Leadership

Building A Brand In A Complex Industry With Our Head Of Communications

Sep 22, 2022

By: Staci Gouveia

I was honored to participate in an SCBio panel titled, “Complex Industry, Limited Budget: How to Build Your Brand”, alongside Jean Cecil Frick, Vice President of NP Strategy, and Henry Pellerin, CEO of VantagePoint, moderated by David Orr, CEO of Medpoint,this month.

Our conversation was centered on the ways marketing and promotion for life science differs, how to market diverse offerings, why business strategies, like strategic partnerships for example, impact your marketing and public relations efforts and critical branding tools to use.

A few of my key points included:

  • Life sciences are complex, and require a more personal, empathetic approach to marketing and communications vs. some other industries. It’s also a highly regulated industry that continuously evolves, so we need to remain compliant, yet push creativity.
  • Socio-economic inequalities persist in health care, and our efforts need to reach audiences often overlooked, such as those leveraging the public health system.
  • Relationship and knowledge building among key stakeholders and advocates is pivotal in organically expanding your reach.
  • Powerful guidelines (including a mission / vision / values / purpose statement) are key to building and managing a consistent Brand and communicating your company’s story internally and externally.

As Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Afaxys, it’s my job to share and shape the Afaxys brand that our co-founders so proudly and passionately established 14 years ago. Their original vision of a first-of-its-kind, socially conscious healthcare company continues to evolve while staying true to our core principles including:

  • Being socially conscious, we stand together to support public and community health providers and their patients
  • Affordable access means stable pricing and product accessibility
  • Sexual and reproductive healthcare should be a right, not a privilege

Afaxys strives to build our brand and model what we stand for in every communication, partnership, and initiative.