SITUATION

New competition was rapidly emerging, the likes of Novartis, Roche and Kodiak were building new customer bases and biosimilars would be launching at lower price points. Bayer has the 6th largest pharmaceutical drug in the world in EYLEA but with an imminent loss of patent, it was time to re-assert their leadership position.

BRIEF

To make physicians see Bayer as more than just EYLEA. Bayer dedicates extensive time, energy, and resources into initiatives outside of EYLEA, such as finding new solutions for treating retinal disease, with the goal of changing the way patients are treated.

OBJECTIVES

Bayer's objective was two-fold, to remind ophthalmologists of the importance of healthy vision and, as makers of the leading brand in AMD, to remind them of their commitment to ophthalmology.

How do you show your commitment to ophthalmology rather than just talk about it?

We engaged the people who will ultimately benefit from Bayer's work, the visually impaired community.

The Eye-sight project is a collaborative tribute to photography and the eye between Bayer and four visually impaired photographers.

A mix of mini documentaries and audio recordings combined with a photo competition helped to reinforce Bayer's leadership within the ophthalmic field.

EYLEA, is currently the 6th highest grossing pharmaceutical drug in the world, but Novartis is building a customer base with Lucentis. New kids on the block like Roche and Kodiak are about to launch innovative therapies. All of which combined to challenge Bayer's leadership.

With EYLEA soon to be off patent, the task was for physicians to view Bayer as more than just EYLEA.

The target is retinal specialists, who care about sustaining and improving their patients’ vision, as well as their quality of life and treatment experience.

Ophthalmologists have had only a handful of retinal treatment options for some time, meaning their treatment decisions were largely based on practical factors. The social campaign is designed to encourage interest in Bayer's new pipeline and imminent launches.

The approach was to adopt a leadership tone of voice and to engage the visually impaired community themselves.

Collaborating with Shutterstock Studios and the visually impaired photographers created eight photographs that resemble eyes (called EYE-SIGHTS). Bayer also created films and audio about the photographers. Content was shared across social media to engage ophthalmologists around the world and hosted on Instagram.

Bayer also decided to sponsor a new category called ‘EYE-SIGHTS’ for the annual IAPB (International Association for the Prevention of Blindness) photo competition for World Sight Day, where two of the photographers were judges. The photographs then amplified the social media presence of Bayer. All the work will be available on Shutterstock with any future royalties going to the IAPB.

The ophthalmology community in the UK is a small one, with around 2,800 practitioners. The campaign gathered 6093 impressions, and reel views amounted to 1161.

In communities like these the numbers are small but significant, as even 602 likes is indicative of the campaigns success among the target market.