for me the one album  my parents owned that was skill.  

Last night saw us all head up to Taste of London, a brilliant food filled evening. Despite a security alert which caused late opening, all of us celebrated having a great few months filled with cracking work for great brands.

We sampled dozens of dishes, favourites being; the sardine pie, scallop and cauliflower puree from Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, the Pork from the Cinnamon Kitchen. Pretty special English Chapel Down Pink fizz started us off with a dozen or so oysters and Guillaume our digital guru ended us with viognier that was from just down the road from his parents house.

Our ever loving ears hearken once more to the digital pitter patter of patient empowerment.  UCB Pharma have partnered with patientslikeme.com to bring an Epilepsy community to the site.

Patientslikeme.com is a privately owned initiative that encourages patients to post details about themselves. This real world, outcome-based data is shared with individuals and organisations who work to improve health outcomes, including pharmaceutical companies, research organizations, and non-profits.

30% of epilepsy patients are refractory to treatment, so this move is good news for patients, HCPs and even competing Pharma. Over 37,000 patients are already registered on the site as well as 3,000 caregivers. Any epilepsy community should include the voice of caregivers, as a significant proportion of epilepsy sufferers are elderly or have learning disabilities.

Patientslikeme.com doesn’t just collect data from patients, it provides quality information and allows them to blog and communicate with peers. It’s a site that really does seem to have patients’ interest at heart. That’s why we like it – and so congratulate UCB for being a part.

But it should be. Buried in amongst the papers this morning was the announcement from Sanofi-aventis of their intention to donate 100 million influenza vaccine doses to the developing world via the WHO. Well done Sanofi. See if you can find it on the BBC.

Sanofi-aventis to donate 100 million doses of pandemic influenza vaccine to WHO
Sanofi-aventis CEO Chris Viehbacher announced Wednesday that the company plans to make a donation of 100 million doses of influenza vaccine to the World Health Organization to help developing countries confront the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic. Speaking at the Pacific Health Summit, Viehbacher stated that “the future of our industry is linked to the healthcare solutions that will be found for emerging countries,” and added that the donation is being made in support of WHO Director-General Margaret Chan’s “call for common action to fight the pandemic.”

A study conducted by a team of researchers at King’s College London has revealed that public understanding of basic anatomy is extremely poor, and has not improved in 40 years.

The researchers asked more than 700 people to look at outlines of both a male and female body and identify which of several shaded areas was a particular organ. The results are shocking. Less than half the respondents could correctly place the heart, while under one-third could place the lungs in their correct location. Interestingly, even those respondents for whom the organ had a relevance performed poorly – for example, more than half of those with renal problems did not correctly identify the location of the kidneys. These findings don’t exactly fit with the picture of the modern, tech-savvy, informed patient that lives in my head.

The researchers also said their findings raise concerns about doctor-patient communication. No shit. Try having a meaningful conversation with a quantum physicist about string theory, without knowing what strings are or where they live. I tried. It’s difficult. Especially when drunk.

And, with the introduction of patient choice in healthcare, concerns about health illiteracy are only become graver. Should Joe Public, who doesn’t know his prostate from his pancreas, really be at the helm when it comes to his healthcare? Would you let me, a copywriter, service your car? Didn’t think so.

This, by the way, is not an argument against patient choice. But, let’s get realistic. The patient needs advice, information and support before being able to take on the role of ‘healthcare chooser’. Or, at the very least, lessons in basic anatomy.

Play Me, I’m Yours is an arts project by artist Luke Jerram and  part of the mayor’s Sing London event, and has already been successfully run in Birmingham and Sydney. Each piano is decorated by an artist with a site-specific motif, attended to by a full-time tuner who bikes from place to place ensuring a clean middle C, and accompanied by a songbook.  The instruments are essentially be left to their own devices across london with the public “trusted” (lucky us) not to vandalise them.

Here’s a  one of  our finest who stumbled across our local piano in Broadwick Street after a hearty lunch.

Something both exciting and unique happened to me in 1991…….

I bought my first 12 inc record album. The band was called The Prodigy and the album was called Experience and I had managed to purchase a limited edition white sleeve special. The slick minimalist style of the cover contrasted vastly with the atmospheric colouring and transient use of typography within the inner sleeve. The music was an array of cutting edge sounds and lyrics mixed with mesmerising beats and a unique series of piano keys. Fast forward 18 years and the band are once again proving that they see design as an essential ingredient in expressing their music.

The use of animated graphics in the new video for Warriors Dance  is truly magical and inspiring….

A report today by the BBC confirms what many of us have been expecting. The NHS has a big problem looming. Now I’m not an economist and my understanding of the financial levers required to prop up the economy in a downturn are pretty non existent, but I do understand what has happened before. Recessions hit tax revenues (less people working) and so the Government has less to spend. Even if we ignore all the other stuff like quantitative easing and budget deficits the simple fact remains, money is tight, and its going to get tighter. Add to this an ageing population, the threat of pandemic viruses and a grossly over-administered system the impact on the health service has no choice that to be considerable. Inevitably the spectre of large scale cost cutting, drug tariff pressure and even new drug prescription caps become the norm. There is no doubt in my mind that our industry and our clients business are in for difficult years as soon as the election is called. The policy maker the BBC interviewed called it 7 years of pain from 2011 . In my humble opinion the industry future requires us to be more innovate in the way we plan and launch new treatments, more cognisant of who needs to have meaningful relationships with medicines and more accommodating of the multiple layers of influence that will become normal. It’s true that innovation normally is more prevalent in crisis and whilst no one welcomes what is going on, I am confident that through adversity will come opportunity. We need to mirror the radical reform that our principal customer will undergo, recognise that doing what we have always done will not change anything and embrace the need for new thinking. Thankfully, that’s sort of why we set up…

When you kick off a new business you end up with responsibilities for office services that you would rather do without. In the early days, due to my inability to say no to the rep I landed stationery. Those who I worked for at Shire Health International will know the hilarity of this – I have come full circle – I am sure next week will see me run out and put coins in metres for account directors!

