The 29th annual PM Society Awards, announced at the Grosvenor House Hotel to an audience of around 1000 from industry and agencies, saw Mundipharma scoop 10 awards – three of them Gold – marking it out as the most successful pharma company for 2014. Fresenius Kabi were close rivals, also taking three Golds, while Shire Pharmaceuticals scored for highest overall number of awards, securing one for each of their 11 entries.
Agency side, Havas Life Medicom and VCCP Health were joint first on the leader board, each taking home three Gold trophies, while Havas Lynx took home two Golds.
Notably, two categories were won by the same agency in consecutive years: VCCP Health retained their title as winner of the Craft Award for best Secondary Care Advertisement and Bedgebury Communications topped the show with their second successive Target Award for best Primary Care Advertisement.
The PM Awards – with “advertising” officially dropped from the title for the first time this year as it now only reflects nine of the 19 categories – recognise marketing excellence for pharmaceutical and associated industries and continue to be the most coveted and best established in their field. A second significant change for 2014, reflecting industry trends, saw most of the categories opened up to digital. This was judged alongside traditional media according to strict criteria around concept, design, use of craft and impact.
Other firsts, ensuring that the PM Awards truly mirror the campaigns coming out of UK-based organisations, were the acceptance of internationally-targeted work and the introduction of separate awards for agency in-house promotion and corporate communications, as well as awards recognising disease awareness and patient support. Another new category showcased excellence in events and exhibitions.
Neil Smith, the PM Society Awards Chairman explains: “The key to marketing excellence lies in the underlying principles of creativity, execution or the use of the appropriate craft, and impact. These are attributes that can be compared equally, whatever the medium or campaign audience.
“It was encouraging this year to see the number of digital entries being judged alongside traditional print media and to welcome some ‘first timers’ to the Awards, now that the categories have opened out to include a broader range of today’s marketing activities,” Smith observes.
The PM Awards include both Craft and Target awards, with the Target awards judged by up to 200 doctors and nurses in large nationwide surveys or panels of pharma executives. Craft categories are assessed by panels and surveys of senior creative judges from over 30 healthcare agencies.
2014 Winners’ Leaderboard
Leading industry winners Mundipharma secured Gold trophies for Secondary Care Advertisement, Film and Events and Exhibitions for campaigns supporting Levact and their pain portfolio and they also picked up four Silver and three Bronze awards. Fresenius Kabi rivalled Mundipharma with three Gold Craft Awards for their Dysphagia Awareness campaign, which also won Silver and a Bronze
Shire Pharmaceuticals took home the most awards overall with a Gold, two Silvers and eight Bronze awards – one for each of their 11 shortlisted entries.
In addition, Sanofi and Sanofi Pasteur MSD (SPMSD) each took away two Gold Awards: Sanofi for Secondary Care Campaign and Corporate Communication and SPMSD winning the Geoff Brook Innovation Gold Award and the Target Gold Award for Best Primary Care Advertisement.
Other Gold winning pharma companies were AbbVie, Bayer Healthcare, GSK, Internis, Napp, Takeda UK and Vertex.
On the agency side after joint leaders Havas Life Medicom and VCCP Health, HAVAS LYNX took home two Golds. Other Gold Award winners were Hanson Zandi, Big Pink, Woolley Pau Gyro, McCann Manchester, Fleishman Hillard, nitrogen, Digitas Health, Life, Ten Alps Communicate, Learner Adams Bones and Bedgebury Communications.
For success across the board among the agencies, VCCP Health topped the chart with a total of 10 awards, (three Gold, four Silver and three Bronze). Havas Life Medicom, HAVAS LYNX and McCann Manchester each won six awards and bmore creative five for their Gaucher Disease press campaign, which scored highly with both Target and Craft judges.
Full list of category Gold winners:
Craft Award for Direct Mail Hanson Zandi for Internis
Craft Award for Sales Aid HAVAS LYNX for AbbVie
Craft Award for Film VCCP Health for Mundipharma
Craft Award for Digital Interactive Big Pink for GlaxoSmithKline
Craft Award for Animation Woolley Pau Gyro for Napp
Craft Award for Events and Exhibitions VCCP Health for Mundipharma
Target Award for Direct Mail McCann Manchester for Shire
Craft Award for Disease Awareness FleishmanHillard for Bayer Healthcare
Craft Award for Patient Support nitrogen for Vertex
Primary Care Campaign Havas Life Medicom for Fresenius Kabi
Secondary Care Campaign Digitas Health for sanofi
Target Award for House Promotion Life
Target Award for Corporate Communications HAVAS LYNX for sanofi
Geoff Brook Innovation Award Ten Alps Communicate for Sanofi Pasteur MSD
Craft Award for Advertisement Campaign Havas Life Medicom for Fresenius Kabi
Craft Award for Secondary Care Ad VCCP Health for Mundipharma
Craft Award for Primary Care Ad Havas Life Medicom for Fresenius Kabi
Target Award for Secondary Care Ad Learner Adams Bones for Takeda UK
Target Award for Primary Care Ad Bedgebury Communications for Sanofi Pasteur MSD
