Effective marketing and
communication campaign to give visibility to pharmacy regulation reform
Case of the Federation of Commerce
The starting point: Stringent legislation stands in the way of pharmacy reform
The Finnish Commerce Federation, representing the largest sector of Finnish business, the trade, is working with its members to liberalise regulation affecting the pharmacy market. Through the reform of the pharmacy system, the Federation aims, among other things, to secure the availability and accessibility of pharmacy services throughout the country, extend opening hours, enable price competition for medicines, liberalise the sale of over-the-counter medicines and abolish pharmacist ownership.
In addition to traditional lobbying, the opinion of the general public is also important in social issues, which is why the Federation of Finnish Commerce wanted to bring the regulation affecting the pharmacy market to the attention of the public in the run-up to the 2023 parliamentary elections.
Solution: a multi-channel marketing communication campaign for a wide target group
Together with the Finnish Commerce Federation, we implemented a multi-channel marketing communications campaign to highlight the shortcomings of pharmacy regulation through practical examples that can be understood, such as the challenges of access to medicines. The main objective of the campaign was to reach as many Finns as possible who use pharmacy services.
For broad coverage, we focused on traditional advertising channels such as print and radio, which have been proven to reach hundreds of thousands of Finns every day. The multi-channel advertising campaign ran nationwide on Sanoma's digital network, as print ads in Me Nainen, Hyvä Terveydessä and Kauppalehdete, and as radio ads on Iskelmä, Radio City, Radio Pooki and the Kimantia podcast. We also used social media advertising on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn to promote the main themes of the campaign in a targeted way to different age groups and people living in different parts of Finland.
The campaign's theme was complex and the messages had to take into account current legislation, the health effects of different OTC medicines, the safety of medicines, the tone of voice set by the Commerce Federation, the clarity of the terminology used and the arguments of potential opponents of deregulation. Marketing communications were complemented by media communications supporting the core messages of the campaign. Targeted media pitches and opinion pieces around Finland were used to attract regional attention and highlight the objectives of pharmacy reform.
The Government Programme published in June 2023 includes a responsible and gradual reform of pharmacy regulation to ensure high-quality and safe pharmacy services throughout Finland. Although not all individual objectives are mentioned in the government programme, the direction is in line with the broader objective.
The different paid advertising components of the campaign reached a total of over 2 million impressions. Social media advertising in particular generated a lively debate among the target groups, resulting in an excellent engagement rate for the publications.
The media coverage that exceeded the targets was achieved by pitching interesting and newsworthy angles to local and national media. We achieved over 20 media hits in relevant media outlets nationwide. In addition to the stories published, opinion pieces generated regional debate. The opinion pieces and articles attracted a very high level of commentary, which was one of the objectives of the media work.