How to make your medical advertising more creative

Marketers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices need to run an obstacle course that other marketers are happy to skip. Government regulations and private watchdog groups keep a close eye on medical ads, causing creative difficulties for ad creators and media buyers.

The easiest option medical marketers have is to create simple, bland ads that conform to every rule and take no risks. The end product will comply with all regulations and won't upset any private organizations - it's also likely to get passed over by readers.

So how do marketers navigate the obstacle course and still come out at the end with an interesting, sexy pharma ad?

Why ads can be boring

Working in a heavily regulated market and with limited resources means many marketers take the easy route and end up with a safe, yet typical advertisement. Often, medical ads are unappealing because they stick to a formula. Open any magazine at the grocery store checkout counter and you're likely to see a photo of a happy couple, an energetic dog and an unobtrusive logo. It may take a moment or two to understand what is being advertised.

And yet time and again, pharma ads stick to this boring formula because it's low risk. Visual cliches attempt to make up for bland copy and difficult-to-pronounce drug names.

"To me [visual cliches] are just visual metaphors and an excuse for lame ideas," Jeremy Perrott, a leader in the medical advertising industry told AdWeek.

How can pharmaceutical and medical device advertisers break out of this mold? You can't take any shortcuts.

Cliche images, like the one above, make for bland advertisements.

Break the mold

The medical advertising space is ripe for disruption. Forget about smiling couples and dogs chasing balls in the park. Visual cliches must be shattered. But where do they come from?

In part, advertisers use visual cliches because they think about their audience in terms of archetypes. There's an argument to be made that these categories exist because there is some truth in them - but that is a mediocre strategy at best. To break the mold, you need to think of your audience in new terms, especially when it comes to advertising to doctors.

As The Guardian noted, ads tend to place individuals in their most traditional roles: Men love beer and sports, women spend all day cooking and cleaning and everyone has 2.5 children.

To break the mold, use targeted audience research to find segments that don't fit into these traditional roles - your ads will be more appealing, because readers will see themselves more accurately represented.

Talk to younger generations

Generational shift is causing much of the changing trends in medical advertising. According to Pew Research, millennials are the largest living generation, dominating the workforce, and Gen Z isn't far behind. This group has much different values than generations that came before them. That's not even mentioning the fact that younger people interact with marketing in vastly different ways.

"Millennials are the largest living generation."

There are still many baby boomers in the medical industry, but they are a dwindling population. As members of this group retire and get replaced by millennials, advertisers need to focus more on digital platforms and they must change how they appeal to readers.

Millennials are very media-literate. Chris Miller, a senior lecturer at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, writing in Entrepreneur magazine, noted that facts and figures appeal to millennials more than emotional triggers. Medical marketers that treat their audience as intellectuals will get a more favorable reaction from millennial readers.

Younger professionals want to make a meaningful impact. Leverage your medical ads to show how your products can help medical professionals make a difference.

For a multi-channel advertising approach that reaches millions of medical professionals, consider ELSMediaKits for your media buying needs.