Point-of-care marketing agency Mesmerize has joined forces with Meredith Health Solutions to offer clients more educational ads at the doctor’s office.

The partnership, which began late last year, aims to bring a new approach to traditional wallboard advertisements in doctor’s offices. Instead of a simple poster-size ad, the wallboards are meant to draw patients in with health-education content.

“When we started the company 12 years ago, we were selling full posters, and we heard from clients that’s what they wanted and the results were fine,” said Craig Mait, president and chief revenue officer of Mesmerize. “Yet the most effective way to roll out an ad is not the most effective way to try to educate a patient. Imagine seeing a drug ad in a doctor’s office, even the most engaging DTC ad. You’re not necessarily going to go up and interact with the poster, but you may go up there if you see 10 tips for living healthy with diabetes.”

The goal of the ads, Mait said, is simply to make the patient interact with them and open up a dialogue with their doctors. Many have also been paired with brochures that patients can take into the exam room.

That’s where Meredith Health Solutions comes in. The company, part of the media giant’s marketing unit, creates specialized content for the ads based on the drug being promoted.

Because wallboards are Mesmerize’s “number one tactic” for point-of-care clients, Mait said, the company wanted to offer a more specialized and educational take on it. The companies have rolled out wallboard campaigns for about a dozen pharma and retail clients this year, he added.

“In lieu of just having a simple ad there, we surround that ad with highly customized, relevant, appealing educational content,” Mait said.

The partnership has coincided with an effort at Mesmerize to incorporate more patient education into their work.

“We’ve done this in an effort to deliver more solutions in the vast point-of-care environment,” Mait said. “Part and parcel with that has been a desire on the point-of-care side of things to be a leader in the space, more than just placing ads in our venues. We’re positioning ourselves as a leader in the patient-education space, too.”