We’re proud to be sharing the win with all our wonderful clients, whose relationships allow us to create inspiring work that gets results.

Following on from last year’s win at The Creative Floor Awards, this time Ward6 and client Biogen have won in the category for Best use of data.

It’s always stiff competition - from some of the best agencies in the world - so we were particularly proud to showcase our digital and design capabilities this year.

The Biogen Interactive Data Tool is a first-of-its-kind data visualisation tool, using more than 1.22 million datapoints crafted into a stunning visual concept to illuminate the unmistakable impact of Alzheimer’s disease on the lives of Australians.

It’s a great win and a credit to all involved in the campaign.

Stuart Black, Ward6 Group CEO said, “We love to partner with clients who believe in the value and the power of innovation. Biogen is one such client, and it is a privilege to work with them.”

Fantastic news from The Creative Floor Awards, which showcases the best of creative healthcare from around the world. Ward6 and Biogen are finalists in the Healthcare Professional, Data category for best use of data in creating and executing work.

Our first-of-its-kind data visualisation tool uses more than 1.22 million datapoints crafted into a stunning visual concept to illuminate the impact of Alzheimer’s disease on the lives of Australians.

As an agency, we have a huge responsibility when it comes to what we produce. It’s not just about being compliant with Australian standards and regulations. There comes a moment where you realise that after the copy is written and the artwork is developed and the material has been produced, eventually a person will be reading your work on what could be the worst day of their life. That’s a monumental responsibility to hold.

We all have insight into experiences that we’ve lived through, whether we realise it or not. These unique perspectives can help shape the branding, initiatives and copy that gets developed and ultimately lands into the hands of the very people we were writing for.

At Ward6, we strive to amplify the lived experience in our work by centring diverse voices, stories, and opinions from those who have been or are currently on their journey. For many of us here at the agency, working on our brands is not only a professional endeavour, but a personal one too. The Ward6 CEO, Stuart Black, can attest to this. In 2018, Stu’s mother was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and given only days to live. She was then put on a trial for a new drug that Ward6 had just launched. Twelve months later she was cancer free and remains so to this day.

There is a myriad of ways to incorporate lived experience into agency and branded work. This can include active consultation before, during and after strategic and creative development; fostering initiatives with patient advocacy groups; embedding the voices of the consumers and their carers into professional education pieces and integrating these lived experiences into the experiences of internal stakeholders.

Ultimately, humans are social creatures who are always looking to relate to each other. A relatable story is a memorable story. When it comes to creating work that resonates with an audience, infusing a piece with lived experience can be the difference between “just another piece of information” and something that cuts through. We live in a time where there is a seemingly endless stream of information and smarter technology vying to replace us. Communication that authentically conveys an understanding of lived experience are going to be differentiators - a unique voice that stands out. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what all brands want?

Ward6 winners

Last night Ward6 and Biogen were category winners in the Marketing Innovation Award for our Interactive Data Tool at this year’s PRIME Awards. The prestigious industry event recognises excellence in the Australian pharmaceutical industry.

Ward6 are also proud to have had six finalists, the most nominations received by any agency.

Ward6 CEO, Stuart Black, said,

‘We aim to be the most creative healthcare agency in the region. That’s why people come to work at Ward6. So, we love to partner with clients who believe in the value and the power of innovation. And to them, we say a massive thank you for choosing to work with us.’

A new world of possibilities.

Every day, Australians generate huge amounts of healthcare data. From smart phones with built-in fitness trackers to electronic prescriptions that keep track of our medications.

It’s something we see across all areas of medicine. We can now map the genome of a single cell – or chart the spread of a disease across the globe. However, one thing is certain: we are far better at capturing complex data than we are at understanding it.

The positive benefits of understanding big data are far reaching – empowering doctors to make better decisions, helping people live healthier lives. The benefits of big data also flow through the entire healthcare ecosystem: reducing costs, optimising outcomes and improving operational efficiencies.

Yet to understand big data, we need to distil it into something that can be understood by the broad range of decision makers, the ones with the power to change our health system for the better.

Not all these decision makers have the time or the training to understand complex clinical information. How do you get a time-poor politician to read and appreciate a 200-page report?

