A look at Philadelphia's MedAd Firms

Medical Marketing & Media's July 2010 issue should be of interest to anyyone in the Philly advertising, digital media or pharma/healthcare communities. This is MM & M's "Agency Issue", providing profiles of what it considers the top 75 advertising agencies in the business in terms of revenue. Philadelphia-area shops profiled include:

Cadient Group (King of Prussia)

CDM Princeton (Princeton)

Digitas Health (Philadelphia)

Dudnyk (Horsham)

nitrogen-formerly Dorland (Philadelphia)

Razorfish Health (Philadelphia)

Rosetta Healthcare (Hamilton, NJ)

Roska Healthcare Advertising (Montgomeryville)

Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare Innovations (Newtown)

Vox Medica (Philadelphia)

Others in the Top 75 with offices in the Philadelphia area include IMC2 Health & Wellness, evoke interaction, Eveo, and Blue Diesel.
Several others are in New York or further up the Jersey Turnpike.

The profiles give detailed information on each agency, including in some cases headcount, revenue, growth, account wins and losses, key new hires, and business mix (such as digital vs. non-digital). Some agencies prospered in 2009 while others did not do as well. While the overall economy and healthcare cost containment were factors, other industry-specific trends such as industry consolidation, shifts in category spending, salesforce cutbacks and an increasing emphasis on reaching both physicians and consumers through direct media were also important drivers. There appeared to be a growing use of social media, which Pharma has been slow to adopt to due to regulatory issues. Heavily digitally-oriented agencies probably tended to perform better than more traditional shops, several of which reported an emphasis on beefing up their digital capabilities. At the same time, some digital shops tried to add more full-service capabilities.

Cadient Group, which had been one of the faster growing companies in the area, reported a bit of a down year in 2009 with revenue declining 15%, mostly due to two customer roster consolidations and one merger, according to CEO Steven Wray, and it reduced staff by 30 people. However, Digitas Health reported 49% growth, althought its (independently managed) sister agency within the Publicis family Razorfish Health did not give specific figures for the year, perhaps because it was only broken out into a separate shop from the rest of Razorfish in March of this year. MediaBistro"s Agency Spy did report in April that Razorfish Health had "purged" its creative department. Publicis acquired Razorfish from Microsoft in August 2009.

Rosetta Marketing reported 10% growth overall and 33% in healthcare. Rosetta garners a good deal of M&A speculation, both as a possible acquirer and seller, given that it is one of the largest independent agencies out there with a strong digital heritage.

Blue Diesel is planning an expansion of its Newtown office, according to MM & M.




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