In 2019, Vivo Agency saw only a slight uptick in revenue to $6.1 million from 2018’s sum of $6 million. But company president Tom Dudnyk says that number doesn’t capture the essence of a year that was, in his words, “anything but business as usual.”
Vivo put considerable energy in 2019 toward reimagining its role in helping medical-device clients navigate an evolving healthcare landscape. That approach is summarized in Vivo’s new cheeky motto: Make Shift Happen. The “shift” refers not only to encouraging clients to think differently, but also to the systemic shift toward a value-based care model.
Dudnyk points to the One COPD program, for Philips Healthcare, as one example of the mindset that characterizes Vivo’s strategic approach. “We marketed a protocol that included pathways, healthcare informatics, products and education, and the result was a drop in readmissions, which is a common problem with COPD,” he explains. “You don’t see this model often, but it’s a reflection of what’s to come.”
Vivo added four new clients in 2019: Mammotome, Nutricia, Oska and Pristine Surgical. For Mammotome, a breast biopsy tool, Vivo created a campaign designed to educate pathologists about what really happens in the biopsy suite.
“The goal was to motivate pathologists to talk to radiologists in order to take more accurate breast biopsy cores,” Dudnyk says. “Traditionally what companies do in health-tech is promote products, but we promoted the problem that was happening in the space and then we positioned Mammotome as the solution. We are solution-oriented in how we market.”
In 2019, Vivo also launched the HealthTech Marketer newsletter, which Dudnyk bills as one of the key tools in the agency’s reinvention. “Every week we produce a best-practices newsletter about taking advantage of changes in the marketing space,” Dudnyk continues. “We are committed to it and it has been a success as reflected in the engagement from the market.”
On the personnel front, Vivo revamped its executive hierarchy by adding Shannon Mathews as director of finance and promoting Jonathan Sauer to creative director and Steve Clark to director of client services. The agency ended 2019 with 24 people under its roof, two down from the previous year.
It goes without saying that COVID-19 has been top of mind recently, for Vivo and everyone else. At the same time, Dudnyk believes the timing lines up fortuitously with the agency’s new branding. Now more than ever, he feels the agency is well-positioned to help usher clients through an unprecedented period.
“If there was ever a time to ‘make shift happen,’ it is now, because COVID knocked out your sales force and it knocked out your trade shows,” Dudnyk explains. “That means the two biggest marketing spends for health-tech companies have been neutralized. So they have to drive demand and nurture leads through the customer journey, and they have to do it online. The experiences have to be positive, educational and strategic, which doesn’t happen often right now.”
The best marketing we saw in 2019…
Clients lose interest in campaigns at about nine months, but IBM has been marketing Watson for five years and has stayed true to it. Let’s Put Smart To Work has been about real-life transformation stories and promises delivered. It is fashion-able now to talk about AI, but Watson was years ahead of the curve. — Tom Dudnyk
From the June 01, 2020 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