In the less busy days of early last year I grabbed every order of paper, pens, and flipcharts as an indication that we were growing like mad. In the more recent days we all order from our desktops preventing me from any clear sign of growth. Alas I am only left with the P&L and feel from the office on our progress!

My paper guys of choice were Viking – always on time, always in stock, cheap as any and returns were near effortless. A valued if commoditised supplier, products that did what they did and communication that focused on stock lines and deals.

Then out of the blue came an email from Nigel, Viking’s Online Community Manager with an invite to climb aboard a platform on which all of their customers interact, discuss and share ideas on how they and the stationery industry as a whole can get better.

Like most I haven’t aired everything I have felt on stationery. Starting up has been a busy time and stationery although important is pretty low down the list (except when we run out of recycled laser paper during a pitch). Items on this website – span recommendations for ‘Start-up’ kits for new businesses, conference packages, more automatic ordering systems and alternative approaches to pricing.

Kicking these ideas into the business is a team of back office ‘Idealists’ whose job is to investigate the most popular ideas and report back on them on the site and I hope push them into the business.

For a supplier of commodities I thought this was at least a progressive move, a potential pragmatic source of innovation and at most a potential brilliant business driver. See what you think here.

You make a mistake, you fall over, it hurts, you cry.  Next time you’ll have learnt a little bit more and maybe you won’t fall over so much.

How do you learn to diagnose and treat a patient?

Text books, lectures, cadavers, consultant shadowing, making a mistake, mis-diagnosis, failed treatment, dead patient. Next time you’ll have learnt a little bit more and maybe the patient will survive.

Obviously this is exaggerated to push the point that we learn by our mistakes. But with medical training there’s tension between the need for real-world training and learning in a safe environment. The second life training used by Imperial College creates immersive clinical training in a safe virtual world to practice skills and teach behaviours (like hand washing, and checking for patient record inconsistencies).  Take a look at this.

So how do we apply this to the pharma industry?

Well, it depends on the training need. For acute conditions rapid assessment, treatment, surgical skills and safety are paramount. For chronic conditions the training need often includes consultation skills to promote patient engagement and compliance with treatment.

Case-based scenarios are ideal for this. By mimicking the real-life decision path that HCPs go down to make an appropriate diagnosis and treatment, scenarios can be used to promote the adoption of new language and change behaviour towards new consultation techniques. Call us if you want us to take a look at the examples we’ve developed so far and how this can work for your brand.

And, finally how do the MOD use this method for sniper training? Well if you’re tough enough, you can have a go yourself  here.

 Almost a year ago I wrote an article on POM to P, a call for pharmacy to embrace the opportunity that new P brands offer. I stand by my argument that pharmacists’ role in consultation gives value to the consumer and allows pharmacy to become true healthcare providers of the high street.

A year on the opportunity arrives. We are proud to have been an intrinsic part of the launch of alli, a landmark pharmacy launch and arguably the most successful pharmacy switch ever. What is so important about alli is that the consultation is a critical part of the offer – more interaction than transaction. It’s a launch that emphasises pharmacy’s shift from a provider of products to an enabler of positive behavioural change. With alli, pharmacists must outline the personal commitment essential to weight loss, help consumers understand their responsibilities and manage their expectations.

To date both pharmacy and consumers have embraced this brand wholeheartedly. GSK have invested heavily in training and pharmacy have enrolled for that training at an unprecedented rate. It feels that this is the switch pharmacy are really going to get behind, proving once and for all that broader access to treatments is good for manufacturers, good for pharmacy, and most importantly good for us all.

Time will tell…

I saw something this morning in The Guardian (Monday’s media day – stereotype me!). It seems that many in the TV world are struggling to build shows/brands that can spread across the range of media channels that exist today.

Stephen Armstrong’s article highlights emotional charged teen drama Skins as a successful example. He states that in these times of hardship the need to create successful media brands that deliver more than one programme, spur numerous spins offs across the multi-media landscape has never been more acute. Despite a complete change in cast and writers audience loyalty has remained, viewer contribute to stories, costumes, download the unsigned soundtrack, upload their tunes and even write scripts that are then filmed as webisodes. The shows co-creator Brian Elsley puts this ongoing channel neutral success down to staying close to their audience, being careful when selecting storylines and never letting their audience feel that they are alone.

We tend to be OK stretching our brands across media – admittedly in a less competitive world that entertainment. But this all sounded relevant to our world, especially when we are planning franchise offerings, extensions and channel planning.

PS – thanks to Ian for the headline his best to date

It’s been interesting watching the unfolding pandemic and the approach taken by the DoH.

We have just won a HIV portfolio pitch and I am getting up to speed with patient comms, and its hard not to contrast this with how HIV/AIDs were dealt with in the early days.  Although a different kettle of fish the approach to communications has evolved thank God and much has been written on the development of the campaign and its subsequent panic and confusion.  

