Supernus casts Busy Philipps as lead in Qelbree ADHD campaign

This is Jack O’Brien with an M&M fast break.

Or Becca, I appreciate you being on the show here today. Once you introduce yourself to our audience, and then we can talk about the campaign.

My name is Rebecca Landon. I’m the executive director of marketing at supernus Pharmaceuticals.

And the reason we’re having you on the podcast day is very fun campaign. That’s just rolled out with some I think of people in our audience probably are very familiar with Busy Phillips. Can you give us a high level overview of what all is going into this campaign? What’s the mission

sure. We are really excited to be partnering with someone like Busy Philipps.

She is actually on Calgary which is a novel non-stimulant for people ages six years and older. It’s one of Superman’s marketed products for ADHD and may maybe mental health awareness month. We’re really excited that busy Philip’s and kid give us a voice to other women potentially struggling with some of the same things with their own ADHD.

Thank you highlight that aspect. That’s both women’s health month and Mental Health Awareness Month being able to have somebody like her that obviously fits both those camps must be really invigorating. How did this all come together? Was this something that you approach or she came to and so I wanted to do this. What was that process like

And it was kind of a combination approach. I’ll say between our company and also busy media firm. She have been struggling with ADHD for quite some time Jack and she was diagnosed first as a child. She describes to her audience and then most recently she was re-diagnosed as an adult only when she took her child her daughter to the psychiatrist along with her husband and they were going down in ADHD checklist and light bulb moment went off when busy turned to him and said I

check every single box on that list.

So she was really passionate about partnering with sapnas and Calvary. She decided to talk to her own physician and she’s been on kalbarri doing very well.

And so what is her role in this campaign in terms of being it was just being a public face or is there an ad component to it? What does that look like on a practical basis?

There’s definitely an education component supernus feels extremely strong about education and ADHD and really partnering our partnership with Busy Phillips helps, you know, give other women a voice also you asked about women earlier. In fact, the percentage of women newly diagnosed with ADHD.

Just after the pandemic so we could take those two years between the ages of 23 and 49 busy is right in that subset. As you said, she’s 44 mother of two.

The percentage of women doubled in just those two years after the pandemic. So we’re seeing and I’m sure you’ve seen in the media too more women are raising their hands and they’re taking action to ask their doctor for some help.

I’m curious because we obviously cover a lot of different mental health campaigns. There’s always this talk about the stigmatization and not feeling comfortable coming forward when you’re looking at the ADHD space. Where is there that opportunity to kind of break down maybe feelings of shame or feelings of embarrassing that people might have to actually getting the treatment that they need because I can imagine it’s a pretty big hurdle to overcome.

That’s a really great question. Jack busy described to us to she initially as an adult felt like she was overwhelmed. She often had tasks on her list that she couldn’t check off on a daily basis and she had trouble prioritizing and her brain just had to work that much harder to get things done. She would actually be envious of her other female, you know counterparts in her world who were getting things done and busy every time she showed up tried to work harder. So there is a stigma where especially with women they try to mask their symptoms adult women and their male counterparts on the other side might have been diagnosed when they were younger and that is usually often the case for males. But again back to busy her symptoms. She was masking them. She was disorganized overmeld, but when she finally received her diagnosis, she described it as you know a breath of fresh air.

Back to your stigma question. Jack women should not feel ashamed busy wants to give other women in her social channels. You you asked what media channels were using we’re using her social channels and her voice with women talking about ADHD to center around self-care and really give those women the confidence. They need to go have that hard conversation with their doctor.

And I’m curious too you talk about the difference between men and women being diagnosed with ADHD and being able to approach this condition. I know in the fall you enlisted Jake laser to be able to do that. I imagine that’s appealing to a more male audience. They’re giving his work covering the NFL. What lessons are, you know, maybe what are some Universal themes you’re able to take from one campaign and say apply to this one?

Well, I think the Common Thread obviously is education raising awareness about ADHD regardless of the gender as you noted with both of our influencers education is so important about what kind of questions the right questions these patients should be asking their doctors about when getting diagnosed or even if they’re on medication and not doing well. There are many options out there Jack and every medication is different and patients respond differently. So the breadth of experience that we have with the two influencers that we’ve signed up across their different social channels have really allowed to harness to have again coverage across the genders.

And I know this campaign just launched a couple days ago at the time of this recording but what has the early feedback been like and what sort of metrics are you following in terms of like engagement or you know, is that people reaching out to their doctors about calibrate? What are you following on that front

the so it’s Friday, I guess two days after a big media day with busy. If you saw some of her articles we internally were obviously very excited, but her followers on social as well as the media Outlets that we spoke to including yourself are curious.

They’re very curious about busy story The metrics, you know, the obvious ones that were following our website traffic increased significantly to both sapnas and Calvary also busy traffic has increased and more followers are reaching out thanking her for being so brave about her mental health and coming forward and really again, that’s the goal. It may not be Calvary for everyone. Everyone is different. However busy talking about her ADHD really encourages others again to come forward and talk to their doctor about what might be right for them.

Excellent. Well Rebecca, I appreciate you being on the show here. And obviously it’s a very exciting campaign launch. Is there anything else that our audience of medical marketers should know about this campaign launch or maybe anything related to advertising around ADHD medication.

Well, it’s a it’s a crowded space Jack and the furnace is really trying our best to raise awareness. Not only with our influencers, but in general with our marketing campaigns across the CNS space including ADHD and others we’re focused this month on mental health awareness month, but really it’s not about a month. It will continue throughout the year, and we’re really excited about Calvary our non-stimulant. Again, that’s a once a day treatment. It can easily fit into patients routines and busy had a fun side note. She travels all the time. She’s extremely busy herself and air quotes, and she says in her life, and she likes Cowboy because she can take it any time of day and she can also get refills and not and not worry about it. So the medications in plentiful Supply and she noted that to her followers as well. So I again thank you so much for allowing me to your show.

No, thanks for coming on and highlighting.

The key aspects of this campaign, and hopefully we can reconnect down the line with some other activations that you have around Calabrese and everything else the furnace. So thank you again.

We’d be happy to thank you Jack.