As published in Strategic Health Care Marketing, by Andy Semons and Donna T. Walthall

How Dana-Farber Cancer Institute used neuroscience to transform its approach to underserved populations.

Any good marketer who has been on the receiving end of a DEI backlash can tell you that both strategically and in execution, fostering inclusivity isn’t as simple as saying “we care” or including visual representation of diverse groups in communications.

DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] is truly complex. And between the current politicization of DEI and the failure to get it right, many organizations are asking themselves if it’s worth it.

Still, in health care, the benefits of a successful approach to DEI speak for themselves. For the community, it’s better care and a better patient experience. For health care organizations, it’s a happier, more loyal and productive workforce, innovation, and advocacy. And a deeper understanding of neuroscience — the science of the human brain and its impact on behavior — can help pave the way for a successful DEI approach.

Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a cancer research and treatment center with over 75 years of experience, is a prime example of how an organization overcame bias with neuroscience.

Continue reading to learn how neuroscience helped Dana-Farber understand and more effectively reach underserved communities. We’ll share the organization’s “12 Everyday Acts of Inclusion” as well as an example of how inclusivity builds trust and paves the way for change.

Why Neuroscience?

Neuroscience teaches us that our brains are built for unconscious preferences. The brain makes memory-based predictions and naturally looks for patterns in experience, prioritizing the familiar. While that can be helpful in many ways, it can also create unconscious preference, or bias, if left unchecked.

Cognitive biases may be helpful in some ways, like keeping us out of danger. But they can also impede good decision making. Think about how many times, in the course of decision making, we overvalue data that supports our own personal beliefs, avoid doing research on too many choices, make snap decisions based on past experiences. That’s cognitive bias at work. In brief, each one of us brings our own biases to the table. And if they’re not managed on an institutional level, they can get in the way of sound DEI practice.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Lessons Learned on How to Overcome Bias

Bias against the Dana-Farber brand was an obstacle to its mission to improve public health in some underserved communities. So much so, that outreach workers viewed the brand as a hinderance and would remove it from efforts to promote the early detection and prevention of cancer.

Research within the target community revealed the reasons behind the bias. The findings showed two key areas of concern:

• Negative perceptions of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute name
  • The community had negative associations with the word “cancer” (i.e., a death sentence, fate, and something to be avoided).
  • The word “institute” brought up associations of experimental research and invoked the infamous Tuskegee Institute experiments.
• Perceptions that Dana-Farber, as a Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate, was elitist and not welcoming to people of color

In neuroscience terms, these biases created a “threat response” among the local community which caused people to shut down and not listen to Dana-Farber’s messaging. Importantly, neuroscience suggests a number of actionable ways that communications can work to overcome a threat response and open up a productive dialogue:

• Create a narrative that is personal, not institutional: Avoid speaking as an institution and leveraging a human voice.
• Storytelling: Telling a story eliminates the threat of being lectured or belittled. It simply allows the target to project themselves into a narrative, which often is happening to someone else, and understand the point of view of the storyteller. Our brains enjoy participating in the stories of others and are intrigued by stories.
• Keep it familiar: Stories should be told from identifiable, relatable, and empathetic people with whom the target can easily establish a rapport.
• Feed the target’s sense of being in control: Spend more time talking about the positive steps a target can take as opposed to magnifying the extent of a problem or threat. And if they’re taking positive steps to do the right thing, acknowledge it.
• Highlight benefits: End benefits such as longer life, emotional well-being, more time with family and loved ones are compelling ways to keep the conversation going.

Dana-Farber’s new community work, still in market today, established a positive and optimistic tone while leveraging influencers and other members of the community to get its message across — that cancer can be conquered, and that screening is a powerful tool available to all of us. Campaign results have reflected considerable improvements among the target in brand awareness, preference, and consideration.

Dana-Farber’s Community Screening advertising keeps it personal, highlights benefits, and feeds the target’s sense of control.

Addressing DEI: A Practical Application

Dana-Farber’s commitment to DEI grew not just from the realization that it needed to better understand a community it served; it also grew from understanding that the organization needed to change.

Historically, Dana-Farber’s patient population has been homogeneous and it has lacked diversity in its faculty and staff.