As our pandemic appears not to be living up to our initial fears its been a fascinating time to review the communications issued and the civilized approach that has been taken. Even our press, not known for their calm nature with a health story, seems to have calmed down and now tow the line when it comes to panic reduction.  With the exception of Sky News who still go live to every suspected cold in Guatemala.

I like the TV ad , I think its cooked well and does information provision in a simple way to-the-point way. Although I do find the ‘your all going down’  line a little unhelpful. The mailer that popped through the door a few days ago, alongside the leaflet given out at Angel Tube this morning and much of what I have seen on TV spokesman is integrated. The channels are pretty aligned around one strategy – we need to keep the population focused on their role. It’s given me something to do rather than worry. Although the rep in me does cry out for campaign branded tissue giveaways.

Is this is the equivalent of a nice cup of tea post bombshell? A task for us to concentrate on instead of getting all chicken liken. When I view the early iceberg/don’t die of ignorance/AIDS campaign they just confuse and scare me. They smack of a group of people who didn’t  know what to do, so they packed away their leadership and shared their panic with the nation.

Of course sneezing into tissues is a big part of reducing down the transmission of flu but given the loads of other methods  of transference could this be a finger in an ever gushing dyke. Does this mean that panic control has been prioritized over disease control? Regardless –  its been successful and bloody interesting.

Currently doing the rounds is a bizarre document, supposedly produced by the Arnell Group during their recent redesign of the Pepsi logo. It employs complex SCIENCE to justify the logo’s redesign, including (but not limited to): the Golden Ratio, the Earth’s geodynamo, magnetic fields and magnetic dynamics, the analysis of multiple perspectives, and colour theory. Oh, and somehow the relativity of space and time are involved.

Every page of this document is more ridiculous than the last, culminating with an explanation of a process whereby Pepsi’s new logo will manifest its own gravitational pull (see above). Incredible. Some argue the document is authentic, others that it’s a hoax. I think it’s an extremely successful viral marketing campaign, run by the Arnell Group on behalf of Pepsi. Probably.

This might be a good time to mention that the new logo is basically the same as the old one, except that it now looks a bit more like a lopsided grin.

As Helen and I drove down the M6 in the rain yesterday, something struck me…..

In 1996, I travelled – I had no email, no mobile phone – my family got a postcard every couple of weeks

In 1997, I started at university – they gave us a clunky email that resembled an MS-DOS screen – we thought it was great

In 2000, I did a PGCE – for the first time I used the internet for research – my paper on health education for behaviour change was largely in debt to online publications

Here we are in 2009, not a huge number of years later, and Helen and I were driving down the M6 after meeting the Head of the Pharmacy School at Keele University. What he showed us was mind blowing!

They have developed the virtual patient – an avatar called Shirley who walks up to the pharmacy counter, coughs, snuffles and waits for you to start the conversation. Depending on what you, as the pharmacist, chose to say or do, Shirley will respond. The prototype is using text input, but the future masterpiece version will use voice recognition.  It’s ingenious and totally captivating!

The consultation scenario that Shirley demonstrates is based on a decision tree algorithm – an interlinking set of questions, answers and decision points that dictate what Shirley will say and do. These algorithms are incredibly complex to build, we know, because we have just completed our first set for the alli launch that has been used to train pharmacists across the land. We’re very proud of the work we’ve done so far, but I can’t help wanting to take scenario training to the next level.

In the city of Portland, Oregon, ‘Mrs. Smith’ has invited Intel Corp to equip her house and its contents with hi-tech sensors. These sensors map Mrs. Smith’s movements through her home, and measure her average stride length. They note the volume at which she speaks, and the amount of time it takes her to recognise her granddaughter on the telephone. They keep track of her nocturnal activity, including bathroom trips, midnight snacks, and ‘romantic encounters’. Urgh.

Researchers at Intel Corp will translate this data into a ‘behavioural baseline’ for Mrs. Smith. Any deviation from the norm could be a signal that something is amiss. Although research is at an early stage, it is hoped that the technology will eventually be able to recognise the patterns of behaviour that are characteristic of certain early-stage diseases, like Alzheimer’s.

It would currently take many years to determine if Mrs. Smith was developing dementia, and this technology shows promise to shorten this timeframe considerably. Early diagnosis translates into improved outcomes, and so intelligent houses may become an efficacious (although expensive) healthcare intervention. However, as with all nascent technology, many people are worried about the potential for abuse. You’d be worried too, if you’d seen Demon Seed.

Having hit the brand planning season, with flipcharts and by post-it notes a weekly occurrence I met with a strategist mate who suggested with much mirth that informed dictatorship is by far and away the best way of coming up with battle plans.

He is a military strategist, quotes Von Clausewitz  a lot, and never had to work in primary care – so I am sure he doesn’t know what tough is!

These conversations always get me thinking, our terminology is military, our challenges (resources, prioritisation, superiority) pretty similar, perhaps we have something in common. In his world having non-strategists risk being the rate limiting step to your campaign success is a fear well founded. The use of strategic development time to drive interdepartmental buy-in made him visibly nervous, and prompted him to suggest we should settle on a good old game of Rock, Paper, Scissors when approaching “strategy by consensus”.

