Liveworld

Meet Jena Dengrove, Creative Director here at LiveWorld.

What makes awesome, memorable creative for pharma?

In any genre of creative, identifying what an audience needs and what resonates with them, results in the potential to reach them in a meaningful way. That ability to authentically connect with someone becomes incredibly motivating as a creative person.
In pharma marketing especially, your audience can include patients, caregivers, family members, and communities. So it’s especially relevant when the creative work we do can provide an avenue to allow people to feel supported, educated or even just heard. In that capacity, the subject matter and significance of fulfilling these needs inherently has the potential to generate memorable creative. In return, this is often an opportunity to create engagement with content and convert audiences into advocates, which creates a cycle of conversation.
Of course, pharma creative has a specific set of rules and guidelines to work within, but I have found that is sometimes easier than starting from a blank page. These limitations act as guardrails and put parameters in place that help shape creative decisions. In fact, knowing the rules becomes part of the process and actually makes achieving a successful end result more gratifying.

What is the role of creative in driving engagement?

Generating engagement is a two-part process. First, you have to know your audience and where you are going to reach them because it’s impossible to figure out what will make someone interact with a specific piece of content without knowing what motivates them.
Consequently, good creative should be able to grab someone’s attention by sparking an emotional response —making an audience think, feel or be inspired. Good creative should be the pivot point that ignites the potential for action – whether that be commenting, sharing or something else – because that is going to truly drive engagement and enable brands to expand their reach.

As more and more brands are bringing aspects of their creative services in-house, how can brands continue to leverage agencies most effectively?

One example of a situation where it is ideal for brands to turn to their agency experts is in creating social media playbooks. A thorough and effective playbook is authored by a diverse range of experts across the agency’s’ strategy, design, copy, and digital teams. So while a style guide maps out direction specifically for design and copy, a playbook contains a comprehensive manual for creating content including themes, posting cadence, tone and voice, design and copy best practices and response protocol. Playbooks are a great tool because they serve as a roadmap for the extended team when they are crafting future content while still keeping true to the vision of a brand.

What connects with audiences?

The foundation for genuine connection is rooted in emotion. The effective blend of strategy and creative allows us to tap into these feelings, whether that is feeling uplifted, heard, informed, etc. In a similar way to why smells often trigger memories, the most effective creative capitalizes on emotional recall to create brand affinity.

What’s the role of creative in digital marketing?

On a daily basis, most of us are living in a digital world. We are constantly connected, especially thanks to social media, on our phones and computers. Because of this, we are always “reachable”. In digital marketing, it is essential to be able to grab someone’s attention and motivate them to share, engage or take action. Therefore, creative is often the catalyst or invitation to have a conversation with your audience. Of course, there are tools to help reach your target, but if the creative is not strong and compelling, then dollars spent will not generate a maximum return.