Marketing Videos for Pharma Need to Balance Industry Nuances

When it comes to the pharmaceutical industry, effective marketing is difficult – more so than in other corporate sectors. It’s a complicated space, a nuanced mix of the humanities and the sciences that tends to unnerve and polarize, simply because people do not trust things they don’t understand. Marketing videos for pharmaceutical companies have to juggle both the social issues community as well as the scientific community to be effective. These videos need to overcome obstacles like:

• Social stigma among certain illnesses, especially mental illnesses
• Ethics around medical research and clinical trials
• Towing the FDA’s messaging guidelines
• Combating the public’s distrust of pharmaceutical companies
• Telling the right story

So then, what does an effective marketing video look like in the pharmaceutical industry?

Pharmaceutical Industry Videos Need Humanity

Aside from solid data backing your claims, perhaps the most important aspect of a pharma marketing video is a focus on the humanity of what they do. At the end of the day, medicine isn’t about chemicals and clinical trials; it’s about the people the medications and treatments help. An audience can identify with another person’s plight much more than lab procedures. And an audience can understand a person’s story more than the complicated ethics and processes that get a pharmaceutical product from development to distribution.

Juggling these different facets of the pharmaceutical industry can present obstacles, but if your pharma video utilizes this humanity-based strategy correctly, you can extrapolate it into “humanizing” the data and the research as well. Candid snippets of researchers in their element or doctors treating patients can help you say a lot more than graphs from clinical trials. The more friendly, well-meaning faces you feature in your video, the easier it will be for your audience to overcome any worry or prejudice and instead really hear your company’s mission.

Another aspect of focusing on the humanity of your pharma company in a marketing video is that the compassion and empathy you engage the audience with increases their trust in your brand at-large. Pharma videos that do this successfully will see long-term results in improvement in public opinion on their operations and ethics. This effect directly translates into increased trust in your products and/or services.

Effective Pharma Company Videos are Inspiring

So, yes – people can appreciate, be engaged by, and identify with a person’s journey as they navigate an illness. But if your pharmaceutical company’s video strategy stops there, you won’t get the most out of the video. You can’t just tell a sad story of struggle; you have to bring it full circle, so that it inspires the audience instead of scaring them. Some illnesses are scary – cancers, novel viruses , neurological disorders – but you have to balance your messaging. The urgency of developing successful treatments is a part of that, but showing your audience the results – what happens after – is an equal part of that. Pharma industry videos, then, have a lot to contend with as far as getting all these values into a video that is digestible and entertaining.

Patient Testimonials are Key to Successful Marketing Videos

Clips of patient testimonials are absolutely integral to successful marketing videos in the pharmaceutical industry. With widespread public distrust of big pharma, a video that centers on a patient’s experience is the best way for your company to seem just as philanthropic as it is scientific. People don’t want drugs pushed on them; we’ve got plenty of that. People want stories, anecdotes, snippets into real-life examples of how your treatment changes lives. And they want it first-hand from the patients themselves.

There are, admittedly, obstacles to finding the right person and the right story to tell with a patient testimonial video. In those more personal and/or stigmatized illnesses, people might not want to be in your pharmaceutical company’s videos. They might feel exploited or embarrassed. They might feel like a lab rat. They might not want to be pinned down as a sick person; they might want to forget the time of life that your product got them through.

But here’s the thing – when you do good work for good people, you’ll find some who will be willing to vouch for you. They gave you a chance and it turned out well; why shouldn’t somebody else also take that chance? First, find a patient who is enthusiastic about how your treatment changed their life. Then, craft your video around that patient’s story. Weave that important scientific data in around the main plot: the person’s journey to wellness. Pharmaceutical industry videos have the ability to do this, but often struggle without the right production partners.

Changing the Game in Corporate Video Production for Pharma Companies

Tribe’s video production team understands the obstacles corporations need to overcome in their video messaging. And we also understand the potential specifically for problems in video production for the pharmaceutical industry . We help our pharma clients navigate these treacherous waters to create unique, engaging, inspiring videos for pharmaceutical companies looking to build their brand and increase their visibility in the industry.

Tribe is focused on stories. People. Experiences and relationships. No matter how big the pharma company, it functions because of people: the researchers, the doctors, the patients. Let us help you highlight these facets of your organization, because even in the hard sciences, a meaning-based approach to marketing videos is what will get you results.