By Mark Corbae, Managing Director, ICR Healthcare and Ben Patriquin, Executive Creative Director, Twelve Crows
Scientific storytelling lies at the heart of effective life sciences communications, and the intersection between communications and visual creative work is critical to success. In this conversation two industry experts – Mark Corbae, Managing Director at ICR Healthcare, and Ben Patriquin, Executive Creative Director at Twelve Crows, a boutique creative agency specializing in life science and healthcare branding – explore how communications and creative must work together to create compelling work on behalf of clients.
Mark Corbae (M.C.): Let’s start by talking about the relationship between communicators – corporate communications and investor relations professionals – and creative teams. We each have our respective expertise with some overlap, but there are differences. From your perspective, how do you successfully navigate that relationship to achieve alignment for the client’s benefit?
Ben Patriquin (B.P.): The key point is that it’s more than just overlapping, it’s teamwork and orchestration. It works best when the messaging is tight and the visual expression helps land that messaging.
M.C.: When you talk about having the messaging down pat and the brand house established, from a communications standpoint, we often conduct messaging and positioning sessions with clients at the initial stage of our work. If, for example, a website refresh comes six months down the road, does it make sense to do that in tandem or revisit it together?
B.P.: We talked about orchestration or alignment. That happens when creative is in the room early – I don’t consider it a downstream function. The comms person is often closest to the client, able to share real-time feedback, not just a polished, finalized messaging document. Having those real-time conversations and being part of that feedback loop up front is crucial.
M.C.: You often use the phrase “designing for multiple outs.” What does that mean, and how should biopharma companies and their partners think about it?
B.P.: I was introduced to this concept from a colleague early in my career, and it influences my approach to creative. When you ask a CEO who the main audience is for their company’s website, they typically list multiple audiences: investors, patients, KOLs, etc. You must build a system that works across multiple scenarios because life moves at the speed of biotech – things change fast.
You might be designing for a company with one indication and four undisclosed indications. If they get unfavorable data on their main asset, they may need to pivot and lean into their undisclosed pipeline. So, you need to build a messaging framework that works beyond that one asset, and a website and brand that reflects that. You must avoid painting yourself into a corner from a brand, messaging, or design perspective so you can meet clients’ ever-changing needs. That’s the idea behind designing for multiple outs.
M.C.: To an extent, you’re speaking about being where you are today, but also being aspirational.
B.P.: Yes, it’s about being where you are but knowing that where you’ll be next isn’t guaranteed or written in stone. The aspiration for a biotech company is usually to get its therapy to physicians and patients, but there are many checkpoints in between, and you cannot be certain where those will lead. I have been in scenarios where we started as one company at the beginning of the year and finished as another.
M.C.: So, the mistake is thinking very narrowly – “we need a new logo or tagline” – instead of thinking holistically.
B.P.: Yes, but you don’t want to give up credibility in favor of distinctiveness. You want people to understand who this company is. If you’re a startup, don’t try to look like Novartis. Look at who you are as an innovative startup and be that startup.
M.C.: When working on behalf of a client, assessing their peers is critical, as it helps benchmark our performance and refine our own narrative. How much of a factor is that with creative?
B.P.: One of our first questions when we kick off is, “who are your main competitors?” If you’re in a particular indication, colors can mean certain things. Sometimes you want to avoid certain colors for certain diseases, and sometimes you want to lean into them. You want to understand what the market that you’re in looks like, because you don’t want to be too close to your competitors, but you also don’t want to be untrue to the market that you’re in.
M.C.: Let’s finish by talking about corporate decks. What are key considerations, and what mistakes should companies avoid?
B.P.: Let’s focus on the main corporate confidential deck used on roadshows or when talking to potential investors.
You want a delicate balance: enough content so people can understand the story thoroughly if they take the deck away, but not so much that it overwhelms the slides. You want to let your CEO speak to the slides artfully.
Think about communication in three levels: the headline grabs attention, the subhead digs into details, and then you have data, mechanism of action, or patient population information. You need visuals to grab them, the right information to pop out, and the ability to tell the story in the room, letting them leave remembering it.
M.C.: Counterintuitively, your audience will remember more the less you overload them with information. The deck supports your presentation – it’s not a substitute for presenting. It’s a visual aid.
B.P.: Exactly. That’s why you need effective top-line messaging – you want them to walk away thinking, “That all makes sense.” A CEO or CSO talking to investors should be able to tell the story with or without a deck. The deck needs to accentuate the story, help people leave with it, and help savvy investors look at data or slides to ask the right questions at the end of the presentation.
The principles Mark and Ben discuss—strategy before aesthetics, flexibility built in from the start, and narrative clarity at every level—are the ones we apply every day at ICR Healthcare when working with companies on their brand and communications strategy. If you’re thinking through a brand refresh, website update, or corporate deck, we’d welcome the conversation. Contact Mark Corbae, Managing Director, to discuss what that could look like for your organization.
