The RECRUITMENT 2.0 program in Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) leverages digital media to address business need of enhancing patient recruitment for clinical studies in new and difficult to recruit patient populations to achieve aggressive timelines. Part of the campaign was the “Patient information site” and “Patient information app”.

The strategic communication idea behind the project is to establish a digital brand for patients addressing them in an emphatic way and offering target-group oriented information. It is meant to inform patients about the possible benefits of participating in clinical studies.

With patient recruitment for clinical studies in mind, an umbrella brand named „Pioneering Healthcare“ was created and launched in the US, its first pilot indication being NSCLC (Lung Cancer). Among the core elements of the patient communication are the “Pioneering Lung Cancer” website and the corresponding “Lung+” patient app with different breathing exercises and a gamification approach.

Objectives:

Responsive design

Convincing using an emotional approach

Customer perception of webpage: up to date, living, dynamic, understanding

Less is more: avoidance of too much copy/text/content

Keeping the balance between “seriousness” and “playfulness”

Implicate the “cultural differences”

Customizable, editable content (CMS)

Broad integration of social media

Multichannel approach

Definition of patient centric touchpoints led us to the idea to involve eye-level topics in regards to every-day-life situations rather than medial information that can be found elsewhere on portals like Webmd and Wikipedia. Patients are accessing information on mobile devices whenever they want to and the Lung+ App can support their well-being with a well versed mixture of exercises and playful game interactions to support their process of better breathing capabilities which has never been conducted in this particular format. The brand “Pioneering Healthcare” that has been created is fully supported by Roche’s brand promise “Doing now what patients need next” – moreover it widens the horizon of this very brand promise by adding the pioneering spirit to it.

The pilot measures were launched in the US in late February 2014 and are set to be adapted for other indications in more countries in 2014/15.

The App has only been launched recently (in the USA and UK) and only caters to a very small customer group. Even without a marketing plan in place so far (which is slated to launch mid 2014), however, the APP received hundreds of downloads on iOS and Android devices to date, making it successful right from the start. The APP serves as a strategic door opener to convert customers to participate in clinical trials (for lung cancer) and the customer sees a rise in online requests for further participation.