ERWW PR forms Health Buzz Group

Sep 20 2011

Euro RSCG Worldwide PR (ERWW PR) announces the formation of its Health Buzz Group, a global division created in response to growing client interest in big, splashy “wows” from small budgets in quick time frames using traditional and social media to generate momentum. Its creation comes quickly on the heels of the success of the agency’s consumer Buzz Group, which has already secured hundreds of millions of media impressions for local and national assignments for such diverse clients as Ford Motor Co., Durex, GE Lighting, Campaign Money Watch, the Clio Awards, the annual Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race and Mary J. Blige’s charitable foundation, FFAWN.

The Health Buzz Group will offer services worldwide, with headquarters in New York and a practice operating out of London. The new group will create and execute programs for clients in such sectors as pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter, third parties and wellness products, and will generate significant traditional, social and word-of-mouth buzz for clients. The core competencies for the Health Buzz Group will include:

• Event promotion: Health awareness days (external and internal media outreach), stock exchange announcements, local event sponsorship promotion (e.g., walks, speaking engagements) and screening event promotion
• Media relationship building: Reporter roundtables, media desk sides (trade & business media) and R&D tours and interviews
• Third-party relationship building: Third-party audits, one-on-ones and WebEx meetings, roundtables, partnership announcements and grant/scholarship programs
• Local media tours

The new practice will build off successes in those areas and specifically off previous projects that were similar in scope, including:

• Sanofi “Diabetes: A Deeper Look.” ERWW PR partnered with the Detroit Science Center to create an interactive traveling exhibit to educate people about diabetes and helped plan a three-year national tour. Traditional media was key for the launch, but the agency’s advance pitching to select bloggers led to news of the exhibit reaching more than 100,000 people who tweet, write or read about diabetes news.
• Bayer Optical VEGF Trap-Eye global journalist workshop. Healthcare specialists at the agency developed an event (and all related materials) for influential media from key EU countries, Japan and Australia to help journalists gain a true understanding of age-related macular degeneration and the evolution of treatment ahead of Bayer’s Phase III data announcement.
• Savient “Time Out for Gout.” Euro RSCG Worldwide PR developed this awareness campaign, which leveraged Gout Awareness Day, securing a spokesperson who rang the NASDAQ opening bell and participated in a satellite media tour that day. Savient Pharmaceuticals’ stock jumped seven percent after the campaign’s launch.
• Atelvia launch. To launch a newly approved osteoporosis drug, the agency leveraged local doctors (in 13 of the top 20 markets) to become local influencers. We counted 30 placements, including national TV and trade publications, and an audience reach of 16.2 million.

“We’re entrepreneurial and risk-taking, thinking bigger and moving faster than the competition. We’re focused on building brands by putting them in the center of cultural storms and creating big news for clients with the right conversations. We might be smaller than other agencies—although we do have the big-agency resources of our parent company, Havas—but our size lets us innovate more easily,” said Lisa Rosenberg, president of ERWW PR, North America. “By combining the strengths of our well-established healthcare practice and our team’s quick but broad strategizing, we are preparing to achieve even greater success in the area of healthcare buzz.”

Currently one of the most-awarded PR agencies of its size in the U.S., ERWW PR has a long history of buzz building, including the launch of metrosexual mania and the creation of the flash mob–like sensation of “shake it like a Polaroid picture.”

Kristin VanderMass, a vice president at ERWW PR, will serve as account lead for the Health Buzz Group in New York, while Cori Blair, also an ERWW PR vice president, will head up the London office of the new venture. Both women will report to Janene Ferrara, executive vice president and champion of the @erwwpr Healthcare Center of Excellence.

VanderMass manages public relations activity for Sanofi’s diabetes franchise and has eight years’ experience in healthcare PR across a variety of therapeutic areas, including epilepsy, rheumatology, digestive disease, metabolic syndrome and cardiology. Before coming on board at ERWW PR, she worked with clients such as Amgen/Wyeth, Eisai, Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, Salix Pharmaceuticals and VisionCare.

In nearly a decade of experience in healthcare communications, Blair has shaped and guided integrated health communication programs for numerous brands, from pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter products to consumer packaged goods and food service. Prior to joining ERWW PR, Blair led Porter Novelli’s Vyvanse business for Shire Pharmaceuticals as well as health-influencer engagement for McDonald’s USA..

Source: http://eurorscgpr.com/