Bates Healthworld merges with OgilvyOne to become Ogilvy Healthworld

The WPP Group’s Bates Healthworld has been merged with Ogilvy One. The new entity will be called Ogilvy Healthworld and it will operate as a separate division within OgilvyOne.

Ogilvy Healthworld will serve the clients of both Bates Healthworld and OgilvyOne’s healthcare division.

This development came about when Bates and OgilvyOne decided to consolidate their healthcare businesses under one entity across the Asia Pacific region in 2005. The result was Ogilvy Healthworld. However, it took a little longer to bring this into effect in India.

Vaishali Iyer will head Ogilvy Healthworld in India. Iyer was earlier head of Bates Healthworld. She has over 10 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Ogilvy Healthworld will be supported by the Ogilvy network across advertising, PR, activation and direct marketing.

Commenting on the strategy and need for such a consolidation, Renuka Jaypal, president OgilvyOne India and national business director, telecom, OgilvyOne, says, “The pharmaceutical industry is no longer a ‘sunrise’ industry as far as communication is concerned.”

“As the purchasing power in India improves and health awareness amongst consumers rises, there is a definite need for consolidating pharmaceutical brands and creating consumer connect,” remarks Jaypal.

The clientele that Ogilvy Healthworld will service includes Johnson & Johnson, Nicholas Piramal, Roche, Pfizer, HLL and Allergan, along with certain other brands with which negotiations are still on.

Jaypal continues, “By pooling our domain expertise as well as our talent under the Ogilvy Healthworld entity, we are in a position to offer superior solutions to our clients where our creative and consumer knowledge is backed by a strong understanding of the needs and realities of the pharma industry. We are hoping that Ogilvy Healthworld will soon become a domain expert in a field that is growing rapidly.”

Some of the services that Ogilvy Healthworld offers globally include brand development, advertising, PR, direct to patient, direct to consumer, relationship marketing, medical education and clinical trial recruitment.

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