21GRAMS takes four Golds plus Best in Show AstraZeneca tops the pharma leader board
The PM Society’s 37th annual awards was held on 17th March 2023 at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House London. The industry came together to celebrate the best creative communications in pharma and health care. PM Society Co-Chair Caroline Benson kicked off the afternoon, with charity Duchenne UK taking the stage to ask for support.
Nearly 900 people enjoyed a three-course lunch followed by an awards ceremony hosted by TV presenter and magician Stephen Mulhern and Roger Tilling, voice of BBC’s University Challenge, with entertainment from comedian Jen Brister. PM Society Awards Lead Rachel Farrow said “It’s been another great year for award entries. I was particularly excited to have been able to support two Diversity & Inclusion focused categories, as well as the new Positive Pitch Award to highlight best practice in pitching.
The Society was thrilled to collaborate on this with the IPA and ISBA and this represents a step forward in our aim to improve the process and experience of pitching across the industry. We were also blown away by the skills, effort and enthusiasm of the judges, in what is a complex system of fair and rigorous judging over two rounds”.
The agency at the top of the leaderboard for the second year running was 21GRAMS, part of Real Chemistry, who won four Golds, four Silvers, two Bronzes and the coveted Best in Show award, chosen by Head Judge Kieran Delaney, Executive Creative Director at Cherry. Second on the leaderboard was Langland, with three Gold, one Silver and two Bronze awards, and mention must also go to McCann Health London, an IPG Health company, who won three Golds.
Gold and Winner trophies were also taken home by Cherry, Create Health, Evoke Mind+Matter, Havas Lynx Group, H4B Manchester, Purple Agency, Seven Stones Collective and Swordfish Advertising. There were five people shortlisted for Agency Champion, an award for an individual who has delivered above and beyond; someone who symbolises what good healthcare communications is all about.
The winner was Ben Smith from Purple Agency, with a Highly Commended awarded to Martin Carter from Initiative Health. The most successful pharma client was AstraZeneca, with four winning trophies; a Gold for Innovation plus the Best in Show award, the Positive Pitch Award, as well as seeing their Head of Digital and Innovation, Andrew Binns, win Pharma Marketing Pioneer. The judges said about Andrew, “Andrew’s approach to putting empathy and creativity at the heart of marketing was refreshing. His management of internal stakeholders was inclusive and effective. A true leader who is passionate about bringing innovation to the pharma sector.”
The Laura Hyde Foundation, the UK’s only charity providing mental health support to medical or emergency service personnel won three Gold awards. Dermavant and GE Healthcare won two Golds each. Other Gold winners on the client side were Alexion, Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), CSF Vifor, Ethypharm, Mind, and Sanofi. Creativity for Good is an annual initiative run by the PM Society which aims to find a pro bono agency partner for a charity, which this year was Duchenne UK.
The winning agency, with their highly creative Duvet Days campaign, was Evoke Mind+Matter. A Highly Commended was awarded to Purple Agency. The new Positive Pitch Award, won by AstraZeneca, was for the team’s excellent running of a recent pitch process. Nick Louisson, Director of Agency Services at ISBA was on stage to hand over this inaugural trophy to the team.
The PM Society Awards continues to provide a popular forum for celebrating creativity, impact and innovation in creative communications in the pharma and healthcare sectors.