The solution lies in how our brains work.

Our brains are hardwired for visual data. Within hours of birth, a baby's gaze is drawn to faces, and for the rest of our lives we respond to and process visual information better than any other type. In fact, we process visual information 60,000 times faster than text.

Ward6 has been working with several clients to transform complex information into visually compelling scientific narratives. The end result has been intuitive data visualisation tools that are widely accessible to a broad range of healthcare audiences.

Our toolbox is vast and constantly evolving. Recent advancements in a range of technology such as 3D content and animation, camera technology, real-time video game engines, and virtual, augmented, and mixed realities mean we can design and build powerfully engaging experiences.

We can combine streams of data from different sources: demographic, disease prevalence, health economics, administrative and integrated data to build a unique data model comprised of millions of data points.

Innovation that relies on having a clear and compelling vision.

And that is something we achieve through collaboration. Not only having a close working relationship with clients but also drawing on our diverse range of expertise: digital innovation, data analysis, medical knowledge, creative, strategy and project management.

Collaboration means the final result is elegant, fit for purpose, medically accurate and strategically on point. And it is an approach that we at Ward6 feel can unlock significant insights across a broad range of health conditions.

A win is always great news, and especially from The Creative Floor Awards. The international industry event showcases the very best of creative healthcare from countries around the world.

Ward6 and Janssen won in the category for Best Illustration. We were up against some of the biggest global agencies, and we showed them our capabilities.

The winning campaign ‘Check Right Heart’ was created to encourage healthcare professionals to take notice and act on the rare and devastating disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

It’s a great win and a credit to all involved in the campaign, including 3D production house Inland Studio.

Stuart Black, Ward6 Group CEO said, “We aim to be the most creative healthcare agency in the region. That’s why people come to work at Ward6. So, we love to partner with clients who believe in the value and the power of innovation. Janssen is one such client, and it is a privilege to work with them.”

Some great news from the 2022 Prime Awards. Ward6 has six finalists across five categories: Best Use of Data and Insight, Excellence in Medical Education, Best in Marketing Innovation, and Creativity in both HCP and Consumer. A huge thanks to all our client partners and fingers crossed for the awards night on November 10th.

By Kate Wilson, Senior Medical Writer, Ward 6. Kate has been a drummer, recording and touring in bands for over 20 years.

So why would a drummer make a good medical writer? Well, drummers are very good at counting to four, so that really helps in referencing shorter pieces. Most of us do love a joke and there are a lot out there at our expense! It’s said that it takes a creative mind to appreciate humour, and it also takes a creative mind to be a good medical writer.

Medical writers are problem solvers and it’s our job to find the most interesting and compelling ways to present data, speak to patients and clinicians, and produce clear and balanced copy, all while working within constraints, which include codes of conduct, word limits, and brand guidelines. This is a creative challenge, and some of the best work we do results from outside-the-box thinking.

A recent, ground-breaking study (Rosen DS et al. 2020) asked jazz guitarists to improvise a piece of music while researchers scanned their brains to look at regions of activity. At the same time, the musicians were rated on the creativity of their pieces by a panel of experts.

Traditionally, we call creative people “right-brained”, while logic and skills we practice are the domain of the left hemisphere of the brain. That’s why researchers were surprised to initially find the most creative pieces in their study were linked to higher left-brain activity.

It was only when the researchers adjusted their data to account for the experience of each musician, taking this away as a confounding variable, they found what they expected to see - nearly all of the differences in brain activity between the more- and less-creative musical interpretations were seen in the right hemisphere of the brain.

Theologians believe creativity is a gift from God, philosophers have committed thousands of words debating from whence inspiration springs, and countless psychologists have analysed its parentage. Now that neuroscientists have entered the fray, they have enhanced our understanding of creativity with a new, functional definition. While the definition of creativity as a nebulous, intrinsic, right-brained phenomenon is still valid, John Kounios, study co-author states:

“If creativity is defined as the quality of a product, then the left hemisphere [of the brain] plays a key role”

While the right-brain differences in the adjusted results do show some musicians have an innate capacity to think more creatively than others, the fact the powerful influence the left-brain had on creativity initially subsumed and hid this correlation, tells us people who have more practice being creative are more likely to produce a more creative product.

