Why Hollywood A-Listers, Creators and Athletes Are Proactively Pitching Healthcare Brands

“Ten years ago, there was a different level of stigma associated with a celebrity being part of a brand. When I first started in this space, a celebrity working with a brand was almost like... they've sold out, they're working with a brand. And now, it's validation of their success."

Michael Harrison has been in the world of celebrity marketing endorsements since joining healthcare group Real Chemistry’s starpower agency in 2009. In recent years he’s noticed a surprising shift that demonstrates two intermingling trends. Back in the day, a brand would come to the agency with a brief and the agency would approach the talent to pitch a commercial endorsement. These days, celebrities proactively come to him and his team, looking to share their own stories.

So not only does this show that in the creator age, celebrities of all stripes are far more comfortable with brand endorsements - it also demonstrates a greater sense of openness in how people talk about their health and experiences living with or supporting others through different conditions.

Michael recalls a former NBA athlete, whose agent got in touch because, it turned out, he has a heart condition and he was keen to raise awareness.

It’s a cultural change that has its roots in - what else? - the covid-19 pandemic. “It was such a moment in time where healthcare became the only thing people talked about. Before, nobody thought about what it takes to make medicine, what it takes to bring a vaccine to market. It became so front and centre in the conversation, and so many people became so much more intimately involved in their health and their healthcare. And I think that was such a moment for the industry, for culture, for people really taking much more notice of what's going on in healthcare.”

Covid isn’t the only factor that’s changing this dynamic. The GLP-1 boom of recent years has reframed pharmaceuticals as lifestyle products. Celebrity endorsements abound, particularly in the USA, and patients are behaving like consumers, and that shift is rippling out to the rest of the sector.

"These brands are being marketed as consumer products much more than, 'Go talk to your doctor about what's right for you’,” says Michael. “Patients are going to doctors and asking for the brands by name, which is why they're leveraging these celebrities and influencers to really help put that name top of mind."

But as talent brings their own lived experiences and agendas to the brands they work with, it produces a different, more engaging kind of work. “It's very intimate storytelling versus, ‘here's a product that I like to consume’ Depending on who the talent is, they come with different experiences, different things,” says Michael.

In one current project that his team is working on, the celebrity in question has brought her own creative team on board in order to ensure it’s truly in her voice. ”So she's able to get all of the health messaging in in a way that's authentic and unique to how she likes to portray herself in her on-screen content, for example. It does become so much more of a partnership in reviewing and aligning on the scripts and the creative. Talent aren't going to do a commercial if they don't like the creative. They're very particular, they want to review the creative, they get approval rights, they'll change language to make sure it sounds like them. It becomes a very collaborative process,” says Michael.

While that ultimately results in better, more compelling content there’s also a particular tension that arises in the healthcare space. It’s notoriously heavily regulated and brands have to be very careful about how they phrase things and the claims they make, which means that talent can’t have complete free reign or creative control.

“So many people want to leverage their platforms and tell their story in their way, but we have to be mindful of legal, medical, regulatory practices of the pharmaceutical industry,” says Michael, who explains that starpower sees itself as a “bridge between Hollywood and healthcare”.

As he puts it, he speaks both languages and can act as a translator, ensuring that talent understands why pharma and biotech comes with such tight restrictions and that the marketers appreciate the talent’s need to protect their voice and sense of authenticity. Sometimes the best way to resolve this is to build flexibility into the creative and production process, so there’s more time for legal, medical and regulatory reviews. Michael also says that it’s good practice to bring the celebrity or influencer and client together on a call right at the beginning to make sure that everyone’s aligned and that “everybody wins”.

Michael suggests that there are other ways to square that circle too. Unbranded education campaigns – celebrities raising awareness about a disease category rather than talking about specific pharma brands – can be one approach. Another smart tactic can be to pair celebrity or influencer talent with a doctor. It allows the celebrity to focus on their personal story without getting bogged down in the necessary scientific details.

“That's a really nice place where a doctor can fill in some of those blanks. What you don't want to do is have a celebrity or an influencer overreaching, oversharing, talking about things that they're not equipped to talk about,” says Michael.

The final piece of the puzzle is that physicians and patients themselves are becoming influencers and creators. Non-celebrities are building communities around their experiences with specific conditions and healthcare providers are looking to educate the public. Michael explains that at starpower they see the creator or talent ecosystem as a funnel, where big name pop culture celebrities and sports stars bring broad awareness and lifestyle influencers can hook in their large audiences. Patient influencers connect with their niche communities gathered around specific conditions and doctors look to answer the crunchy, technical questions.

In an age where talent can come from anywhere, whether that’s Hollywood or a hospital office, and where we’re all keen to tell our stories and guard our image, starpower’s function as a connector and translator becomes more important than ever.

“We never want to sit in the middle and keep people away from each other; we bring everybody together because that's how we're going to create the best work.”