Any work from the industry that excited you from last year?

As a woman who games, I’m acutely aware of the risk and impact of online bullying. So, when I saw that Samsung had teamed up with China’s biggest game developers to tackle the issue, I was immediately invested. The idea was simple. Samsung hacked ‘Magic Quest’ – China’s equivalent of World of Warcraft – so that when the built-in chat system detected toxic language, the price of in-game purchases for the player was raised. Quite literally, it made bullies pay for their actions. This simple solution, executed elegantly, resulted in reports of in-game bullying falling by 40%. And the idea was a real testament to the willingness of Samsung to meet their audience head-on using the very platform they had co-opted – the game itself.

What trends have you seen emerging within Health & Wellness and Pharma?

One trend that is emerging throughout all industries is the leveraging of creativity through digital platforms. Take Amazon, Spotify and Google. They are constantly innovating and finding ways to connect and personalise interactions with their audience directly. Spotify Wrapped, for example, was a simple, sharable, data-driven delight. And I think that harnessing platform creativity also holds exciting potential for the Health & Wellness and Pharma sectors, especially within the clinical trial realm (the area in which I work predominantly). If we can connect with patients, trial participants and clinical study site staff in novel and compelling ways, we can maximise interactions that could ultimately lead to better healthcare for everyone.

What were the biggest obstacles you faced in 2022 and are there any challenges you expect to see in 2023?

From an operational perspective, negotiating hybrid-working in a post-lockdown world was a challenge. Although hybrid working was always on the horizon and we already had flexible working policies in place, the pandemic accelerated the shift. And now we’re all just trying to find that balance. We know that embracing remote-working where appropriate can benefit wellbeing. But equally, we know how vital those random office conversations are when it comes to sparking valuable creative thinking. I trust my team to find balance week-to-week and make the right decisions for themselves and the agency – whether that’s increasing office presence during pitches and production pinch-points for better collaborative thinking to seeking solitude at times when deep focus is needed. But it’s a journey we’re on together and into 2023, I’m looking forward to us finding our rhythm as a team.

What advice would you give to other creatives / companies who are trying to break into the Top 10?

Go back to the basics. Get to the heart of what your audience needs rather than what they want. Because sometimes, those two things can look very different. And if your work isn’t founded on authenticity, it doesn’t matter how well-crafted a piece is, engagement will always be a challenge. That’s why I’m mindful when reviewing ideas and working with more junior team members to always start with the question: what was the objective? Because it’s all too easy to get carried away with execution sometimes and the result runs the risk of ringing hollow.

What are your creative ambitions for 2023, and how important are creative awards in achieving those goals?

In a nutshell, I want to use creativity as a force for good. In fact, that’s always been my ambition. The intersection of healthcare, technology and creativity can be a mercurial space. Ever shifting and hard to pin down. But if you can align all three – like Samsung did in their online bullying campaign – you can tap into something special and meet your audience where they already are. Which is why, as a Creative Director within the clinical trial space, I’m always trying to think of creative ways to connect with potential participants in order to help them take charge of their healthcare experiences. As for awards, it always feels amazing to have our work recognised by industry peers. And those accolades can certainly help us attract terrific talent with the skills to achieve those goals. But we like to think of them as a healthy side effect of doing the right thing.

How do you spot and evaluate award winning work?

For me, it’s all about the lean-in factor. And I don’t mean in the Sheryl Sandberg sense. I mean in the sense that when a creative team presents an idea that is truly great, my breath catches, I sit up a little straighter and I lean in across the table. Other ways of executing on the idea bubble up and before we know it, we’re all furiously scribbling notes and scamping ideas. Perhaps others would call that ‘scalability’. But for us, it’s part of how we challenge ourselves to ‘Think Further’. You simply can’t deny the almost physiological reaction to a truly great idea.

Is there anything exciting you’re working on now? (That you can tell us about).

Even over the course of my relatively short career, I’ve seen a significant shift in how mental ill health is viewed by the public and spoken about in certain sectors. And although the pandemic did much to destigmatise mental health challenges, there remains a level of unease for some when it comes to seeking help, especially within some demographics – a situation that results not only in people not seeking out the help they deserve, but which also puts them at risk of deep feelings of isolation and loneliness. Which is why Langland’s work for Mind particularly excites me. The campaign combines the experiences and words of individuals affected by mental ill health brought to life by a number of spoken word artists, resulting in a deeply moving series of communications. The result is work that is raw and powerful in equal measures. Work that refuses to shy away from the hard realities faced by our audience or dress it up in more palatable language. And that’s why this work excites me. Because if this campaign can help one person to feel seen, it was all worth it.

Originally published in Advertising Health on 17 April 2023.

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