Aristotle didn’t have the benefit of an EEG machine when he made the same observation on creativity:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”

Musicians and other people who are involved in creative pursuits are habitually used to flexing their creative muscle. Songwriting is the obvious example, but musicians also often find themselves in unfamiliar locations and situations, interacting with a wide variety of different people. Playing drums and medical writing may seem worlds apart, but being adept and practiced at improvising, thinking on your feet, collaborating, and generating an array of potential solutions to any problem at hand is key to success in both fields.

Ward 6 has always been a very accommodating workplace for people with creative interests. Alongside musicians, the agency boasts staff members with accomplishments in fields as diverse as visual art, creative writing, photography, and fashion design, who bring their creative experience to work every day.

Citation: Rosen DS et al. Neuroimage 2020;213:116632. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116632.

Some great news from The Creative Floor Awards, which showcases the very best of creative healthcare from around the world. Ward6 and our brave client Janssen are finalists in Illustration and Mixed Media. We were up against some of the biggest global agencies, and we showed them what we can do. It really is a credit to all who were involved in the Check Right Heart campaign, including 3D production house Inland Studio. The Creative Floor Awards winners will be announced in London on the 8^th September. So, all fingers crossed here at Ward6.

Makes content more valuable

The implication of content transformation is all about opportunity. It focuses on how we can liberate content to become more engaging, dynamic, versatile, and reusable. However, content transformation alone is often not enough and benefits from being coupled with other methodologies.

Delivers a personal approach

In the pharmaceutical industry, omnichannel marketing is displacing multichannel marketing. Simply put, omnichannel provides a significantly better customer experience. This is accomplished by centring the strategy on the customer. You start by thinking about people's needs, and then you orchestrate channels and content to meet those needs. In other words, you create an experience. As a result, it's not the same message repeated throughout, but rather a story that develops and unfolds. Every time an HCP interacts with a channel, the content they see is related to what has come before and what is to come.

Keeps up with technology

Technology has now matured and gained acceptance in the pharmaceutical marketing and communications process. Traditional marketing teams, on the other hand, are not fully aware of the capabilities, limitations, and opportunities that now exist. Ward6 assists our clients in understanding how to deliver omnichannel marketing and the associated technologies. As a result, we see our services as a marketing partner as well as a change management agent, guiding and supporting our clients through the transition and keeping up with constant change.

Responds to customer insights

Contrary to the popular belief that agencies view the change to content transformation as a threat, Ward6 has embraced it as a central part of our omnichannel strategy. Our medical writers enjoy creating content that responds to insights derived from research and data, knowing that the relevance of their content is increased and that their audience is more likely to engage. Our digital and strategy teams collaborate to ensure that all parts are working seamlessly to achieve the most effective results possible.

Gives content when they want it

Content is the oil that keeps modern marketing running smoothly, and it has a significant impact on customer engagement, experience, and satisfaction. As a result, in a world where customer expectations demand content that provides a solution when and where they expect it, content transformation is a must.

Think of Advisory Boards and you’d be forgiven for thinking your agency can help only by sending a medical writer to take the meeting minutes.

At Ward6, we take a different approach. Our dedicated in-house strategy team can not only help the smooth running of your Advisory Board, but also leverage those hidden insights that often come to light at these invaluable Key Opinion Leader meetings.

Ward6 Strategy Director Scott Davis discusses how the agency’s strategy team works in synergy with its medical writers, and how involving both at your next Advisory Board could strengthen your brand strategy and translate hidden insights into tactics to help your brand grow.

What expertise can Ward6 Strategy bring to an Advisory Board?

Scott discusses how Strategy brings to an Advisory Board expertise in understanding human behaviour. “Strategy is anchored in human behaviour and understanding what drives behaviour. It’s looking at not just what is said, but understanding why it is said.”

He explains that in terms of strategy, an Advisory Board is not dissimilar to consumer focus groups. “Yes, they are experts, but they are people, and their motivations and behaviours are driven by the same things as consumers”. Strategy can help drive conversations that dig further into areas where there may be leverage points that can benefit the brand.

What additional outputs can be gained from having Ward6 Strategy involved in an Advisory Board?