His tips were as follows;
1. Play paper first. Rookies tend to lead with rock, so paper is the safest opener. (A savvy opponent will try the same, causing a tie.) If you win, claim victory; if not, start the next throw right away, because of course it’s two out of three.
2. Exploit copycats. Casual players often switch to the object that just beat them. You can encourage them to do this by shouting, “Paper wins!” when you defeat their rock. Then throw scissors on the next round.
3. Watch for doubles. People rarely throw the same hand three times in a row; if they play scissors twice, your next move is paper. Also, keep up the pace so they have less time to think and instead fall into patterns.

So that’s all solved then!

My friend Kate sat in my kitchen looking through a pile of papers. Then she laughed a short, scornful laugh:

“Wikipedia? Why would you print anything off Wikipedia?”

Silence.  A loose ball of cat hair tumbleweeded past.

I stirred the tea and hung my head. Why can’t I get into good debate with Kate? She makes me feel dumb. Nevertheless, I had to talk to someone about my thoughts on Wikipedia.

Unlike a real life Encyclopedia you need two hands to carry, Wikipedia is generated and edited by its users. There’s an article for just about every search term out there, and it’s often the first link on the search results page.

What came first, Wikipedia’s popularity or its accessibility?

Anyway, thousands of iterations by users shape a package of apparently relevant, well structured content, updated into real time. But with any piece of information plucked from the net, you should fact check your finds against your own research.  

For very casual research, I don’t have a problem with Wikipedia. It is fairly obvious to see which content has been approved by a substantial body of readers. And we know that scientific rigour is based in sample size. 2 approvals – not very rigorous, 200 approvals – much better. However, it’s true that we don’t know what these people are agreeing upon. I have never really checked out the references (not called references but “Notes” – suspicious).

Obviously Wikipedia was never made to fly with academia. There is also this satirist who calls Wikipedia an example of “truthiness” – the repurposing of “gut feeling” as equivalent to hard evidence.

Then again, Wikipedia is a soft target because it’s such an annoying buzzword. It’s high street, common, unfashionable. It’s in the distressing realm of the hyper-real (Wiki isn’t a real word). It symbolises our separation from what we were… think of the massive encyclopedia clutched to the chest with tiny child hands…the effort of finding the page we wanted.

But it should be fashionable for at least a couple of reasons – it’s free, it doesn’t make any money, it’s community-led.

People wanna get their facts straight!

I had a conversation with a man who works with us sometimes, Dan. He recently stopped smoking with the help of nicotine replacement therapy. I too have banished the need to smoke. I didn’t do it with NRT though – I tried that a few years ago and fell off the wagon too soon. I have also tried tablets, but misread the label and got the dosing wrong in the first week.

I was kidding myself both times. To tackle an addiction physiologically you need to be 100% committed. That’s tough, especially when you don’t feel all that addicted in the first place. Hence the behavioural support programmes that accompany smoking cessation products.

Maybe you think you enjoy smoking, but know that in the main you are insensibly compelled to do it. The truth is, cigarettes are nice, but so fiendishly addictive that most people develop a mutually abusive relationship with them. That’s when you notice the downsides.

When it’s time to get serious, call on the wise. Attend a reliable support group. NHS, Allen Carr, NRT support plans will help you make your decision.  Of course, simply attending these sessions/ reading the literature will remind you that smoking doesn’t do it for you. Not one cigarette nor a million will make you a better person.

It is a horrible, angry feeling, a ciggie craving. I experienced it for many years. Then I took a closer look. It’s not just a nicotine request. A craving is an unheard demand from childhood. It’s an oral fixation. It’s the left hand feeling left out when the right hand holds a drink. It’s a simple desire to tune out for ten minutes. A habit that shrinks as the weeks go on.

Of course, there are certain benefits to smoking. It gives you Time Out, staves off hunger, is proven to enhance short term memory, etc. Considering the price of being a smoker, I can do without those things. If you can’t, make a plan to compensate. 

Nobody should be surprised that obesity has overtaken smoking as a cause of death. Smoking is not a natural urge. Sleeping or eating is. Babies, rabbits, budgies, will all attack you for food. Light a fag and they scatter.

It’s okay to want to smoke a little bit, here and there. But if you’ve been addicted before, you must avoid forever. Keep reminding yourself of what makes sense, and you’ll be fine.

Layer Tennis is a series of live design events on Friday afternoons presented by Adobe® Creative Suite® 4.

What the hell’s layer tennis? Two competitors swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a “volley” which is then posted that to a site live.

Way back when in the misty days – Layer Tennis was called “Photoshop Tennis”. A few old schoolers remember that to-the-death match with Derek Powazek against Heather Champ. Anyway, the match was going along well when Heather played this for volley six and then all of the sudden Derek disappeared from the backstage chat-room. In a beautifully creative move, Derek printed out volley six, crumbled it up, took it outside, stapled it to a telephone poll, took a picture of it, formatted that picture and posted it as his volley seven. So cool.

The players may be designers, animators, illustrators or pretty much anything else, and they can use any tool or application they like. The match progresses volley by volley. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action as it happens.

The match lasts for ten volleys and when it’s complete, Season Ticket Holders sound off and we declare a winner. Its brilliant and a design joy.

Today sees an All-UK Layer Tennis match featuring Simon Cook vs.Rex Crowle with commentary by Anne Ward.  First serve at 4pm. Get your tickets here.

The word is civil, a very English display. We were ready, leaning out the window to see real “anarchists”. A peaceful, orderly, if noisy parade. I particularly liked the man on his chitty chitty bang bang bike with wings, kites and sign saying “love your mum”.

