Cramer Announces New Unit Dedicated to Creating Brand Experiences for the Healthcare Industry

NORWOOD, Mass., Sept. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Cramer announced today the formation of a new unit focused exclusively on experiential marketing for the healthcare industry.

In launching Cramer Healthcare, the agency is responding to a marketplace need as the industry continues to undergo changes. According to Kantar Media, hospitals, medical centers, and clinics spent nearly $2 billion on advertising in 2015.

"We have launched this new unit to address fundamental transformations happening in the healthcare industry. It's time for healthcare marketing to transform as well," said Julie Walker, a Partner at Cramer, a registered nurse and head of the new healthcare unit. "Cramer Healthcare and its unique-to-healthcare experiential focus and capabilities will help our clients thrive as healthcare marketing evolves."

Traditional marketing is no longer meeting the performance expectations of healthcare marketers, and experiential marketing for healthcare brands is emerging as the next results-driving frontier.

"Live experiences are bringing patients, physicians, and economic buyers into our clients' brands, creating opportunities to engage and interact with their services and products that go dramatically beyond the capabilities of traditional and digital marketing," said Loriann Murray, Vice President and Creative Director for Cramer Healthcare. "Healthcare marketers are investing in new ways to reach their target audiences. The rise of experiential is driving the most talked about, most exciting, and most impactful programs in healthcare marketing."

Cramer stands out in the industry because traditional healthcare agencies are not built for experiential marketing. The company will work directly with healthcare clients on experiential programs, and through relationships Cramer has with traditional agencies.

"Our clients turn to us for an uncommon mix of on-demand, multidisciplinary talent across our 150-person team," said Angel Micarelli, Vice President and head of content for Cramer Healthcare. "Through our core capabilities of experience design, live production, audience engagement, and content creation, we keep inventing and crafting entirely new experiences for healthcare marketers."

The healthcare industry is quickly recognizing the high value of and return on investment from quality experiential marketing strategies.

"At all stages of commercialization global healthcare brands have been shifting towards more innovative communications and marketing strategies," said Theresa McNeely, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communication for Akebia Therapeutics. "The value of non-traditional experiences — such as activations, community building programs and reinvented experiences within trade shows — extends way beyond a singular moment-in-time. With impact that often exceeds traditional programs, experiential marketing captures audiences, establishes brands, and drives brand affinity. And, with the momentum that Cramer is building in the healthcare industry, I expect their new unit will be accelerating change across all of healthcare marketing."

Cramer Healthcare will provide clients with five core capabilities:

• Experience design - designing the environments, conceiving the brand and messaging for each experience.
• Live production - incorporating areas of engineering and staging, webcasting and satellite broadcasts.
• Audience engagement – engagement can range from digital apps and platforms, to community and influencer programs, to content hubs, and more.
• Experiential content - messages, stories, and information for the audience including video and animation production, graphic design and presentations, to mixed reality, the worlds of augmented and virtual reality.
• Marketing services - delivering the communication plans, connection strategies, digital executions, and cross-channel campaigns needed to acquire audiences and drive measurable results from marketing programs.

"More than ever, people value experiences over things," said Joe Lovett, Director of Strategic Planning for Cramer Healthcare. "In today's landscape, it's essential for brands to provide their consumers with memorable experiences that inform, delight, and catalyze an emotional connection. That is especially true within an industry as emotionally-driven as healthcare."

To learn more about Cramer Healthcare, visit: cramer.com/healthcare 

About Cramer
As a brand experience agency, Cramer is thriving in today's new experiential era of marketing. The company's fast growth has come as it has expanded its relationships with long-standing clients, while also landing a new roster of global brands, such as Siemens, AthenaHealth, Cynosure, Straumann, and Aptevo Therapeutics, Inc. These clients trust Cramer to invent, craft, and fuel content-driven experiences, including meetings and events, activations, community and advocacy programs, mixed reality, and marketing campaigns. Visit cramer.com to see how Cramer achieves more with its clients.

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SOURCE Cramer