Scott describes how involving Ward6 Strategy at an Advisory Board puts the business challenges that sit behind the Advisory Board under a lens, helping to glean insights that inform brand strategy as well as tactics for its execution. “Part of Ward6 Strategy’s role is taking information and data and turning it into direction for the brand.”

He tells how Ward6 Strategy can also bring a wholistic brand view to Advisory Boards, complementing medical objectives, which are often the primary focus.

What synergies exist between Medical Writing and Strategy at an Advisory Board?

“Strategists and Medical Writers both have a problem-solving mindset.” However, Scott goes on to say Medical Writers and Strategists bring different perspectives to an Advisory Board, allowing robust discussion around the meeting findings to understand the underlying human behaviour challenges for a brand.

In terms of changing human behaviour, Scott explains the involvement of both Strategy and Medical Writers can allow for smarter disruption: “The rich understanding that comes from the two disciplines working together allows for smarter disruption.”

Last night Ward6 picked up another PRIME Award, holding onto its title as the most awarded agency in PRIME’s seventeen-year history.

On the evening that recognises excellence in the Australian pharmaceutical industry, the award for ‘Creativity in Communication – HCP’ went to Ward6 and its client, Biogen.

Ward6 Group CEO, Stuart Black, said, ‘We try and put creativity and innovation at the heart of everything we do. And for this project, one of the geriatricians we researched told us explicitly, we needed a radical change in thinking. The team kept coming back to three words in the brief. Progressive. Credible. Inspiring. With our thinking, our writing, and our art direction, on this occasion, we’d like to think we delivered on all three.’

To Biogen and indeed all our clients, we say a massive thank you for choosing to partner with us.

Pharmacy has not traditionally been the first choice for pharmaceutical companies looking to improve their engagement and provide valuable educational awareness to patients and communities. Instead, they prefer to use internal Nurse-led and other Allied Health-led Patient Engagement Programs, with Pharmacy as a possible referral source.

This landscape, however, is rapidly changing, with COVID-19 only exacerbating the need to connect digitally with patients after they leave the healthcare setting. In the Australian healthcare setting, clinical programme implementation has also been complex. Many individual ownership structures and banner groups provide different workflow procedures, leaving pharmaceutical companies without the certainty of standardisation required for long-term programme implementation.

In addition to these structural challenges, the rapid clinical transaction turnover in community pharmacy, i.e., prescription review, prescription checking, and direct patient-facing interactions, complicates matters. With the average task taking one to two minutes, programmes looking to integrate into such a dynamic workflow environment must consider behavioural change a prerequisite to successful programme outcomes. However, with the advent of digital, the opportunity to leverage community pharmacy's latent capacity has never been greater. "Give us the tools, and we will finish the job," Winston Churchill once said.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia reported approximately 350 million individual patient visits to pharmacies in Australia each year. With the average Australian visiting a pharmacy 14 times per year (digitally or in-person), pharmacists have a unique opportunity to have a meaningful impact on patient outcomes throughout their health journey. Churchill's "tools," which are outfitted with digital CRM patient engagement software, provide these professionals with real-time and historical data that is tailored to the patient. Armed with this consolidated patient information and enhanced by AI systems, pharmacists can identify potential issues at the point of care or prescription dispensing event and then intervene for better patient care.

While still subject to TGA regulations, pharmaceutical companies could now raise disease awareness directly through the pharmacy channel, providing pharmacists with a meaningful opportunity to improve care. As a result, Pharmacy may be regarded as the logical choice for addressing multibillion-dollar issues ranging from medication adherence to clinical trial participation.

Pharmacists can target and deliver personalised communications by connecting Electronic Health Records, specialist CRMs, and healthcare patient apps that offer services ranging from consultations to prescriptions to patient adherence functionality. To personalise patient engagement, additional SMS, e-mail, and point-of-contact interventions can be used. With the rise of AI-enabled health platforms, healthcare brands can use such platforms/apps for disease education, a crucial patient engagement tool for pharmaceutical companies.

When it comes to patient case studies, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re printed or digital pieces, heavy on clinical detail and light on real patient insight.