 This being April 1^st, I was struck with a mischievous urge to write an entry for this Blog, outrageous in content, designed to mislead the gullible among you. Perhaps an in-depth account, blinding you with science, of the successful development – using recombinant DNA techniques – of a novel species, based on genetic material from the Burmese ferret-badger and from a rare species of simian primate, indigenous to the Amazon rainforest, known affectionately as ‘The Spanking Monkey’ (due to elaborate social rituals, in which family members playfully tap each other). This new species – the Burmese badgerspank – is said to harbour traits from both parent species, and although the animal does seem drawn instinctively to spanking-based rituals, such urges are suppressed in most by a Buddhist-like display of restraint.

Instead, I thought I give you a rundown of my top 5 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of all time.

#1: The Left-Handed Whopper

1998. Burger King announced the introduction of a new item to their menu – the “Left-Handed Whopper”. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper, but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers.

#2: Dutch Elm Disease Infects Redheads

1973. BBC Radio broadcast an interview with an elderly academic, ‘Dr. Clothier’, who discoursed on the government’s efforts to stop the spread of Dutch Elm Disease. During the interview, Dr. Clothier described several instances of infection in redheads, where the disease caused hair to turn yellow and eventually fall out. Redheads were advised to stay away from forests for the foreseeable future.

#3: Bearskin Helmets Need Trimming

1980. Soldier magazine revealed that the fur on the bearskin helmets worn by the Irish guards while on duty at Buckingham Palace grows continually and needs to be regularly trimmed. The phenomenon was attributed to a hormone that persists in the skin – otios. Apparently, scientists hope to put the hormone use in tackling male pattern baldness. An accompanying photo showed Guardsmen sitting in an army barbershop, having their helmets trimmed.

#4. San Serriffe

1977: The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic said to consist of several semi-colon-shaped islands located in the Indian Ocean. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation.

#5. Alabama Changes the Value of Pi

1998: The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of pi to the ‘Biblical value’ of 3.0.

Sermo is a social networking site we have been following here for a little while. It’s bloody successful – 3,000,000 comments, 30,000 discussions and the largest physicians only network with around 50,000 members.  Sermo continuously reinforces its value proposition, making its community secure, more user friendly and in-line with its stated goals and vision.

The Sermo community has had a few tests over the last 8 months or so – each time with naysayers being promptly being put into place by the community. From my old politics days – it was one of the fundamentals of sovereignty that a state provides for its members during peace time and expects those members to look after it when under attack. Perhaps this tenant of nation state theory can be stretched online? I hope so – it make 3 years of my life less of a waste of time!

Initially pharma’s role in this community was seen as something to be defended against. CEO and founder of Sermo Daniel Palestrant stated in an interview with (the ridiculously named) New Paradigm; “As a doctor I thought that other doctors were tired with interacting with Pharma…then we started having more and more members of the community saying, “Hey, where’s Pharma… why aren’t they in the system?”.

Sermo sought further input asking – “Do we want Pharma in here? The result – between 60% – 80% of the community felt a need for Pharma involvement somehow.” This feedback has been taken to heart and given rise to a recent announcement a partnership with Pfizer. Reading this made me feel warm about the benefits of online communities and the requirement physicians have for us lot to be involved.

I am not a loser. But I love learning stuff.  I really delight in finding something that inspires me to alter the way I think or my understanding of things I do everyday. 

The world of online seminars, webcasts, blogs and all the other stuff can often be a source of loads of junk, often presented by some  shiny suited loon, ready to strong-grip-clammy-shake my virtual hand.

It’s not all this way – I love TED, not in a coming out way, but the global community, many million strong which is focused on exchanging and spreading ideas. Whoever you are, wherever you live, you can join the TED community. I would reccomend you do.  

TEDs latest gem – has come from Sir Ken Robinson speaking on Do schools kill creativity?  Sir Ken argues that it’s because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies – far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity – are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. 

In our business – we need creativity, whether that be conceptual, strategic or just a better way of organising the desks. I really like an approach that encourages anyone to give it a go and be prepared to get it wrong and considers this an integral part of any creative process.

A couple of weekends ago Kathryn and I had the pleasure of attending an Epilepsy Action London Forum meeting at UCL. What we experienced was truly moving, a group of people with epilepsy willing to talk to us openly about their lives. This involved laughter, tears and then more laughter. What an amazing group of individuals.

Marie, who is the Regional Services Manager for the South East told us how difficult it was for her to find the space she needs to hold these meetings. After exchanging emails with her for a few days, she sent me this message:

“I am interested in the footnote to your email about a desk in London. We sometimes need meeting places in London for committees – 8-10 people for about 2hrs is this something that this message might apply to?  ”

I replied in the affirmative. We are now hosting three meetings for Epilepsy Action at our offices over the course of the year. We are pleased and proud to be getting something a little different out of our patient-centric ethic:  the chance to help people directly, even when we’re not at work!

