Pixacore’s 2019 was defined by a straightforward proposition: The agency endeavored to take the complex and make it simple.
This happened on behalf of any number of clients, of course, but it also came into play as Pixacore searched for a new home. After a year and a half in pursuit, company execs found an ideal location in Midtown Manhattan for their new office — and one that allowed the agency to come together on a single floor, as opposed to the four across which it had been spread out previously.
“Moving to a single-floor environment allows us to have fluid collaboration,” says Pixacore founder and CEO Sanjiv Mody. “We further integrated our teams physically, which reinforces our value proposition as an agency that leads and integrates strategy, creative, content, multichannel and digital.”
Pixacore aims for a similar level of simplicity in its client work. Since its founding in 2007, anytime the agency has been able to provide a client with a simpler answer, explanation or solution, Mody and team has put it in the win column.
“It’s the ability to think through what’s keeping our customers up at night and guiding them through making that simple choice and making that choice intuitive,” Mody explains. “Like Einstein said, ‘If you can’t explain it simply, you just don’t understand it well enough.’”
Mody says the ability to offer clients end-to-end engagement is Pixacore’s main advantage. Take the client that is looking to pare down its agency roster, whether due to available resources or just a desire to simplify. If Pixacore can provide that client with strategy, creative and messaging, then pair it with launch chops, what need is there for multiple agencies?
Mody believes this type of thinking led to an increase in launch opportunities for the agency. Pixacore launched two indications in two brands in 2019, while the agency is working on three additional brands launching this year and next.
Pixacore saw a 3% revenue increase in 2019, to $25.2 million from $24.4 million in 2018. The agency’s number of
AOR engagements grew from 17 to 21 and its number of project-based ones grew also from 17 to 21. It added work from Celgene/Bristol Myers Squibb (for CAR-T global marketing and the cell therapy franchise), Intercept Pharma (for work around non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and on primary biliary cholangitis drug Ocaliva), Mallinckrodt (on training for the Cellex medical procedure in the U.S. and EU) and Kiowa Kirin (on its neuroscience medical franchise and on Parkinson’s disease therapy Nourianz).
Based off the company’s first-quarter results, Mody predicts Pixacore could see 25% in growth in 2020 (though that could change amid the coronavirus panic). The agency believes that it could benefit from the industry’s move toward more insights-driven decisions and choices.
The CEO says that senior leadership teams at client companies are looking for a better, simpler understanding of why a recommendation is made by an agency. And if the answer isn’t based on data and analytics, the decision will be challenged.
“Marketers need an agency partner that can guide them through the paradox of choices,” Mody explains. “Given the challenges the customers have, we can identify a finite number of choices to help them differentiate the brand and realize its potential.”
The best marketing we saw in 2019…
Keep Treating, a disease-ed campaign for post-MI from AstraZeneca, is very powerful. It’s an impactful campaign that makes great use of a microsite, combining powerful visuals, memorable video and simple UX to get the point across. — Sanjiv Mody
From the June 01, 2020 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
