With a stable of big-spending clients and one of
advertising's most storied names, you might think Saatchi & Saatchi
Healthcare Communications Group would be the last shop in need of a rebrand.
They're keeping the name, but faced with declining spending in the pharma sector,
a dearth of big new mass-market drugs to launch and a tough market for talent,
the firm today unveiled a new visual and corporate identity centered on
healthier living.
“We're evolving beyond a pure pharma, fix-sick-people kind
of approach to a much richer, more wellness-focused place, with more diverse
offerings,” said Sam Welch, president. “We're hiring a lot more folks out of the
digital realm and a lot more with a heavy CRM background.”
Saatchi's new visual identity is based on 13th-century
Italian mathematician Fibonacci's golden spiral, meant to convey a more organic
feel and potential for exponential growth, said Welch. The agency, known for blockbuster
integrated accounts like AstraZeneca's Nexium and Sanofi-Aventis' Ambien, will
look beyond prescription drugs for work in other health-related areas, from OTC
products to fitness.
“It's also about what we bring back to our foundational
clients in pharma,” says Welch. “They need us to be richer and more diverse.
They need us to have a perspective of what's going on in OTC, health and
wellness so that when we're thinking about those brands we've got the whole
picture.”
The agency is also revamping its offerings for employees
through Saatchi Youniverse, an internal initiative incorporating lifestyle
perks like virtual work environments, subsidized gym memberships and other
fitness incentives, and community service through a partnership with New York
Cares.
The overhaul, for which the Publicis firm is spending “hundreds
of thousands,” is needed to modernize the agency and make it better able to retain
talented young employees of a generation that scoffs at the traditional
office-based 9-9 advertising job.
“If traditional agencies don't very quickly evolve to an approach
encompassing digital and CRM and bringing a more holistic perspective to
everything they do, they're just going to be left in the dust to shrivel up and
die,” says Welch.