Another Face of Rare Disease

Kate Tuck  |  March 3, 2020

The Cattleman of Wall Street My uncle Damon was a legend on Wall Street, as well as the cattle circles of the Texas Hill Country where he was raised. Coming from a family with over 4 generations in the cattle business, Damon would eventually branch out—trade a life in livestock for investment stock—and ascend to one of the highest offices of one of the largest financial institutions in the world—vice president of JPMorgan Chase. Growing up on a ranch, Damon was always a healthy man, but that wasn’t enough to stop one of the rarest progressive neurological disorders from taking him from us within 5 months of his diagnosis. Damon was diagnosed with and died of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob (CJD) disease at the age of 57. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a rare, degenerative, fatal brain disorder It affects roughly 1 out of a million per year, worldwide. Typically, onset is later ...

Staff Takes: Knowing My Genetic Makeup Allows Me to…

HCB  |  June 24, 2019

We asked a handful of people within the agency to think about the topic of genetics and ancestry. Within the agency, we discuss and learn about emerging categories and trends such as genomics and the encompassing genetic testing, gene therapy and genetic medicine. But beyond our agency confines, we wanted to know our staff’s thoughts on the matter. See what some of our HCBers had to say about the subject below. Knowing my genetic makeup allows me to…    Knowing my genetic makeup allows me to… … have peace of mind about certain genetic conditions my family and I don’t have to worry about, but prompts me to ask my physician questions that …

How we Built a Healthcare Agency Headquartered in Austin, Texas, With 0% Funding and 100% Passion

Kerry Hilton  |  June 20, 2019

It was the day before 9/11 We all remember the frightening days of 9/11. It was an event in our country’s history that will forever be remembered. That time was also one of hard economic struggle as commerce seemed to come to a screeching halt. Here in Austin, the city was already in a recession after the bursting of the dot com bubble. Tech companies were shedding employees and subleasing office space as fast as they could. Planes crashing into buildings only made that scenario worse. So, what did I do when I found out that the ad agency I worked for was closing shop? I negotiated a deal that allowed myself and two others to retain a small medical device …

Challenging Goliath: Creative, an Interview With Amy Hansen

Amy Hansen  |  June 13, 2019

Recently, Francesco Lucarelli teamed up with eyeforpharma to write about being an underdog in our industry. The piece sparked conversation amongst the agency regarding how underdogs can fight goliaths in specific areas like digital, media and creative. We sat down with SVP Executive Creative Director Amy Hansen to talk through the age-old David vs. Goliath tale and how it relates to paid media within the medical advertising space.   What are the biggest advantages of being an underdog or upstart company working to break into a space owned by goliaths? The ability to be agile and move fast and take risks in ways that can be more difficult for larger companies.   In the last decade, how have things changed for underdogs? Do you feel it’s easier to be …

The Road to Expert: How to Become an Analytics Specialist

Jennifer LoMonaco  |  June 5, 2019

Teachers often say it’s important to have a well-rounded education. Diversify your learning. You never know how the information you learn today will be applied in the future. Let’s be honest…teachers usually are right, but even my former math teachers would probably be shocked to learn that I work with numbers daily. I was never a math whiz, often sought extra help with algebra and geometry, and never dared to enroll in trigonometry. So, how did I stumble into an analytics job? I graduated with a double major in public relations and Spanish and then went on to get my master’s in public policy and administration. Math degree? Nope! Not even close. As a 24-year-old fresh out of grad school, I …

The Power of Why

Jennifer Yost  |  May 31, 2019

By nature, I’m a pretty curious person. I’ve never really been afraid of asking questions. To the annoyance of many at one time or another, I’m sure. Now, as a mom to two toddlers, I realize (daily) what it feels like to be on the other side. Did you know that preschool children ask an average of 100 questions a day? That’s a lot of questions. Like, a lot of questions. “Why are we holding hands?” “Why is the sky blue?” “Why do you have that funny look on your …

The New Genetic Testing Frontier

Gabriel Cangiano  |  May 28, 2019

Many years ago, a smart man from my first agency where I began a significant portion of my healthcare marketing career talked about the frontier of personalized medicine. The idea of personalized medicines giving targeted therapies to “cure” patients was a main driver of my desire to build my entire career in healthcare marketing. While I knew full well that I started a pathway of my career working with big pharma, where friends at parties would challenge how I could work for …

Transforming Digital: Domino’s Pizza?

Taylor Watson  |  May 24, 2019

Last Friday, I was able to crash Modern Healthcare’s Healthcare Transformation Summit here in Austin. Our Chief Digital Officer Colin Foster sat on a panel with some outstanding industry peers to discuss healthcare’s digital transformation. The conversation hosted by David Chou was extremely interesting and insightful, but it’s the opening statement that I continue to think about. What company has transformed digital? The obvious answers come to mind: Amazon, Google, Facebook maybe? Sure, those companies have all changed the digital landscape in some way. But Colin, David, Neil Gomes and Anthony Nguyen, MD all seemed to agree on an out-of-the-box answer: Domino’s Pizza. I did not expect four senior-level digital healthcare professionals …

What Escher Taught Me About Analytics

Amy Hansen  |  May 22, 2019

As an agency, HCB Health has been thinking — and writing — about analytics a lot lately. Even though it’s been a core competency at our agency for several years now, I admit I’ve struggled to fully wrap my arms and head around what it means and how to effectively use it. It has always felt Escher-like …

What Healthcare’s Changing Media Landscape and Battle for Revenue Mean to You

Dave Russell  |  May 16, 2019

At HCB Health, we take great pride in being the listening agency. Listening to our clients, consumers, and the broader marketplace helps us get perspective about where things are headed in our industry. And from what I’m seeing and hearing, there is a storm brewing in healthcare (HC) publishing. The storm is disruption, and it’s the same storm that’s been pounding consumer media for many years. The similarities I see are shocking. The outcomes will be very similar if the HC publishers do not make the necessary adjustments to weather the storm. Shift …

Data and Analytics: Changing HCP Media

Dave Russell  |  May 13, 2019

We’ve heard a lot about disruption in the media world. All the disruption is the result of a proliferation of digital media tactics, big data and platforms. This disruption has mostly happened in the consumer media world, but over the last couple years, we’ve started to see major changes happening in the world of HCP media. Agencies and clients are finally starting to realize the benefit of using big data and digital platforms to achieve HCP marketing in a much more efficient and effective way. The disruption we are seeing is coming through two big changes: Utilizing targeting data to hyper-target to potential audiences Using campaign analytics to optimize campaigns for better outcomes Data Targeting: How has data targeting changed the game? Data targeting is allowing us to target our audience in completely new and effective ways. We can now identify specific users …

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