Dom Marchant – PM Society Chair
At a time when many pharmaceutical companies and agencies are going through/coming out the other side of restructuring, should we even be talking about awards?
Yes.
We still need to celebrate excellence, especially at a time when creativity and communication effectiveness can often be called into question. Think of it this way: the marketing budget is often one of the first to be cut when an economic downturn hits. From talking to many agency leaders, the shrinkage in the budgets and reduction in opportunities witnessed in the last 6-12months has been significant. It is precisely at this moment that the value of marketing should be highlighted and we draw inspiration from sharing best practice to remind clients/agencies/investors of the importance of great communications.
Whilst it does seem a bit “odd” – tone-deaf even – to see loud brag posts about how many awards were won at the same time as many have been made redundant in the creative agencies that won said awards, we will always need to showcase great work. And I mean work that actually saw the light of day.
Then there’s AI. Up until recently, most of the examples have been focused on efficiency – speeding up/automating processes that would have been otherwise undertaken by a human. But Gen AI is now becoming part of the workflow of most agency studios. From the basics such as copy generation, recording a VO in the accent of your choice, avatar production, through to video and 3D content creation. And so, so much more. But what is sure is that AI is affecting the creative and communications agencies in ways no-one thought of as recently as two years ago.
Change is constant – the only constant if you believe Heraclitus – and so our industry will always be evolving along with everything else. Yes, it is undergoing some of the biggest changes many of us have seen in our careers but marketing in pharma continues. This new era is equally exciting as it is frightening and the consequences of some of the challenges/opportunities these conditions/technologies presents are not yet fully understood (at least not by me). The work in pharma advertising/med comms/PR has and always will reflect the industry, and there will be the good, the bad, and the ugly evidenced in the communications.
BUT we must never lose sight of the fact that the good should be celebrated and held up to all to showcase how important this work and the people behind it is in the continuum of the industry.
And that brings me to my shameless plug: the PM Society Awards and the PM Society Digital Awards are two competitions that do just that: celebrate the best. But there is some nuance. The PM Society is a not-for-profit organisation so all the monies made over and above the costs are ploughed into doing good to advance the industry. Initiatives like: Creativity For Good, our primary giving-back initiative where a charity is chosen and agencies pitch to develop a campaign to deliver funds/awareness; 7 interest groups ranging from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Learning & Development, through to Careers (a massively successful initiative that runs several events to help those looking to get into the industry); a training program (albeit part paid for by course fees) for specific skills and development modules for agency and pharma folk alike.
So, our awards are important not just to showcase the best of the best but to help fund all the good work that the PM Society does.
The final nuance: the cost for entry. We continue to be one of the “least expensive” awards competitions to enter. We run these awards conscious of the constraints on companies’ budgets whilst ensuring we get to keep doing what we do, which is summed up by our three values: Recognise excellence; Support where needed; For the greater good.