Ward6 Senior Medical Writer Mike Smith discusses the agency’s way of doing patient case studies and how they can help reveal fresh insights for your brand and connect with patients in meaningful ways.

“We use patient case studies to bring clinical data to life, by describing what it really means to patients, carers and their families. We look at experiences and meaningful insights to help support other patients on their journeys, including dealing with a diagnosis, treatment and possible side effects. Also, wholistic approaches to help improve mental wellbeing and treatment outcomes.”

Mike explains the agency’s approach of interviewing patients and clinicians. How it captures a multitude of information and insights that may go beyond the initial brief. “Over the years, we’ve developed a pool of interview questions along with a template that arranges questions into themes. We have a wealth of knowledge across a diverse range of therapy areas to draw upon, which allows us to explore additional avenues, delivering valuable answers originally not considered.”

For clinical patient case studies, Mike says the key aim is to go beyond the clinical data and discuss with clinicians their patients’ treatment goals and how these impact on clinical decision making.

Mike discusses how speaking with patients can help reveal the impact symptoms can have on their day-to-day lives and highlight areas where clients can provide unique patient support. “Speaking with one patient about their gastrointestinal symptoms, I discovered it meant they never took public transport, they never went on holiday and, when they did leave home, they always took a change of clothing and mapped out every public toilet. These types of insights can help inform the design of patient support programs.”

Mike went on further to explain how occasionally there can be disparity between what clinicians consider to be of high importance and what patients value most. He recalls how the insights gained from a series of patient interviews led to a change in how one client communicated their key messages.

“We changed our approach to instead lead with real patient treatment goals, and then introduce clinical data that helped support these. For example, when discussing efficacy for patient X, it meant they were able to see their daughter start school; when discussing administration for patient Y, it meant that they were able to go on a holiday.”

“I feel proud when we uncover patient insights that help inform how key messages are communicated or how patient support materials are designed. Being able to speak directly to patients, doctors or nurses is quite a privilege. They bring you into their world and give you this invaluable, tangible meaning to clinical data. They’re speaking with you, to help drive better clinical practice or to support other patients in a similar position. I feel trusted with their information and their stories, and I want to communicate them in a way that does them justice and helps make a difference to the experiences of others.”

It was during an incidental chat in the office when one of my colleagues asked, “so, what is your research curing?” This question has been asked many times of myself and researchers-alike, and it’s not a simple one to answer.

Before joining the Ward6 med writers team, I was a researcher looking at how the immune system responds to viral infections, using a mouse model. I personally was not curing anything, but scientific research is incremental, with each researcher having their own contribution, all with the common goal of expanding our knowledge. It’s like piecing together a giant jigsaw puzzle without knowing the final picture — little by little you see it come together — and so does the potential for changing the future of medicine.

I no longer don a white lab coat every day, and I now find myself at the other end of the spectrum where I see and appreciate the translation of basic science (i.e the discipline, not simple by any means) into the age of personalised, tailored medicine – and what an exciting time it is! But as a scientist, I say let’s not forget those who are paving the way. There are some game-changing technologies appearing in the medical space including DNA-editing (made possible by the technology more commonly referred to as CRISPR), mRNA vaccines (the COVID-19 vaccine being first of its kind) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy, which as a T cell biologist, I’ve taken quite an interest in.

CAR-T cell therapy is in the headlines with the launch of two new cancer therapies in Australia and multiple treatment centres opening across the country. CAR-T cell therapy utilises T cells, a type of immune cell responsible for hunting down infected or cancerous cells and eliminating them from the body, but often cancer cells find a way to evade detection by these T cells. The amazing thing about CAR-T cell therapy is that the patient’s immune cells are harvested and genetically modified in a lab, making them more targeted to the specific cancer the patient has, and consequently, better able to detect and kill the cancer cells once injected back into the patient.

From the identification of T cells and their ability to kill cancer cells, to where we are today, has taken more than 50 years of research. In 1992, immunologist Michel Sadelain used newly developed genetic engineering tools to insert DNA into T cells to boost their ability to fight cancer cells. One year later, the first-generation CAR-T cell was created by Zelig Eshhar. It took another 5 years for the second-generation of CAR-T cells to be developed and this time they were biologically active and could remain alive in the body. In 2002, we saw the generation of the first CAR-T cell with promising therapeutic potential by a team of scientists at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute in New York. In 2003, Dr Sadelain and colleagues published a paper showing CAR-T cells killing leukaemia cells in a mouse model. Fast-forward though years of research and clinical trials to the FDA approval of CAR-T cell therapy for the treatment of relapsed and refectory acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2017, with the TGA following suit in 2018.