Children with chronic disease often fail to adhere to prescribed treatment regimens, especially self-administered treatments. This is a significant challenge to overcome. Several cognitive and motivational processes are thought to influence adherence, including: (i) knowledge about the therapy and its relationship to health; (ii) perceptions of one’s ability to influence health outcomes (perceived control); and (iii) confidence in one’s ability to meet the demands of treatment and recovery (self-efficacy). This is true of both children and adults, although the specific barriers to adherence most likely differ depending on age. Children-specific interventions to improve adherence, in my experience, fail to engage. And engagement is a necessary component of effectiveness.
Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across Re-Mission, a computer game designed to improve adherence to self-administered chemotherapy in children with cancer. In the game, players control a tiny robot, called ‘Roxxi’ (strangely attractive, see picture) within the body of a young cancer patient – the objective is to ensure that the virtual patients engage in self-care behaviours, such as taking oral chemotherapy to combat the cancer cells, taking antibiotics to fight infection, using relaxation techniques to reduce stress, and eating food to gain energy. The game is very playable, and there’s something intrinsically therapeutic about blasting the crap out of a malignant cancer cell, even for me

I know what the cynical among you are thinking, because I thought it to. Gimmick. And that’s why I was especially pleased to learn that Re-Mission had been evaluated in a peer-reviewed journal, and that the evaluation is positive. The conclusion? “The video-game intervention significantly improved treatment adherence and indicators of cancer-related self-efficacy and knowledge in adolescents and young adults who were undergoing cancer therapy. The findings support current efforts to develop effective video-game interventions for education and training in health care.“

Slightly waylaid by a wardrobe malfunction (badly behaving tights), we entered the Park Lane hotel at 7pm last night. Were instantly papped from all angles by blokes in trenchcoats. It emerged that the theme of the OTCs this year was “Newsflash”, and the organisers carried it off handsomely. Rory Bremner made us laugh and showed us the cream of 2008 consumer branding and pharmacy marketing. We look forward to seeing some of our own work up there next time – our press dates fell outside of the judging window this year.

After the awards, we distributed vodka shots to the masses with the usual indelible stamps.  These contained real Manuka honey (good for you).

One small disappointment – we left our complementary box of chocs on the table. Ian is gutted, what with Mothers Day just around the corner…

It’s not often within our blog that we end with an offer of something. We have tended to use the blog as a way of shouting, chatting, ranting, or whispering a view held by someone within. But…

…we are coming to the end of a sizable project for the NHS to help understand and develop communications strategy, and having spent a month wandering the countryside running group sessions with practice managers, GPs, cluster heads, management and directors.

Getting close up and personal has been nothing but a learning experience. Not only in terms of the levels of influence geography, personality and demography have on strategy and implementation, but also in terms of the consistent views that these groups have on the pharma world. We have been using pharma activity as a baseline comparison for communications approach and tactical execution. But also constantly drawing comparisons with the challenges that pharma have faced and solved and the challenges that exist for the NHS. Centrally dictated strategy, regional focus, localised resistance, the role of local representatives, consistency of tone, internal buy in, and the sliding scale between command and latitude all are massive issues for everyone. The industry has consistently been reported by the groups as good communicators, great at training, and generally good to have around. With the ever present caveat as always trying to sell something.

As an agency we are increasingly invited to join in meetings with NHS liaison departments, working alongside them in a consultancy role to help build strategic partnership and hunt down joint working projects. In contrast to the ground troops, the NHS directors we speak to are all uncertain about the risks of engaging with pharma. Mistrust and uncertainty being justified with tales of burnt fingers during various ‘nurse audits’ and other provided services where they have felt at least “tainted” or at most “turned over”.

I cannot help but feel on the tale end of this project that a good place to start would be to offer an olive branch, in areas that are often alien; internal communications, remote command and control, inspiration and engagement. All what we consider bread and butter to the pharma world. The lessons we learn rolling out a campaign across 20 markets in Europe for Alli recently are directly relevant to a regional role out of World Class Commissioning.  

The very present need for short term ROI doesn’t help this, you need to be in a relationship to benefit with it, and at some point a risk has to be taken by one of the parties. To put their faith in the medium/longer term potential of developing this relationship.

I feel that our current world with reps being the main NHS interface is not far from being extinct, and those companies that make a first move will be best placed in the brave new world. I would love to speak further to anyone who would listen on this – we have an idea that might help with this first step.

Why is an enormous pencil case resting on my stack of clinicals? Got a few pitches on. Here is how I work in times like these:

1. Learn about the disease area. That means patients. I read blogs, make notes, and try to speak to as many actual patients as possible. The point is to imagine the smallest change this product can bring to their lives.
2. Pull up a recycling bin. I think in words, not pictures, but I eschew the laptop in favour of big pens and lots of paper. There’s a widely held belief that no idea should be thrown away in initial stages, no matter how “bad”. I can’t work that way. If it makes me cringe, it will never be right.
3. Keep books around. Dip in frequently to find words that spark the imagination.
4. Leave. I enjoy having people around me when I’m thinking hard. But I do so love the chocolate mousse cake at Mamas and Papas. It’s surprisingly calm and quiet in their top floor café. You can sit and write for some time. Display a buggy catalogue or similar to avoid suspicion.
5. Collaborate. This is really obvious. I like to work alone first, then share ideas with everyone else.
6. Nourish.  I am into Cadbury’s Fingers right now. Suck for a slow release of energy into the mucosa of mouth and tongue. Place a few within reach and use with care – I almost ate a pen lid today.
7. Go to bed. To get new business, you must produce really good work while managing the usual workflow. I need my brain to razor through daily tasks while it’s unconsciously creating. Getting loads of sleep keeps my cognition snappy. And proper sleep is the best substrate for those little ideas.

 

Sitting down this week with a group of nurses led me to give some thought to the types of work they do and the role they have.