Today, Dana-Farber’s commitment to DEI extends far beyond the chief diversity officer and touches every member of the staff. It has an active program training employees in inclusive behaviors, stressing 12 key everyday acts of inclusion and reinforcing the values of Commitment, Courage, Consciousness, Curiosity, Cultural Intelligence, and Collaboration. Dana-Farber’s example is a model for comprehensive DEI initiatives in health care.

Dana-Farber’s 12 Everyday Acts of Inclusion are a cornerstone of employee training in DEI.

While each organization may have its own challenges in implementing successful DEI policy, neuroscience strongly supports the following practical tools for challenging bias within an organization:

• Keep your team diverse to keep perspective as varied as possible.
• Standardize your process to keep it inclusive and open.
• Bring the community in — do your homework and make sure views are known and heard.
• Test your assumptions before building communication.
• Lead with empathy and curiosity in everything you do.

In summary, while bias is inherent in everyone and in every organization, how we manage it, on an individual or enterprise level, is up to us. Key to this is not just embracing inclusive behaviors but understanding that how we communicate matters.

Andy Semons is Founder, Strategic Planning Partner, IPNY. With 30+ years in advertising, including building and growing Ogilvy Healthcare, Andy is dedicated to driving results for clients while leveraging the power of consumer insights and neuroscience to build brands. He is a founding partner of IPNY, a brand positioning and messaging company. Clients include Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, City of Hope Medical Center, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Regeneron, Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center, and WNET PBS THIRTEEN.

Donna Walthall is Senior Director, Marketing, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. During Donna’s 25-year tenure, she’s led the development and implementation of innovative strategies to grow Dana-Farber’s reputation and increase patient volume for Dana-Farber’s primary clinical collaborations with Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She’s also directed marketing outreach to communities of color.

As published on the Strategic Health Care Marketing site.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in collaboration with IPNY, has been named a finalist in the prestigious MM+M Awards. These awards celebrate outstanding creativity and effectiveness in healthcare marketing and communications.

IPNY’s campaign, titled “We specialize in cancer. And you.” has been recognized in the Use of Hospital or Healthcare Services Marketing category. The primary objective of this campaign was to motivate patients to inquire about treatment and/or book appointments at Dana-Farber Brigham. To achieve this, the campaign aimed to create a highly differentiating and motivating brand equity that communicated the unparalleled specialization in cancer treatment, research and benefits offered by Dana-Farber Brigham.

The central insight driving this campaign was the understanding that true specialization in cancer goes beyond medical knowledge. It encompasses a profound understanding of patients, coupled with exceptional listening and caregiving skills. This insight formed the basis of the campaign’s promise: Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center specializes in two things – cancer, and you.

The omnichannel campaign featured powerful patient stories, providing firsthand accounts of how Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center’s treatment is truly in a class of its own. The campaign’s effectiveness is evident in its remarkable results: from October 2023 to January 2024, there was a 154% increase in booked appointments year over year.

Larry Dobrow of MM+M praised the campaign, stating, “It’s an honor to celebrate the marketing that helps so many people achieve better health outcomes.” The MM+M Awards, now in their 21st year, are considered the premier awards program in the medical marketing industry. Winners will be announced later this year in August/September.

This recognition underscores the commitment and expertise of Dana-Farber Brigham and IPNY in delivering impactful healthcare marketing that not only informs but inspires action.

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 30th Annual Communicator Awards Announces IPNY’S Dana-Farber Campaign, Momentum of Discovery, A Winner

The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA) chose IPNY’s campaign for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Momentum of Discovery, as a winner in the category of Campaign-Medical & Pharmaceutical. The campaign reflects the long history of Dana-Farber making significant discoveries and innovating the way cancer is treated around the world. In fact, IPNY’s research revealed that “over the past five years, Dana-Farber research has contributed substantively to 51% of all FDA-approved cancer drugs.”

The Communicator Awards is the leading global awards program honoring creative excellence for marketing and communications professionals. Founded three decades ago, the Communicator Awards is an annual competition recognizing the best in advertising, corporate communications, public relations and design.

The awards are sanctioned and judged by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA), an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from acclaimed brand and media, interactive, advertising, and marketing firms including: GE Digital, Spotify, Condè Nast, Disney, Accenture Song, Superfly, Fast Company, and many others.

With over 3,000 entries received from across the US and around the world, the Communicator Awards is the largest and most competitive awards program honoring creative excellence for communications professionals. The competition celebrated its 30th anniversary this year with a pledge to honor timeless communication.