Imagine the number of scientists, hours in the lab, failed experiments and the years spent on clinical trials it has taken to see the translation of basic science into personalised medicine. As I sit here now, on the other side to where I started as a scientist, seeing these therapies implemented and the impact on patients’ lives — this is a shout-out to scientists in the lab this weekend.

Ward6 recently teamed-up with Audika to create a campaign of positive change and motivate over 60s to start being hearing healthy.  

It tapped into a real truth of people with hearing loss always saying pardon, sorry, huh or what when they can’t hear the conversation. 

With hearing loss affecting one in two Australians over 60, and linked to other health issues like dementia, it’s time we recognised hearing health as a vital part of our overall health.

The campaign is running across radio, TV, digital, social and retail in Australia and NZ.

Yesterday Ward6 and Novartis picked up two trophies at the 16th annual PRIME Awards. On the day that recognises excellence in the Australian healthcare communications industry, the awards for ‘Creativity in Communication – HCP’ and ‘Marketing Innovation’ went to agency and client.

Ward6 Group CEO, Stuart Black, said, “For us, this year’s PRIME award wins are all about collaboration. A successful launch takes a huge amount of preparation and if you are not working tightly as a team, month after month, you do the product and your company a disservice. We consider ourselves very fortunate to be working with an inspiring group of clients from one of the world’s great pharmaceutical companies and we’re incredibly proud to share these wins with them.”

To all our clients, we say a massive thank you for choosing to partner with us.

Lockdown for fertility company Genea meant losing connection with GPs. Practices understandably stopped accepting medical sales reps. It was up to Ward6 and The Misfits to find another way of making baby talk.

Last night Ward6 picked up two trophies and one highly commended at the PRIME Awards, holding onto its title as the most awarded agency in PRIME’s fifteen year history.

On the evening that recognises excellence in the Australian healthcare communications industry, awards for Launch of the Year (Biktarvy) and Marketing Campaign of the Year (Biktarvy) went to the agency, and their client Gilead.

For their work on the Neulasta brand with client Amgen, Ward6 received a Highly Commended acknowledgment for Marketing Campaign of the Year, and was shortlisted as a finalist in the Creativity in Communication category.

Ward6 was shortlisted again in the Creativity in Communication category for its work with client Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Ward6 and its client, Amgen, have been shortlisted in two different categories, Health and Wellbeing and Small Budget.

Introduced by the New York American Marketing Association in 1968, the Effie^® Awards have since become recognised by advertisers and agencies as the pre-eminent award in the advertising industry. Held in 51 countries around the world, the Effie Awards honour the most significant achievement in advertising and marketing communications: effectiveness.

The Effie winners will be announced at a presentation in Sydney on Thursday 5 September.

Following agency tradition, Ward6 away day headed to a wine region for some well deserved therapy. The beautiful Mornington Peninsula was our playground for two days.

Ward6 was awarded finalist for Best New Product Launch at last night’s PRIME Awards, which recognises excellence in the Australian healthcare communications industry.

The agency was given the monumental task to develop a global launch campaign for Cochlear that could work across five regions around the world. The result was “Hear Your Way” - a strategic and global creative platform. The campaign highlighted the customisation capabilities of Nucleus 7 made available by the first ever Made for iPhone cochlear implantable hearing device.

“Hear Your Way” has proven to be Cochlear’s most successful product launch in the company’s 37-year history. It was launched at Apple’s flagship store in San Francisco, generating nearly 645 million media impressions.

If you’d like to hear more contact us

During the ABC’s Gruen, now in its ninth season, Ward6 were asked on ‘The Pitch’ how to convince Australian men to go to the doctors. This was the agency’s second appearance on the show that ‘unpicks the dark arts of advertising, branding and spin’ and we’re thrilled to have a second trophy to place in the award cabinet!