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9/22 Thread (General):
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What!?? Why do you think people are in pharma because they can't do consumer? Consumer creatives I know would die to get into Pharma. It's much more difficult. There's an entire layer of skills on top of creative skills one needs to have... The ability to learn a disease state category and learn all the data associated with a drug, and to extract that data in a compelling and readily communicable form, knowing where the walls of the box are regarding what one is allowed to say and be regulatory compliant, and the ability to write creative headlines, concepts, body copy, and charts and graphs while operating within the type constraints of that box. I've been a copywriter and a creative director in Pharma for 25 years and never in my career has there been a lack of a huge demand for what I do. Everyone's dying for Pharma copywriters which is why I'm able to have a very profitable freelance career now. Thus endeth the rant, lol.
Lols
☝️thank you. I’m tired of people on FB implying that people in pharma do it “for the money” or can’t cut it in consumer. A lot of people in pharma love it (myself included) and have no desire to do consumer. I did consumer for a bit early in my career and was bored to tears. Switched back to pharma in a matter of months. And yeah, it doesn’t hurt that, at least as a pharma writer, you can basically get a new job in a week’s time whenever you feel like it.
I had a successful career in general advertising for 13 years and recently made the switch to pharma. The people are way nicer and the egos are non-existent. It is stable, for the most part. I also have a more flexible schedule for my family. I have no guilt when I need to leave to get my kids, WFH, etc. I am still working a ton of hours. I do, at times, feel creatively stifled and it is those times I miss general the most.
I spent my whole life in consumer then switched to pharma (which is still consumer, by the way) about 8years ago, in my 50s. It’s helped increase my career longevity, and I’ve won as many awards in pharma as I did in consumer, including a lion. It’s a different set of challenges, and in many ways it takes a higher degree of creativity to do good work in spite of all the regulations. And the egos are usually smaller. I have no regrets.
I’ve had almost a 50/50 career which seems pretty rare. In all honesty I’ve never seen the same level of creative in Pharma agencies, the talent is there I think it’s just something in the air that prevents the pushes that make good work great. People talk about regulation but every product I’ve worked on has its own craziness. I’m back in consumer now and happier for it.
CD1, i get your point, but i think that's largely because Pharma is a very conservative industry. There are many conservative consumer industries too...i don't feel deprived because i haven't written a commercial with a car going around yet more S turns, or a helpful salesman cheerily greeting customers at a Toyota sellathon. Advertising is a business, it's not my personal art form or creative outlet. I do that outside of work, as many of us do. Creative challenges that get my juices flowing are figuring out how to create messages that sell product, not that win awards. Yes i appreciate cleverness and try to get as much of it out there as i can, but if that's one's goal, they'd be better served writing for SNL or something. Except they want the money of advertising, so let's be honest about our motivations.
You don’t “age out”.... You “salary out” as soon as you reach the $200k bracket b/c holding companies don’t want to pay employees what they’re worth anymore
I went to Pharma because they offered me a lot of money. I’m leaving as soon as I can though.
🕺🏻lego
Here's the truth at least from my experience. Early in my career I was offered jobs at Pharma agencies for much more money because then, they simply couldn't get general agency level of talent. And that was when the Pharma agencies did all the DTC work also, before the general agencies took much of that work away to shore themselves up, and left Pharma agencies with mostly HCP. I turned those jobs down. I freelanced at a couple of Pharma agencies then also, and found the talent level to be severely lacking. As OP mentions I had a successful general career at several well known agencies. At around age 40 started getting pushed more and more into DTC Pharma at my general agency though I still did non Pharma.
Then, my agency was "merged" and 90% of creatives over 40 were laid off (including me) and the rest put on all-pharma. So yes, in my experience you can and do "age out" of general. I know no one personally who started in general and is happy about doing pharma now, but we have little choice if we want a continued career. The only creatives I've met who "love" Pharma are those who've only worked on Pharma. And I still see a lower level of talent in most Pharma agencies (with some exceptions of course). I also seem to notice that hiring managers who have spent their entire careers in Pharma tend to Value Pharma and "high science" experience over talent and conceptual ability -- and I think this is a big part of why the work can be so poor. It's not just because of the clients.
Ok, then what do we call them? Non-Pharma?
I don't think you need to call them anything. I think it's perfectly fine to call pharma clients only agencies "pharma", but don't see any need to call other agencies anything else in turn. Tons of big network shops have both pharma and other industry clients so they're not only one or the other either. If you really feel you must disclaim, then sure, call them non pharma or maybe general advertising or whatever their specialty might be if they're in a niche like retail-only or experiential, for example as some shops out there do specialize in one category only.
The opposite of consumer marketing isn't pharma, it's business (hence B2B vs B2C marketing). So it's super silly to call non pharma agencies "consumer".
"Thus endeth the rant" #2😂
Pharma nearly killed me. Bored to death, some of the worst clients, worst timelines, uninspiring work. Utter bs, I hate pharma did it for the paycheck happy to be out.
I’m 63 and still have a job thanks to pharma, after 35 years in general agencies . How many general agency CDs do you know who are over 60 and still working? Like, none? It’s an ageist industry, but less so in the pharma end. Doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep up with tech innovation. But they don’t care if you were too late for the tattoo and piercing era
Stop calling non pharma agencies "consumer", it's so incredibly misguided/ignorant and you must not know marketing as a business discipline well if you talk like that at your level. I've worked on tons of consumer marketing in the pharma industry. Anything whose target audience is the consumer is consumer marketing (and its subcategory of advertising). All pharma shops do professional (targeted to HCP/hospitals/pharmacies/health insurance) and/or DTC work.
Pharma requires a lot more than consumer...it’s certainly in no way “less than.” Maybe you should just stick to selling potato chips, sweet pea.