Andy Semons - IPNY

The Jay Chiat Awards Announce Healthcare Strategy 2024 Jurors, IPNY’s Andy Semons Is Invited

Andy Semons — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 13:00:16 +0000

The Jay Chiat Awards, hosted by the 4A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies), has selected Andy Semons, Founder and Strategic Planning Partner at IPNY, to serve on the Healthcare Strategy jury. This prestigious event celebrates the art of strategic thinking, honoring breakthrough approaches that yield exceptional work and advertising excellence. Andy is thrilled to serve along with the other esteemed jurors.

Now in its 27th year, the Jay Chiat Awards celebrates the best in strategic thinking by honoring the methodologies and approaches behind exceptional creative work. The Healthcare Strategy category acknowledges groundbreaking ideas and the innovative use of technology and media that effectively connect customers with brands – most notably healthcare services, products or prescription drugs. More information about the award show is available here.

Jay Chiat Awards recognize strategic excellence on a global scale, prioritizing visionary insights that inform creative excellence but are not overshadowed by execution. Winning case studies will be published on the Jay Chiat Awards website, the 4A’s main site, and WARC.com

The post The Jay Chiat Awards Announce Healthcare Strategy 2024 Jurors, IPNY’s Andy Semons Is Invited first appeared on IPNY.

More 2024 Predictions From Leaders of Medical Marketing Agencies

Andy Semons — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 13:00:50 +0000

As published in MM&M

In the coming year, healthcare providers will become better acquainted with the uses for and limitations of Artificial Intelligence. Specifically, we’ll get a better feeling for where it can have a positive impact, how to manage it, and how to advocate for its use to internal and external stakeholders. We will become less fearful of using AI correctly. As the saying goes, “AI won’t replace us. But someone who knows how to use it correctly will.” — Andy Semons, founder, strategic planning partner, IPNY

The post More 2024 Predictions From Leaders of Medical Marketing Agencies first appeared on IPNY.

Overcoming Bias: Unlocking the Mind

Andy Semons — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 13:00:46 +0000

The emphasis on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has been long overdue for health care marketers, and as we come to terms with how to broaden our appeal to the people in our communities and be more inclusive, we’re realizing that it’s not an easy task. We’re also learning more about bias and the need to work with it – both the biases that our targets may have against certain health care issues or institutions and the biases we may have that guide how we think or feel about the populations we serve.

In recent years, smart health care marketers have leveraged best-in-class principles of Neuroscience – the science of the human brain. Neuroscience can help us navigate bias, bridge gaps, and build offerings and communication that inspire and motivate our targets to take action. Our recent SHSMD panel – Overcoming Bias: How to Unlock a Closed Mind? — helped us understand the nature of bias and how to account for it, both when focusing internally and when building the right kind of communication to our targets. The panel featured Donna Walthall, Senior Director of Marketing at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA and Dr. Sarah Bridges, a noted neuropsychologist and head of Bridges Consulting.

Here are a few key takeaways that can help those in healthcare who are managing external communication and looking to strengthen their organization’s DEI:

1. Remember, bias is inherent in everyone – Bias is a fact of life. Our brains were built to keep us safe, and unconscious preference, or bias, is a natural tendency that can manifest itself any number of ways – from conserving our mental energy to exhibiting a preference for the familiar. But left unchecked, bias can impact the way we make decisions. For example, we often overrate information that comes to mind easily, or look for data that supports what we believe. On a day-to-day basis, there are many kinds of bias that come into play. And they need to be both acknowledged and managed.

2. To be successful, the commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion needs to be embraced by the entire organization – It’s naïve for organizations to think that hiring a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) will solve all problems if they don’t embrace and support the programmatic changes and policies the CDO is implementing. Dr. Randal Pinkett, author of Data Driven DEI, underscores that successful DEI requires planning, metrics, and process – and that all of these key elements are dependent on the participation of an organization’s employees, who are accountable for outcomes. Dana-Farber’s Guide to Inclusive Behaviors, an employee-directed manual aimed at the acculturation of a more inclusive way of working together, points out everyday behaviors each employee can adopt to help accelerate the organization’s goal. And Dr. Bridges recommends five key practical tools for challenging bias in an organization:

Keep diversity on the team
Standardize a process or way of working which keeps bias in check
Involve the community whenever possible
Test your assumptions before turning them into action
Lead with empathy and curiosity in everything you do

3. Importantly, marketers shouldn’t assume that our commitment to DEI will be embraced by external target audiences – Just like us, our targets have their own biases which will impact their relationship with us. A key example of this was illustrated by Dana-Farber, when their research showed them that low response to community efforts (participation in a free community mammogram program) was due to several perceptual barriers, e.g.:

Target bias towards the incurable nature of cancer
Target mistrust of “research” and “institute” due to the resulting stigma from the legacy of Tuskeegee
Target bias against Harvard, as Harvard was seen as “elitist.”

