The creative conundrum of COVID-19

Necessity is the mother of invention – and right now, the world is at its inventive best. COVID-19 is fuelling a surge in creativity as businesses uncover new innovations – and novel ways of communicating – to help us through the crisis. There’s the wristband that buzzes when you’re about to touch your face. The Hygiene Hand that helps us open doors or get through self-service checkouts without touching surfaces. And the gun detection software that’s been retooled to measure body temperature and send alerts when a fever is suspected. Ingenuity is everywhere, with entire industries collaborating, adapting and repurposing their expertise to find solutions to a global emergency. Whoever would have thought that Formula One and aerospace companies would suddenly be making medical ventilators? It’s inspiring – but it should come as no surprise. History shows us time and again that when the world is backed into a corner, creativity and collaboration through technology is often the best way out.

 So what of our own industry – communications – where creativity has always been our signature dish? Our goal – to create communications that engage audiences and influence behaviours – puts us right at the front line of change. Our work is often the first exposure a customer (or in our case a patient) has to a new brand or a new idea or solution, but in a world where priorities have dramatically shifted, getting it right requires renewed understanding. 

 The health comms industry finds itself in the foothills of paradox. The pandemic has reinforced the importance of creative communications – but it’s also highlighted the dangers of over-communicating. As the world focuses on surviving the virus, our inboxes are crowded with emails from everyday brands that are fighting to stay relevant and front of mind. Communication is treading a tightrope where balance is everything. One wrong foot and we end up in junk mail.

 In medical communications, the challenge is yet more pronounced. If your therapeutic focus falls outside the parameters of pandemic, how do you influence clinical decision-making when HCPs are fully occupied by COVID-19? And how do you keep the conversation going when health systems have prioritised resources at the expense of ‘routine’ care?

 The stats make worrying reading. In England alone, A&E visits fell by 29% in the first weeks of lockdown as people avoided hospitals in fear of COVID-19. Across Australia and Europe attendances for serious conditions like heart attack, stroke, angina and severe asthma fell dramatically. Globally, cancer care is being branded a ‘ticking timebomb’, with research forecasting huge increases in fatalities caused by late diagnoses and delayed treatment. Disruption to care caused by the coronavirus outbreak will have lasting implications.

 Everyday health needs never stop and have a life beyond COVID-19. Disease cannot be furloughed while health systems wait for the traffic to clear; patients need diagnosing, treating and managing, and Health Care Professionals need the best information to guide their decision-making. That’s the job of communications. And it’s why – in healthcare settings bedevilled by high demand, limited resource and the challenges of curbing an unknown virus – creative communications underpinned and targeted with tech and data is an essential component of efficient, high quality care.

And so, as we move through the next stage of the pandemic, if we’re going to help Health Care Professionals beat COVID-19 and restore the focus on everyday healthcare, we need to find new ways of communicating. If ever there was a moment for comms agencies to step up, this is it. We owe it to our clients – and, of course, to the patients they serve – to think differently and do what we do best: be creative.

Technology will inevitably be at the forefront of our innovation – just as it is everywhere else. The most powerful communications are rooted in customer understanding and, with social distancing likely to restrict face-to-face engagement for some time yet, tech provides a ready route to Health Care Professional insight as well as more dynamic patient interactions. Progressive agencies are using online hackathons as a virtual window to clients’ problems, and running creative sprints to unlock solutions across multiple platforms. We’re seeing greater use of mobile to provide personalised content ‘on demand’ to busy Health Care Professionals. And there’s a huge spike in remote detailing, video calling and virtual medical education. These models are here to stay.

And it’s not just communications with Health Care Professionals that’s evolving, we’re connecting doctors and patients too. For example, digital therapeutics are helping clinicians monitor patients remotely and support behaviour change in areas like substance abuse, diabetes and mental health. The digitisation of health is accelerating. Pandemic wasn’t the route we chose to take us there, but there will be no turning back.

COVID-19 is forcing us to change the way we communicate as brands and as people. It’s inspiring creativity as we look for new solutions. But the trick, as always, isn’t to be creative just for the sake of it. The most effective health communications (and agencies) are agile and customer/patient-centred; they create frictionless experiences based on real world needs, delivering personalised content, right time, right channel.

COVID-19 has without a doubt stimulated an outbreak of global creativity – and there’s much more innovation to come. As we the world braces itself for a new normal, our responsibility as communications agencies is to keep pushing the boundaries of creativity – and use our deep understanding of patient and health communities to guide clients to the best solutions.

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