Nurses have long been considered the ‘touchy feely ones’, with GPs dealing with the pragmatics of  prescription and referral. As the UK system evolves it increasingly requires a different, more-doctor-like-nurse, with changes in responsibility, remit and patient influence. Resulting in less time to do what is often considered a foundation of nursing – care. Alongside this evolution, sits a fundamental patient requirement to still have ‘caring’ held high. I believe we still need to place value on someone who is willing to sit and explain what we have missed, didn’t understand or are just worried about. It strikes me that these two requirements can be often at odds.

Our role as communications guys needs to evolve to help bridge this divide between the demands of the structure and that of the patient. In the old days it was enough to target this group as an advertising audience, whereby we would fight for share of voice in the b2b journals. We spent time defining key messages, and shouting them, thinly veiled ad ideas, carrying key messages, kept front of mind, alongside a hope that they would somehow be spewed up during the all important consultation.

In this new world, we need to leap forward and try to understand them not as consumers of journals, and message parrots, but as partners and conduits to driving a better patient experience. This requires a very different approach, and a need to evolve from top down parasitic paternalism to sharing values of partnership, respect, and mutual understanding. I think we  need to ask ourselves - how might our brands catalyse their talent? Rather than how best might we use them to our advantage.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) can extend the lifespan of people living with HIV. Highly active versions of ART medications have even been shown to prevent progression to AIDS. However, these medications are only effective if they are taken as prescribed. Unfortunately, adherence to prescribed ART regimens is poor. The consequences of these poor adherence rates are significant – patients with HIV who have been non-adherent are more likely to progress to AIDS, even if adherence subsequently improves.

Non-adherence is complex and multi-determinant, and is frequently intentional amongst patients with HIV. Barriers to compliance that are consistently reported by patients include: “don’t understand treatment and/or suspicious of medication”. This suggests that a communication-based intervention designed to demystify HAART medications, i.e. to improve patients understanding of their medication and of the consequences of non-adherence, might improve adherence. Indeed, this has been shown to be the case. I believe any successful intervention will involve a significant component of peer-to-peer communication, as opposed to being reliant solely on doctor-disseminated materials. Communications technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate (see our twitter account), and the scope for peer-to-peer communications is massive.

Patient choice is a hot topic in healthcare, so it was interesting to review the latest clinical guideline from NICE: Medicines Adherence and Patient Choice 

Hive’s focus is patient-centric communication, but we don’t claim to have all the answers on the perplexity of patient choice. It’s a tough one for NICE too, who admit that there are gaps in evidence-based learnings. I picked up on a more basic disconnect – NICE’s policy is one of optimal Adherence, but it is Choice that underpins any behaviour. So, more patient choice infers that adherence is optional rather than optimal.

Patient choice embraces much more than adherence. How the two fit together might go like this: more honesty and understanding between doctors and patients leads to shared decisions about treatment. This increased choice translates into a prescription that is handed over with the mutual assurance that every item will be taken as prescribed. Less wasted medicines and consultation time, arguably better health outcomes for individuals.  

Can this happen when medicine and humans are an unpredictable mix? Not only do people respond differently to treatments, but our choices change from moment to moment. We try things, get a result, forget what it was that gave us that result, and start from the beginning. We’ve only our own bodies to give us feedback, and sometimes that feedback isn’t clear enough to justify repeated behaviour.  

Still, people like the sound of choice, at least in theory, and NICE outlines the many ways that doctors can improve at delivering that right. The guidelines are a step in the right direction, albeit a giant leap from current practice. Eyes will be rolling in surgeries at the thought of fitting more whys and hows into a standard consultation.

Of course, the real mental shift lies not with providers but with users. NICE has not yet issued patient guidelines on choice, and whether or not they do, every patient must find out for themselves what choice really means and how to play it out. I often politely accept a prescription knowing I’ll never fill it. I think I would be braver in talking to the doctor about this if I had proof that there is value in doing so.

 We need a bit of genius to get this right. Let’s teach kids about choice: how to visualise the results of actions, verbalise the decision and analyse the outcome. What else – any ideas?

Well it’s been a year and we felt like a new digital wardrobe. Here we are, a more immediate site with a few new-bee elements to help us introduce ourselves to you better.

We have another first – a healthcare agency twitter. A service for visitors helping them to stay connected to us here. In a nutshell it’s a micro blog allowing us to frequently answer one simple question: What are we doing?

We also have file collaboration space to allow more sharing and interaction. Have a wander around and as always tell us what you think.

When researching issues relating to medication compliance, to ensure I capture all relevant studies, I find myself having to type the following into the relevant search engine: “compliance OR adherence OR concordance“. I find this incredibly frustrating, and not just because it takes me a long time. Supposedly, the evolution of the concept of compliance to adherence to concordance is the semantic equivalent of kicking paternalistic healthcare provision squarely in the balls. But is it? Can a lexiconic adjustment really represent a tangible step forward in patient empowerment? Or, as I suspect, is it a ploy to suggest progress where there is little?

Answers on the back of a postcard, please.

So, why this entry now? I was reminded of my frustration at this issue by that I experienced in response to the government’s long-expected and recently-announced decision to reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug. A monumental U-turn, that flies in the face of expert advice. Could the time, effort, and money spent on tinkering with this (more-or-less) arbitrary classification not be put to more useful ends, like a public health campaign highlighting the dangers associated with cannabis use? Don’t bother with the postcards, the answer is: yes.

When I was nine, I decided that I was going to be a doctor.

When I was twenty four, I decided that I wasn’t.

