By Cicely Batstone, Health, Pharma and Education Practice Lead
Trust in big pharma took a significant hit during the pandemic. Five years on and in a new golden age of AI, trust is still under threat with ChatGPT reproducing misinformation from the internet with gay abandon.
Against this problematic backdrop and in the wake of budget cuts, it’s become more important than ever for pharma comms teams to “get it right” and this has, understandably, led to heightened scrutiny with external campaign planning and execution.
How Pharma Can Utilise Broadcast Public Relations
Pharma campaigns (disease awareness, product launches, treatment breakthroughs) have long been well suited to broadcast because broadcast offers scale alongside control. We can reach the 88% of the UK population who listen to radio and the 74% who watch TV, whilst offering some editorial control through pre-recorded interviews and pre-recorded audio, which have been crucial components for many successful campaigns.
Naturally, there is a balance to be struck. Broadcasters have their own Ofcom regulations to follow, pharma companies the ABPI (The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) code, and campaigns must work within both frameworks. Fortunately, there are ways to keep medical teams happy and on side while still meeting producers’ needs. (More on that in a playbook coming in 2026.)
In such a tightly regulated environment, projects can take considerable time to get off the ground. Approvals for materials can take weeks, if not months. Key messaging can be reworked, strategies pivoted and minds changed on a regular basis.
what makes a great healthcare campaign
The most effective healthcare campaigns often involve a rich mix of assets including case studies, Healthcare Professionals, third-party experts, talent, patient groups and charity partners, new data, and regional insights, which can take a long time to collate. Many activations also depend on NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) approvals or other regulatory processes, each with its own (often unpredictable!) timeline.
The broadcast day is often the culmination of at least six months’ worth of work, sometimes two years (yes… you read that right). It’s therefore critical that clients extract as much value from that moment as possible. If you’re accidentally found to be in breach of the ABPI code for your one big hero interview, that’s months of work thrown down the drain and reputational damage that brands can’t afford to endure.
Maximising the reach of your campaign through broadcast to social
In an environment defined by low trust, heightened regulation and long lead times, reaching the broadcast moment can sometimes feel like an achievement. The good news is that nowadays, considering all the effort that went into making the campaign live, that day doesn’t have to be where it ends. Enter: broadcasting into social.
With our support, broadcasters are increasingly repurposing stories into social-first content, opening doors to sizeable new audiences and reiterating campaign messages exponentially. If flagship global broadcasters like Reuters share a clip from an interview, the impact extends far beyond the original broadcast, suddenly reaching millions more through their vast social channels.
So, the key question for healthcare PRs in 2026 should be: how can we make our campaigns as visual as possible?
Fortunately, tackling this topic is very much in our wheelhouse and there are simple questions we can ask. For example, if you’re doing a drug launch, can we get factory line visuals? If we’re marking a patient receiving a new treatment for the first time, why can’t this moment be captured on film?
This reinforces our firm belief that broadcast should be part of the strategy early on. By planning for amplification from the outset and building visual assets that work for social as well as TV, we can extend reach, strengthen credibility and make every round of (sometimes painful) medical approval worth it.
In a world where misinformation spreads gleefully fast, broadcast and social amplification (done well) allows carefully crafted, compliant messages to travel further, live longer and, ultimately, build trust and recognition with the right audience.
If you would like to speak to us about capturing the public’s attention through earned media, or maximising the impact of your next PR or marketing campaign, please get in touch.