3M Pharmaceuticals:::Media Launch of Aldara

Issue: 3M Pharmaceuticals had a new first-of-its-kind skin cancer treatment cream, Aldara, which it wanted launched on the Australian market.

Australia, often referred to as “the sunburnt country”, has the world’s highest skin cancer incidence and a great appetite for medical advances for it. But because the issue is so serious for Australia, any irresponsible promotion of treatments or supposed cures is widely condemned and attracts massive fines.

Within this context 3M Pharmaceuticals approached Parker & Partners last August to launch its world-first skin cancer treatment, Aldara, onto the Australian market. Aldara is the world’s first treatment for superficial cases of Basal Cell Carcinoma (sBCC) – the most common skin cancer type – to come in the form of a self-administered cream and avoid the need for medical procedures/surgery.

Challenge: Irresponsible promoters considered to be in breach of medical promotional guidelines can attract fines of hundreds and thousands of dollars. Aldara had to be launched responsibly, while still harnessing all the great media angles presented by Australia’s skin cancer experience.

While the launch of Aldara presented a great media opportunity, there were important considerations:
1. Aldara had not yet been approved in Australia for Government subsidy to make it more affordable to Australians. The Government would monitor Aldara’s promotion to ensure it acknowledged limitations and avoided creating false demand.
2. Aldara, as a pharmaceutical product, was subject to strict promotion guidelines which if breached, attract huge fines.
3. Aldara’s clinical trials had been extensively reported in the media over the past few years. We needed to convince media there was a new ‘news’ story to report.
4. Dermatologists, involved in the world trials of Aldara, were staunch advocates. But Aldara created a new market for GPs and skin cancer clinics that could negate the need to visit a dermatologist. We needed to ensure we targeted all relevant medical constituents without alienating any of them.


Insight: If we developed effective and creative media hooks into the treatment, we would not need to embellish Aldara’s significance or role in skin cancer treatment to achieve a phenomenal media outcome.
Parker & Partner’s insight was that if we developed creative and effective media hooks into the treatment, we would not need to embellish Aldara’s significance or role in skin cancer treatment to achieve a phenomenal media outcome.

Understanding the extent to which sBCC affected Australians was pivotal in how we approached this project and required extensive research in medical publications.

Creative Idea: Launching Aldara in early spring allowed us to heavily promote it as a new treatment available just in time for Spring/Summer and peak skin cancer season. We would remind Australia of its skin cancer incidence and play upon Australia’s role in the clinical trials for Aldara to give Australians a sense of ownership in this global breakthrough.

To this end we used dermatologist experts and patients from the world trials to emphasise the clinical and scientific advance of Aldara.

Campaign: Leading up to the launch date, Parker & Partners aimed for the most media coverage possible on a national basis. We prepared media across Australia pre-launch to be teed up with experts and patients local to their area on the day.
We pitched nationwide so media from all Australians states were covering it from their locale. We pampered trusted sources but otherwise were very strict with embargo.

We decided we could appear responsible as well as attract media through the issue of warnings about misuse of Aldara for cosmetic purposes. This gave the launch an issue around it and acted as a signal to authorities we were responsible promoters.





Outcome: The result was phenomonal media coverage across Australia. Every television network covered the launch, most of them several times during the day, with live crosses and updates. Every tabloid newspaper in Australia covered the launch as well as regional and rural newspapers. Aldara also achieved significant exposure in the signature national broadsheet, The Australian, and other broadsheet newwspapers through their websites.

Radio conducted feature interviews on top rating breakfast programs across Australia and there was also community service announcements and blanket coverage on news bulletins until late. We also received massive numbers of requests for information from sources as diverse as seniors publications to womens’ magazines. Television coverage extended through to the next day where top rating breakfast programs reported on Aldara. The key messages were carried and our experts did as we requested in not exaggerating the benefits of Aldara which sent the right message to authorities about 3M as a responsible company.
3M Pharmaceuticals was delighted with the media launch, attendance and the ensuing media coverage. The media coverage was nationwide, responsible and massive, a testament to our approach to this media campaign.