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HCB Health is at once an agency that prides itself on hiring seasoned talent and on championing underdogs. It aims to provide authoritative expertise as well as agility, the resources of larger shops as well as the freedom to innovate of an independent agency.
“We understand how to embrace the challenger mindset,” says partner and chief commercial officer Francesco Lucarelli. “There’s a David vs. Goliath story out there in a lot of disease categories. Yes, we have worked with some Goliaths, but we have worked primarily with the Davids.”
HCB very much enjoys the duality. “You get to do things differently and you get to be nimble. You can’t outspend Pfizer, but you can do things that it is afraid to do,” Lucarelli adds.
To hear HCB’s leaders tell it, today’s Davids are searching for some upstream consulting, an area into which HCB expanded during its busy 2021. However, unlike other consultancies, HCB’s recommendations are delivered by professionals with decades of experience in healthcare and pharma, as opposed to freshly minted MBAs. The rates are “palatable,” as Lucarelli puts it, which is appreciated by the emerging and upstart organizations that have availed themselves of the new capability.
Following a tough 2020 that saw revenue drop 29%, HCB recovered nicely in 2021. New business added to the roster included assignments from UCB, AmerisourceBergen, Samsara Therapeutics, Evolus and Outlook Therapeutics.
As a result, revenue grew from $8.7 million to $9.2 million, a 6% gain, while head count ticked up from 50 to 52. Partner and president Nancy Beesley expects the agency will continue to add account people and strategic support during the remaining months of 2022.
Meanwhile, HCB has managed to find a number of silver linings in the pandemic’s transformation of healthcare marketing. “COVID flattened the Earth to a certain degree,” Beesley explains, adding that many of the changes have worked to the company’s advantage.
“Clients used to say they wanted an FCB or an Ogilvy, but what they really wanted was the address and the Madison Avenue experience,” she continues. “We can tell them they are going to get senior people who turn work quickly and get things done, with no learning curve. The trend will be away from these big holding companies, because the value isn’t there anymore.”
CEO Kerry Hilton acknowledges that not all clients will be sold on that pitch. To address potential concerns, HCB last year joined Worldwide Partners, a network of independent agencies that, as Hilton puts it, “come together and support each other as if we were one agency. This allows us to bring a broad scope of capabilities to our clients who want agility and resources, but only want to pay for them when they need them.”
Meanwhile, after shuttering its physical offices in Austin, Chicago and New Jersey, HCB now counts itself among the increasing number of firms that are fully virtual. “I don’t think we could pay people enough money to go into the office one or two days a week,” Hilton says. “They want intentional time together, so now we come together when we think we need to.”
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Work from outside pharma you admire…
I greatly admire the creative being done for Travel Texas. Visually smart, the campaign makes Texas an action word: Let’s Texas. Even though I’m based in the capital city, I feel inspired to get out and see all those other great places I’ve yet to discover — especially after being cooped up during the pandemic. This was well executed by the folks at Proof Advertising. — Beesley
From the June 01, 2022 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