So then I was faced with the difficult and somewhat unexpected decision of what to do instead. With a background in medicine, my recruitment consultant gently nudged me away from my plan to advertise cars, and I found myself working for a medical education agency. It was the right move to stay in healthcare, not only is it my area of expertise, more importantly it is what I care about.

Having worked on the wards, I have seen the miscommunication and sometimes complete lack of communication that occurs between patients and their doctors. I have irritated numerous consultants with questions on their patients’ feelings and opinions. It is the great privilege of the medical student to have the time to talk about such things! (Perhaps partially as a disguise for our limited medical knowledge)

But on a serious note, I absolutely believe in the importance of having a patient-centered approach to medicine. So when I met the team at Hive, by unexpected fortune, I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect place for me to be.

I’ve been here for 6 days now. So far, so good.

The NHS constitution was today unveiled, two years after it was first suggested. The document sets out the rights and responsibilities of the patient. Critics have been quick to speak out against the constitution, claiming that it tells us nothing new.

The content itself may not be new – but the message it sends certainly is. Information on patients’ rights is of little value if it is hard to find and hard to read. This constitution aims to provide a ‘one stop shop’, where patients and NHS staff can easily access and understand the rights and responsibilities of the patient. It provides a foundation for true patient empowerment, by increasing the transparency of the system, and thus its accountability. It is an exciting step away from the traditional paternalistic doctor-patient relationship, towards a more sustainable and mutually satisfying partnership model.

But as Mike Sobanja of the NHS alliance points out “If it remains a piece of paper, it won’t help – action not words will bring it alive.”

Hear for yourself -  The R4 Today Programme with Alan Johnson.

I’ve worked on a host of POM to P switches, most now launched, some not and some still to come. This article indicates very well the inate disconnect I believe that the medical fraternity has with pharmacy. I think it also clearly highlights the relationship Doctors think people have with their health and with them as Doctors.

Over 70% of doctors oppose the switch of Flomax (tamsulosin). The vast majority saying that there is a risk of pharmacists missing underlying issues. I passionately believe that Pharmacy have a critical role to play in providing care on the high street. Having done much work with pharamcists as a group, I also know that they themselves worry about missed or underdiagnosis.

The reality is there are huge sways of the population who do not present to Drs, who do not recognise symptoms as problematic until pointed out to them and are either in denial or too scared to present to a Dr. Men in particular are great avoiders. Switch provides an opportunity for patients to enter the healthcare system in an accessible, non-scary and anonymous way. If I were a betting man I suspect brands like Flomax being available over-the-counter will encourage them to open a dialogue with healthcare professionals, recognise that actually what they thought was normal is not, and who knows get seen earlier by GPs not later when Pharmacy refers on. Certainly I know from previous switches that there has been an increase in prescriptions, suggesting more patients presenting in surgery too. I think Drs should be asking themselves some critical questions such as “who do we trust more, Pharmacists or patients?” “Do I welcome that they are in the system somewhere or nowhere?” Its time to accept patients decide and the more access points to health they have, the more knowledge we can give them, the better for all.

Check out WPP Group’s Grey Amsterdam TV ad for Lacatacyd, a female hygiene brand sold in the Netherlands. What do you think? We’re a mixture of delighted laughter and disgusted leg-crossing over here.

Now, this is provocation amongst British people. Will the ad raise smiles and eyebrows amongst the Dutch? I can’t see such an ad making it past the UK boardroom, but regardless of cultural audience, it surely required guts from the pharmaceutical company involved. (A little less of a gamble, perhaps, if it was intended not for the mainstream but as the viral it’s become.)  

Whatever the case, I feel vaguely duped by the message. Like I’m being dazzled with novelty so that I don’t think to question the strapline “Protect yourself everyday”.

The brief was to “overcome the perception among women in the Netherlands that Lacatacyd is for problems only”. I can’t find any data on this product and I don’t know what its active is.

Say what you like about “feminine cleansers” – unnecessary/ exploitative some say. It’s a simple thing: some people wash their face with soap and water, others buy facewash.

But protection? From what? Every day? I’m not sure whether to feel disappointed or personally alarmed.

Off to do some research.

I am happy to say that I have completed my first week at Hive, and have survived in tact. I am feeling thoroughly looked after, and already feel like part of the furniture.*

One of the take-home sentiments of the week, for me, is the obvious commitment of the team to a patient-centred approach to healthcare communications.

In my previous role, at a national mental health charity, I had encountered more than my fair share of hollow claims to patient-centredness. This easily-employed jargon masking the fact that the patient was being ignored when developing communications, or that communications were developed on an inaccurate (and invariably patronising) idea of who the patient is, what they need, and what they want. It is for this reason that I breathed a sigh of relief when it became apparent to me that the team’s claim to patient-centredness is genuine – they take time to really understand the patient, and that the patient is built into all that they do.

 For me, this approach is an invaluable tool in reconciling the oft-cited conflict of interests between patients, payers and prescribers, and Pharma. Patient-centredness translates into patient-engagement, which ultimately confers demonstrable benefits to each of these parties. It should be cherished where it occurs, and encouraged where it does not.

* Speaking of furniture, just don’t ask what happened to Debbie’s chair. All I can say is, if you have any office furniture that needs testing to destruction, you should give her a call.

I have to admit that the first week back from Christmas has never been one that fills me with fun and enthusiasm. It’s too cold, too busy, and I need to wean myself off of days spent eating, and in the fold of family life.  I find myself needing some inspiration this early in the year.  (Ian thinks this is soft needy nonsense. Bless him)