Few embody the true team spirit like the Gardasil team at Merck Frosst Canada. Indeed, over the last two years, the seamless melding of sales, marketing, and creative minds of the Gardasil team members has resulted in a successful campaign to raise awareness of HPV (human papillomavirus), setting the stage for the launch of the “one and only” quadrivalent human papillomavirus [types 6,11,16,18] recombinant vaccine.

“One of the things that gets us out of bed in the morning is living our vision of eradicating and controlling HPV-related diseases…everything we do is linked to that,” says Bruce McDonald, Product Manager, Merck Frosst Vaccines Division. Faced with the challenge of promoting a vaccine for a disease that was poorly understood, Director of Marketing and Sales, Elgin Cameron, Product Managers Julie Therrien, McDonald, along with Associate Product Manager Angela Mitchell-Lowery and Market Research Specialist Josee Hamel, compiled a two-year analysis to determine where gaps existed in the knowledge of HPV among consumers and physicians. “There was a lot of work to be done,” says McDonald, adding that the serious consequences of HPV—which include cervical cancer, vaginal vulvar cancer, cervical dysplasia, vaginal vulvar dysplasia, and genital warts—weren’t widely known. In fact, “shocking epidemiological” evidence showed that HPV was a significant threat to the health of Canadians, adds McDonald, noting that Gardasil, which came to market Aug. 21, 2006, is designed to prevent such threats in girls and women nine to 26 years of age.

An all-out effort to reach consumers and encourage women to see their doctors for regular pap smears resulted in the “Tell Someone” consumer campaign (“Passez le mot,” in French-speaking Canada) via television, print advertising, a website, and brochures with future plans to extend the campaign to movie theaters. Equally urgent was the need to address a lack of information about HPV among medical professionals, a need addressed by the implementation of a disease awareness campaign featuring print ads and a physician website (www.hpvandyourpatients.ca). But one of the team’s proudest achievements was an alliance with the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada (SOGC) who, McDonald says, “have worked hard to educate all of their members from a healthcare professional standpoint, but also they have a big mandate to educate consumers as well, which is aligning well with our vision to eradicate and control the disease.” This is an integrated and collaborative campaign that involves many team members and touches most of the organization including Public Affairs and Scientific Affairs, and is further leveraged by Merck Frosst’s longstanding commitment to innovative vaccines.

McDonald also credits the “tremendous energy” of the brand’s ad agency, Anderson DDB, and the talented Gardasil field force for making the “accelerated launch” a success. Having made considerable inroads into patient and physician education, “Our challenge in 2007 will be to move the intention to action. The intention is there but now we have to make it easier for physicians to bring the vaccine to the population in their office.”

En francais

To index