CommonHealth Launches MBS/Vox: Branding Consultancy to Focus On Optimizing Physician-Patient Dialogue.

Business Editors

PARSIPPANY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 18, 2000

CommonHealth today announced the launch of a unit that will focus on physician-patient communication as a source of insight to improve health and more effectively market pharmaceutical products.

CommonHealth, the world's leading healthcare-communications resource, is a WPP Group (LSE: WPPL.L; NASDAQ/ADR: WPPGY; www.wpp.com) company.

To be called MBS/Vox (MBS = "mind, body, spirit"; Vox = "voice"), the unit will apply CommonHealth's brand and category knowledge to the latest medical sociolinguistic thinking to learn more about how healthcare therapies are talked about and used by physicians and patients in real-world settings.

"Our experience in professional and consumer communications has convinced us that physician-patient communication is the proverbial elephant-in-the-room of healthcare marketing," said Jim Clifford, president of Adient and a CommonHealth managing partner. "Everyone knows it's absolutely fundamental, yet no one is talking about it."

An article that appeared in the January 20, 1999, Journal of the American Medical Association reported that physicians often redirect a patient's initial description of his or her concerns; these descriptions are rarely returned to, resulting in missed opportunities to gather potentially important patient data.

Mr. Clifford observed: "Where medical treatment is concerned, the office visit is `ground-zero' for clinicians and patients - and for healthcare marketers, too. Understanding what goes on between the doctor and the patient can help drug companies prepare both parties to communicate better and get the best results from pharmaceutical treatments," he added.

As a branding consultancy, MBS/Vox will have several unique features, including an advisory board of nationally known experts in the field of medical linguistics and education; a nonprofit arm that will conduct original, qualitative research in the field of healthcare communications; and the resources to apply its findings to comprehensive and integrated marketing communications.

"The nonprofit arm of our company will provide a rich pipeline of communication insights and applications," said Ken Begasse, president/partner of MBS/Vox, who noted that MBS/Vox's advisory board will be led by Heidi Hamilton, Ph.D., of Georgetown University, and Rita Charon, M.D., Ph.D., of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, both leaders in the field of medical communications.

"Our offering won't stop there, however," Mr. Begasse continued. "As a branding organization focused on the growth of healthcare products, we'll use our CommonHealth and WPP Group resources to `pull-through' these insights into leading-edge account planning, creative, consumer/medical education and clinical-development consulting," he added.

"By recording and analyzing actual physician-patient interactions in the examination room, we can provide our clients with a precise map of the way any specific market is spoken about and acted upon," explained Joe Gattuso, chief strategist/partner and founder of MBS/Vox.

"This, in turn, helps define how we might change the language to bring physicians and patients together more effectively, with a `net-net' of impacting conversations about health and healthcare brands in ways not possible before," Mr. Gattuso said.

Adient's Jim Clifford added in closing, "To be frank, we got tired of wishing for a better way to impact the physician-patient dialogue. If it was going to happen, we decided, we'd have to do it ourselves."

CommonHealth comprises MBS/Vox, Adient, CommonHealth Australia, CommonHealth Europe, CommonHealth Kyowa, EinsonHealth, Enterprise IG Health, Gowers Advertising, Health Learning Systems, the Hill and Knowlton Health and Pharmaceutical Practice, MD&A/Salud, the OZM Group and a partnership in China with the Ogilvy HealthCare Network, ProCom International, The Conectics Group, The Quantum Group, The Xchange Group and Thomas Ferguson Associates.