The post Overcoming Bias: Unlocking the Mind first appeared on IPNY.

Andy Semons On Winning Health Care Marketing Strategies.

Andy Semons — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 13:00:05 +0000

Using neuroscience to motivate people and overcome biases to diverse communities.

This piece is part of a series on targeted health care marketing, highlighting stories from people in the trenches throughout the industry. Read the first story in the series.

People are notoriously bad at doing what’s good for them, according to Andy Semons, founder and strategic planning partner of communications company IPNY.

Health care marketers are often in the business of reminding consumers of their diagnoses and getting them to change their behaviors for their own good. IPNY works with neuroscientists to design persuasive, relatable health care communication materials. When it comes to applying neuroscience to motivate people, empathy looms large.

The company once developed a campaign encouraging current or former smokers to go in for lung scans. With smoking, “you’re dealing with a disease state where people just don’t want to hear it,” Semons said. “Smokers know that smoking isn’t good for you. The real issue is they’ve got an addiction, and treating an addiction is hard.”

The post Andy Semons On Winning Health Care Marketing Strategies. first appeared on IPNY.

World Health Day: Meet Your Customers Where They Are

Andy Semons — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 23:00:50 +0000

Q&A with Founding and Strategic Planning Partner at IPNY, Andy Semons, as published in AdForum.com

Tell us about yourself and what you do.

I’m a strategist to the core. Part psychologist, part architect, neuroscience geek and lover of great creative communication that not only gets the message across but motivates real behavioral change. I guess it’s the promise of being able to do all this that draws me to Pharma and Healthcare – I started working in direct to consumer (DTC) back in the mid-90’s when it was an emerging business and found it fascinating. Pharma and Healthcare have the potential to do such good in the world.

But we all know that getting people to act in their own best interest isn’t always a rational decision, so a fundamental understanding of how people think and act, is critical to motivation. That’s what excites me – how to influence behavior that results in real change for brands. Fortunately, I have the chance to do this every day.

I’m one of the three founding partners of IPNY, a nine-year old privately held agency. We have deep credentials in healthcare and pharma, along with other verticals such as nonprofit and financial services. Our expertise is both in brand positioning and messaging, and we measure the quality of our work by its ability to drive real results.

Pharma and healthcare have been slower to embrace digital marketing compared with other industries. Has there been a shift since the pandemic started?

I don’t think it’s 100% correct to say that Pharma and Healthcare have been slower to embrace digital marketing – in fact, before the world of HIPAA in the mid ‘90’s digital marketing was on everyone’s minds. I think that things like data privacy, adverse event reporting and many important regulatory constraints make it harder to put digital marketing into practice for Pharma and Healthcare.

That being said, I’ve seen quite a bit of use of digital and social channels during the pandemic – not for the marketing of brand name drugs but rather aimed at building awareness of key issues and changing behavior. To begin with, we learned early in the pandemic that people with preexisting conditions were foregoing important medical treatment and even procedures for fear of coming in contact with the virus that causes COVID-19. The impact on the healthcare system and patient quality of life was significant. Many hospitals implemented messages through digital and social channels urging people not to delay routine or necessary care and reassuring them that they provided safe environments.

More recently, I’ve seen unbranded work on social media that talks about monoclonal antibody treatment for high-risk patients who have just been diagnosed with COVID-19. Monoclonal antibodies have been proven to keep people out of the hospital, but they work best if given within 10 days of diagnosis. These ads aim at a key behavioral change, as we’ve all been conditioned to hear that if we get COVID we should just quarantine and not call our doctors unless symptoms get worse. It’s important that these ads go through social channels because that’s where folks are getting their information. Even more so during the pandemic.

