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Key Moments
Patient‑First Storytelling
The shift from product hype to authentic patient narratives becomes the foundation for compliant healthcare messaging.One Behavior, Big Impact
Focusing on a single, clear action—like blood glucose testing—delivers stronger results than multiple scattered messages.Caregiver Decision Power
In serious illnesses, caregivers such as spouses or adult children are often the true decision‑makers for healthcare choices.Allied Trust Building
Partnerships with patient advocacy groups generate credibility and trust that brands cannot build solo in a regulated sector.Marketing health products in today’s information overload market is unlike marketing almost anything else. In a world where every brand is making tall claims, in the loudest voice, and cramming it all into the shortest possible content, healthcare brands are expected to do exactly the opposite. Let alone exaggerating or overpromising, you cannot even say, “This product will make you feel better,” unless every word is backed by robust scientific evidence.
When I moved into healthcare communications after sixteen years in mainstream PR and having seen all kinds of communications challenges, this reality came as a surprise. But what seemed frustrating at first soon turned into a challenge for me to test my fundamentals and taught me some of the best lessons I have learnt.
After my initial dismay, I saw that the regulations governing healthcare communications are understandably stringent. Codes like UCPMP, ASCI guidelines, and other regulatory frameworks leave very little room for exaggerated messaging or promotional storytelling. 
Just as social media was giving wings to modern marketers, mine seemed to have been rudely clipped. The easy shortcuts available to other industries simply didn’t exist. That’s when I stopped thinking about products and started thinking about patients. I realised none of these guardrails stopped you from telling authentic stories about the difference early diagnosis, better disease management, or safer healthcare can make in people’s lives.
That shift became my playbook.
1. Don’t communicate everything. Drive one behaviour change.
For Accu-Chek blood glucose monitoring devices, it was increased blood glucose testing, and we focused all our campaigns on this one outcome. We spoke directly to patients and gave them this one behaviour that could bring a life-changing impact to their diabetes management. In a world flooded with health information, simplicity wins. Every campaign doesn’t need multiple objectives. One meaningful behaviour change is often enough to create lasting business impact.
2. Find the real decision-maker, not just the obvious audience.
Sounds simple enough, but can be tricky if you are looking in the wrong place. While designing our campaign for the Alzheimer’s disease test, our core audience was the caregiver – a spouse, an adult child. And it’s a very lonely journey for them. Our campaign Memory Vault told the story of a husband who lost all music from his life when his wife was diagnosed with AD and the difference it would have made had he known earlier. Healthcare decisions are rarely made by patients alone. Especially in chronic or life-altering diseases, the caregiver often becomes the true audience.
3. Borrow trust. Don’t try to build it alone.
While advocating for the implementation of NAT technology for blood testing, our goal was to make NAT testing mandatory across the country. You would think that blood in itself should be a critical and interesting topic, but in a country where safe water is a luxury, getting people interested in talking about safe blood in the mainstream proved very difficult.
We cracked this code by finding allies among patient advocacy groups and other stakeholders across the ecosystem. Together, we built a narrative backed by real patient stories about transfusion-transmitted diseases such as Hepatitis and HIV and their fatal impact. The #IPledgeRed campaign has been going on for 3 years now, driving demand for NAT-tested blood and urging the government to make it mandatory. In healthcare, credibility often travels farther through partnerships than through brand campaigns.
The constraints I found frustrating in the beginning became the foundation of why our campaigns worked. My biggest learning is outside of all playbooks and toolkits. It was not about regulations or communication strategy. It was about focusing on authentic outcomes. When attention is the currency for most, healthcare runs on credible, purposeful trust. And that may be the only competitive advantage that truly endures.
– Written by Priyadarshani Sharma, Vice-President, Roche Diagnostics India and Neighbouring Markets.
