John McCarthy, VP of global commercial excellence at AstraZeneca, on enabling rapid innovation in big pharma
Hiring AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot opened “an opportunity for a new kind of leadership in commercial. But that leadership has got to go beyond simply advertising our product. We’ve got to help our physicians with the demands in their practices generated by this digital world we are living in, and we’ve got to put patients first – they’ve got to be at the center of what we do.”
Rich Levy, chief creative officer at FCB Health, on attracting creative talent to healthcare:
(Levy first shared sobering results of student surveys the agency had conducted that showed most advertising students consider healthcare a last resort.) A spark of hope, Levy points out, [was] that a good sampling of students agreed they might consider healthcare as a way of doing good in the world. Certainly that’s one track to exploit in the constant, hungry search for dynamic young people to bring into the profession.
Former Procter & Gamble CMO Jim Stengel on the question of creativity in pharma:
Stengel spoke of pharma’s poor reputation, insisting that industry “can change that, one company, one brand and one day at a time.” He challenged delegates to make a three-fold commitment: to have a big brand idea (“… this doesn’t have to come from the C-suite”); to tell a story and tell it beautifully (“… it’s a buzzword in the industry, but few are doing it well”); and to build an organization that is energized and engaged (“… give me a purpose, a person who is passionate about it, and a process, and we can change the world”).
Dr. Rita Charon, a primary care physician and director of the program for narrative medicine at Columbia University, on why people enter the healthcare profession:
“Something has summoned you to be in healthcare,” she said. “Much of it has to do with the chance to change lives.”
Looking for more Cannes Lion coverage? Here you’ll find daily news of the latest trends, themes and chatter around creativity in healthcare, live from the south of France during the two-day festival.