To view the winning work, visit the Winners Gallery.

See aiva.org for more information.

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

Written by: Andy Semons, Founder, Strategic Planning Partner, IPNY

Dana-Farber’s Guide to Inclusive Behaviors

Awarded at a live event celebrating healthcare leaders.

Below is the nomination letter by Bruce Lee, IPNY’s Founder and Chief Creative Officer, that beautifully summarizes Andy’s skills and talents.

This past May marks the first decade that IPNY has been in business. Which is an accomplishment at a time when most startup agencies don’t make it past the first year. There are many reasons why IPNY has had such good fortune. One of the most significant is Andy Semons. 

As one of our three Agency Founders and head of Strategic Planning, Andy has been an inspiration from the moment we opened our doors. We opened them with no clients and no income and within two weeks we had both, thanks to Andy’s skill and persuasiveness. The client was The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). They needed a brand film. But having done little advertising, they had no brand to speak of. Andy suggested doing some discovery research to find out what made LLS distinctive as a cancer research organization. The interviews Andy conducted within the organization and with leading scientists gave us a wealth of insight into the extraordinary impact LLS has had on the cancer landscape. This strategic work became the rock-solid foundation of “Someday is Today”, IPNY’s pioneering first healthcare campaign. In less than one year it put LLS on the map as a leading-edge charitable organization and produced an unprecedented lift in donations. And it set the bar for the kind of kind of creative IPNY has produced ever since: Beautifully crafted work that makes scientific and medical breakthroughs easy to understand without diminishing how revolutionary they are.    

Year after year, Andy has been MVP in helping our agency grow. From groundbreaking work for LLS we went on to create brand-building communications for City of Hope Medical Center, an influential California-based cancer research hospital that desperately needed national awareness. Andy’s strategic vision inspired the much-imitated creative campaign, “The Miracle of Science with Soul”, that not only raised record awareness levels but brought IPNY even more recognition (winning the MM&M Awards Grand Prize, among many others) and significant new business wins, including Dana-Farber Cancer Center, for whom we’ve created two brand campaigns that have given this top five research hospital the recognition it has never achieved in over 70 years.

Healthcare is not the only category of work IPNY engages in, but over ten years it has become our most rewarding business sector. During the worst of the COVID crisis we were called on by the biotech innovator Regeneron to help introduce a new class of therapies, monoclonal antibodies, for high-risk COVID-19 patients. Andy’s strategic ingenuity set the course for an essential digital and multi-media public service education program that succeeded by every measure. And his leadership on the recent win of a healthcare nonprofit has, at the time of this writing, sold in a campaign that will have a major effect on pediatric cardiac health in over 80 emerging countries around the world.

IPNY is a big agency packed in a small frame. Every player must punch above his or her weight. No one epitomizes that more than Andy Semons. He is a marketer with over 40 years of experience working on influential campaigns too numerous to mention. At Ogilvy & Mather he devoted years to growing their healthcare practice, including many notable DTC and OTC campaigns. His humanity is evident from the moment you meet him. People love to talk to him. He is genuinely interested in who they are and what they know and it’s astounding what he gets them to reveal. I’ve been working as his creative partner for decades now and I can honestly say that Andy’s touch always makes our work deeper, smarter, and more honest. 

I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this nomination than Andy Semons.

IPNY and Regeneron Medical Affairs Insights & Value are recognized for their COVID campaign.

Fierce Pharma Marketing Awards has named IPNY and Regeneron Medical Affairs Insights & Value as a finalist in the PharmaTV category for their Mono WHAT? (Taking Aim Against COVID) campaign work.

The winners will be announced at the Awards Gala taking place on the evening of October 19, 2022 at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, during the annual Digital Pharma East conference. The Awards Gala will be an evening of celebration to honor the individuals, teams and companies who are leading the way in pharmaceutical marketing and advertising. See the finalist list here.

FiercePharma is a leading industry publication that delivers breaking news and analysis about drug companies, the FDA and the broader pharma industry. They cover the pharma waterfront, from late-stage drug development through the entire lifecycle—tracking regulatory approvals, payer negotiations, manufacturing, marketing, patent fights, government investigations and regulation, M&A deals and beyond. It is complete life sciences coverage from preclinical research to market and beyond.

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.