Merck for Mothers: Push

Credits & Description:

Category: Public Interest, NGO
Media: Film
Client: Merck for Mothers
Lead: Dr. Naveen Rao
Director of Communications: Heather Stamatacos
Director of Strategic Partnerships: Mark Allen

Agency: Matter Unlimited
CEO: Robert Holzer
Managing Director: Alexandra Gordon
Director of Production: Ashley Jamieson
Creative Director: Shabazz Larkin
Creative Director: Ahmer Kalam
Account Executive: Alison Kidd
Director of Strategy: Jackie Prince

Production Company: Whitelist
Director: Spencer Creigh
Executive Producer: Jerad Anderson
Head of Production: Matt Griffo
Head of Creative: Colin Moore
Head of Operations and Finance: Natasha Seubert
Producer: Jefferis Gray
Date: March, 2017
Synopsis:
In 2011, Ken Frazier President and CEO of Merck (known as MSD for Mothers outside of the U.S. and Canada) launched Merck for Mothers, a 10-year $500M initiative focused on improving the health and well-being of mothers during pregnancy and childbirth.Merck leverages its business and scientific expertise, and partners with governments, nonprofits and like minded private sector companies across the globe with the ultimate goal of ending maternal mortality worldwide. We needed to position Merck for Mothers as a leader in maternal health by illustrating the crucial role of private sector support for this public health issue and create greater awareness for the initiative to inspire new partners to join them.After 5 years the initiative wanted to inspire new audiences and remain relevant amongst policy makers, NGO’s and consumers. An injection of emotionally compelling storytelling was needed to drive new excitement and enthusiasm for the next 5 years.
Outcome:
In the 2 weeks since launching, PUSH has become the most viewed video in Merck's history. Within 1 hour the existing Merck for Mothers benchmark of 70K views was surpassed, and after 5 days the minimal paid support was stopped as the views had exceeded all expectations. Since then the video has attracted unprecedented organic views, to date over 1.98+M people have watched it across platforms. The film and therefore initiative received diverse coverage including Huffington Post, Popsugar Moms, Media Post and Diverge NOW in total accumulating over 42M media impressions. Merck leadership continues to show it at internal and external events. The Executive Director of the program, Dr. Mary-Ann Etiebet, describes the impact so far: “The emotional connection it has with the audience is visible, audible and palpable.”
Execution:
The film launched at a private screening at Davos in 2017 to a room of potential partners, policy makers and influencers.It was then shared with a select group of Merck and MSD’s employees, partners and ambassadors prior to launching publicly on International Women’s Day 2017.Key influencers like Heidi Murkoff of What To Expect, and New York Times best-selling author and maternal health advocate Matt Logelin were leveraged to share on their social channels and existing partners like the Gates Foundation and Christy Turlington’s Every Mother Counts to drive further reach through their networks.The film was placed across all owned online platforms including the Merck for Mothers website, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts and some native placements on platforms like Tastemade, Real Simple, and Thought Catalog allowing us to focus on specific audiences.It is being used for all keynote appearances, conferences and meetings throughout the year globally.
Audience:
The audiences were numerous including maternal health advocates, potential private sector partners, employees, media and the general public. The film therefore needed to have broad usage and appeal at conferences (so far it has been screened at Davos and SXSW) and across Merck for Mothers online platforms and channels.
Strategy:
We established specific goals of the film which were to:-Raise awareness for the issue and the effort globally (both internally and externally)-Further establish MFM as a leader in the maternal health space-Drive new interest in partnerships across sectors The audiences were numerous including maternal health advocates, potential private sector partners, employees, media and the general public. MFM already had an eco-system of communication that illustrated the facts of the issue and laid out programmatic plans and success. They had mastered the operational side of communications effectively but it lacked an empathetic component to truly allow people to connect with the cause at a more visceral level. We wanted to bring more humanity to the communications and create a powerful piece that would remind those audiences: every woman deserves to feel joy for the new life she is bringing into the world, not fear for their own.
Brief with projected outcomes:
For this project our goal was to raise awareness for maternal health globally and the Merck for Mothers program. Although pharmaceuticals are a regulated industry, Merck for Mothers is a non-commercial part of business with no product(s) focus, so we did not have any specific regulation challenges to overcome.
Campaign Description:
We created All for Mothers, a platform to signify the universal motivation and collaborative approach, complementing Merck’s new corporate reputation theme of Inventing for Life.An anthemic video needed to drive home the ambition of the initiative and have broad usage and appeal. We found inspiration in a word that is universally connected with giving birth, it also became the CTA ‘Let’s PUSH until all maternal mortality is a thing of the past.’The idea was to give a universal yet personal view of the journey to motherhood, allowing people to walk in the shoes of pregnant women. Three distinct stories are woven together creating a rich, emotionally arresting and real portrait of pregnancy. You can experience the joy, fear, daily determination and heartache. The result is a beautiful tapestry of experiences that make a compelling appeal for why this private sector effort is so vital and worthy of attention.