Merck is launching a major corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, reports PRWeek, which profiled communications chief Adele Ambrose in its March issue.
The campaign, coming a year after Merck’s acquisition of Schering-Plough, will focus on the company’s role in global health. Merck is also retooling its employee portal “to include online community building capabilities similar to Facebook profiles,” said PRWeek.
Still stinging from the Vioxx debacle, the company will also move forward with some consumer-facing social media initiatives, in part as a means of addressing critics. “One change in the way we’re managing communications and our reputation is this notion of not expecting people to know your story if you’re not telling your own story,” Ambrose told PRWeek. “You really need to look at every possible touchpoint the company has and tell a consistent story about who you are and what you stand for.”
Ambrose, who joined Merck in 2007, is looking to raise the profile of the corporate brand in association with health and wellness while making key execs like chief medical officer Michael Rosenblatt and CEO Ken Frazier available to news outlets.
“She doesn’t pull punches,” Frazier told PRWeek. “She has had a profound impact on the company, in how well it represents its point of view to the outside world and how well we understand the outside world’s expectations of Merck.”
Improving employee communications in the wake of the Merck/Schering-Plough merger is a top priority, she said, “in addition to integrated communications to all audiences.”
From the April 01, 2011 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
