PhRMA

A Good Story Starts With Why

PhRMA IP Progress

Facts alone won't persuade people to care about abstract and complicated issues.

However, good stories will. A good story humanizes the facts and changes the way people think by influencing the way they feel. But, how do you know if the story you tell is a good one?

PhRMA and its partners came to Adfero with the challenge of generating enthusiasm for strong intellectual property rights, protections they believe incentivize progress and foster innovation. To deliver, we knew we had to tell a good story.

Using the IP Progress brand, Adfero's goal was to build a personal and positive connection to the intangible concept of intellectual property.

Our ideation started with focusing on the question of why?

Why would intellectual property matter to the audience we wanted to reach?

We deduced that while most people aren't passionate about patents, everyone relates to the power of ideas. Because ideas are what inspire us, they are what make our lives easier and our communities better. Ideas are the why behind people's motivation, and strong intellectual property laws are how those ideas come to life.

With this realization, we crafted our story. Adfero's in-house creative team scripted, sourced and produced a video featuring bold on-screen typography and high-quality stock photography to connect positive feelings about ideas to intellectual property.

Adfero's strategic paid media campaign ensured that our video got in front of opinion elites in four large metropolitan markets. We targeted specific cities because of the prevalence of intellectual property-intensive industries in their local economies. Alongside the digital advertising campaign in each market, we ran a brand lift study to measure recall and favorability.

The results confirmed that our "why"-led creative performed above expectations and standard benchmarks. Audiences who saw the video on YouTube were more likely to report recently hearing about intellectual property rights and were more likely to be favorable to strong intellectual property protections.

Even with complex and conceptual topics, this project demonstrates that a good story combined with targeted advertising can achieve a measurable, memorable impact on the people you wish to reach.