Additionally, I’ve seen a lot of campaigns on social media where hospitals have been honoring their own frontline workers. These tend to drive enormous goodwill and give employees who are so overworked and tired the reminder they need, that we all appreciate their selfless dedication. One such campaign was done by IPNY for Dana-Farber. The photos and shoutouts to local heroes kept on coming throughout the initiative.

The post World Health Day: Meet Your Customers Where They Are first appeared on IPNY.

Campaigns that Prove Omnichannel Marketing Initiatives Produce Results

Andy Semons — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 04:14:40 +0000

As published in MM&M

Testimonials have long been a staple of hospital marketing campaigns. But for its Miracle of Science with Soul campaign City Of Hope leveraged the power of the testimonial into a full omnichannel experience. While complete patient stories lived on the City Of Hope website, a variety of television, radio, outdoor, digital, social and print media featured these City of Hope cancer survivors in a “teaser” campaign and referenced tags or links that directed the target to the site for a complete story.

While seeing the full testimonial, the target learned about City of Hope’s innovation in the cancer field through the eyes of actual cancer survivors – and were given the ability to schedule an appointment and speak to a City of Hope physician.

All told, this approach helped drove outpatient visits up 13% and filled beds to capacity on the main campus, surpassing all prior single-channel acquisition initiatives.

The post Campaigns that Prove Omnichannel Marketing Initiatives Produce Results first appeared on IPNY.

Delaying medical care? Why? Let’s ask a neuropsychologist.

Andy Semons — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 04:32:50 +0000

Video interview of Sarah Bridges by Andy Semons

Dr. Sarah Bridges – Neuropsychologist, Expert in Consumer Behavior and Motivation

With both a Ph.D. in neuropsychology and an MBA, Sarah is an invaluable resource to the IPNY team. Her keen understanding of human psychology and how the brain works has helped us craft both communications strategies and creative that help people break through their assumptions and motivate positive behaviors. Based in the Twin Cities, Sarah is a consultant to major Fortune 500 firms as well as start-ups and an expert in facilitating big change. For example, a recent engagement for a Fortune 100 company led to a new initiative that reduced safety issues by an astounding 75%.

The post Delaying medical care? Why? Let’s ask a neuropsychologist. first appeared on IPNY.

We Are In This Together #MyDanaFarberHero

Andy Semons — Mon, 04 May 2020 00:43:33 +0000

As published in MM&M

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Who’s The Hero Behind The Mask? initiative was designed by Dana-Farber and IPNY to celebrate all Dana-Farber frontliners via social media channels. Open to the general public as well as the extended Dana-Farber family, this effort invites participants to post images and notes on their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn feeds using the hashtag #MyDanaFarberHero giving shout outs to both specific Dana-Farber employees and frontliners in general.

Dana-Farber is featuring these heroes and reposting/retweeting community posts as part of an ongoing campaign on their social media, Institute wide email bulletins, and on their COVID-19 resource center web site page. Community posts are aggregated using the #MyDanaFarberHero hashtag on the web page and shared with the front liners.

The post We Are In This Together #MyDanaFarberHero first appeared on IPNY.

IPNY Is Named A Top Content Marketing Agency

Andy Semons — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 03:31:25 +0000

As published in prweb.com

TopMarketingCompanies.com, a B2B marketplace connecting brands with digital marketing experts, identified IPNY as one of the best agencies who help brands create unique content marketing strategies that aid lead generation and conversion. This might be anything from highly effective content marketing strategies to managing customer content channels that may include on-page SEO, social media, email marketing and blog creation.

IPNY was ranked ahead of all other New York based agencies and leading in their competitive set. The ranking was based on various criteria including but not limited to, case studies, cost-effectiveness and quality of their portfolio along with client reviews.

The post IPNY Is Named A Top Content Marketing Agency first appeared on IPNY.

MM&M Awards Selected IPNY’s Andy Semons as a Juror

Andy Semons — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 23:15:00 +0000

As published in MM&M

We are honored that IPNY’s Andy Semons was chosen to serve on the jury of the upcoming MM&M Awards. Medical, Marketing & Media (MM&M) was first published in 1966 and focuses on timely, objective, original editorial content for an executive and leaders who work in pharma, medical device, diagnostics and greater healthcare marketing. The awards celebrate creativity and effectiveness in healthcare marketing. The publication has been tirelessly disseminating timely and relevant information about Coronavirus and IPNY gladly supports the publication in any way possible.

The post MM&M Awards Selected IPNY’s Andy Semons as a Juror first appeared on IPNY.