An government interview with Diego Vaccarezza, VP of Enterprise Media at CVS Well being
Editor’s Word: CVS is redefining well being care in North America. As soon as often known as the neighborhood pharmacy, CVS has grown to turn into one of many main well being options firms in the USA and is uniquely positioned to assist deal with a number of the nation’s most urgent public well being challenges. A part of this journey is reshaping what advertising means inside CVS. The corporate has adopted the method to attach its advertising with a function and is driving modern and impactful initiatives by “placing its coronary heart into each second of well being” for its clients. Broad imaginative and prescient statements like this come to life by digging into the main points of the message. The Clever Marketer linked with Diego Vaccarezza, VP of Enterprise Media at CVS Well being to speak about how CVS is accelerating its journey in direction of buyer centricity.
The Clever Marketer (WM): Let’s set a baseline for the dialog. What’s the substance and ethos behind this subject title? What, in plain language, ought to entrepreneurs and businesspeople (in addition to customers) find out about what CVS Well being is doing right here?
Diego Vaccarezza (DV): As we at CVS Well being extra clearly outline ourselves as a well being and wellness firm, the merchandise we supply, the providers we offer and the initiatives we drive are all impressed by our function: bringing our coronary heart to each second of well being. That function has developed through the years via impactful choices which might be rooted in transparency and want for change – from turning into the primary nationwide retail pharmacy to cease promoting tobacco merchandise in 2014, to difficult the wonder trade on the damaging psychological well being implications that photoshopped pictures have on younger women and girls with the CVS Magnificence Mark almost 5 years in the past, to launching our Examined to be Trusted program that assessments the nutritional vitamins and dietary supplements we promote in 2019.
We additionally dedicated the total energy of our enterprise to handle the important wants round COVID. Moreover, we stay enthusiastic about well being fairness, together with the disparity confronted by girls. As there are systematic well being and societal limitations that create significant gaps in girls’s total well being and well-being, we lately launched a brand new enterprise initiative, HERe For Her, and are taking daring steps to handle these points.
WM: Function-based advertising has gained plenty of consideration because the pandemic. There are numerous causes for this relying on what you learn and who you take heed to. Widespread to most views is that the buyer is putting extra emphasis on aligning private values with what a model represents. How do you body this up and what considering led CVS to this method?
DV: Shoppers are sometimes choosing manufacturers that aren’t solely based mostly on worth, however which might be based mostly on their very own values, as properly. As an organization, clearly articulating our function and infusing these values into our campaigns is extra essential than ever, because it differentiates us from our rivals and in addition drives model selection.
We acknowledge the chance we now have to reshape how customers expertise well being care, and we consider that our closeness to our clients by way of proximity, attain and relationships uniquely positions us to ship options that meet their evolving wants. In the course of the pandemic, we had an amazing duty of adapting and listening to our clients. We had a transparent alternative to ship on our function – to assist individuals with their well being wherever and at any time when they want us, and to deliver our coronary heart to each second of well being – all whereas being a one-stop vacation spot for our clients and sufferers. In truth, throughout this time, new audiences had been launched to us as a model as a result of we served as an essential useful resource for COVID-19 testing and vaccine distribution – which served as a first-ever interplay with CVS Pharmacy for a lot of.
What we discovered through the pandemic was the significance of working and constructing with agility, having the ability to pivot and flex to match the wants of {the marketplace}, and guaranteeing that as an organization, we’re successfully delivering on these wants.
WM: Will this mission be mirrored in print, mail, in-store promotion, and many others.? Will there be an omnichannel method to delivering the message?
DV: Our mission is mirrored in every thing we do throughout CVS Well being. We contact hundreds of thousands of lives with our in-home, in-store and digital care providers, in addition to via our dedication to underserved communities, and we proceed to work to maintain our clients linked to us by guaranteeing they’re a part of our ongoing communications efforts that inform the broader model story.
Our forward-thinking advertising methods are geared toward offering better high quality, simplicity, and selection – assembly individuals the place they’re with personalised options which might be seamless, linked and more and more digital. This has been particularly obvious because the begin of the pandemic, as there was a shift towards on-line and cell transactions. We’ve leaned closely into our digital capabilities and are leveraging strategic partnerships to broaden our choices to handle this shift and meet our clients wherever, at any time when and nonetheless they want.
An awesome instance of our omnichannel method is the CVS Media Change (cMx), our data-led, technology-driven media community that permits advertisers (CPG model suppliers) to achieve CVS customers via quite a lot of digital platforms, together with CVS.com, social media networks, programmatic shows and off-site search engines like google and yahoo.
WM: What factors of engagement will likely be launched to verify individuals (clients) perceive CVS? How will CVS achieve client involvement and buy-in for this message?
DV: Our advertising workforce represents the voice of the shopper, guaranteeing their wants are at all times the main target of the work that we do. It’s our purpose to be sure that the shopper’s journey, expertise and factors of engagement are clear and friction-less, the message resonates, and buyer suggestions is absorbed to higher inform our technique transferring ahead. As we collaborate on this cross purposeful degree, we’re always evolving our advertising methods to be much more laser-focused on connecting manufacturers with actual individuals on their wellness journey.
For instance, to additional our connection and engagement with clients, we’re particularly happy with our partnership with IBM Watson Promoting. We’re partnering with them to develop a reference to customers that drives consciousness of flu shot choices, cough, chilly and flu drugs, and to place our firm as a trusted well being associate. Utilizing IBM Watson’s AI-powered instrument, we’re capable of predict flu threat all the way down to a U.S. ZIP code, which allows us to leverage predictive sickness information, promote consciousness and suggestions for flu prevention in at-risk communities and attain customers with focused messaging to assist them entry assets from their native pharmacy.
WM: What do you suppose is the largest healthcare problem to US customers and the way is that this mission offering to handle the challenges?
DV: One problem that U.S. customers face is well being fairness, and we consider that everybody ought to have a good and simply alternative to be as wholesome as potential. To us, well being fairness just isn’t a collection of applications. It’s a manner of doing enterprise, which is why we’re dedicated to leveraging the totality of our data, belongings, and experience to advance well being fairness for our colleagues, customers, purchasers, and the communities we serve.
Girls face severe well being care gaps, from systemic limitations created by excessive well being care prices and entry points to well being challenges associated to a better threat of persistent circumstances. The COVID-19 pandemic has solely worsened these challenges. As a part of our lately launched enterprise initiative, HERe For Her, we’re taking these steps to handle these disparities:
- We’re lowering CVS Well being model interval merchandise by 25% or extra
- We’re overlaying the price of the tax on menstrual merchandise in 12 states
- We’re taking an lively stance on the ‘Pink Tax,’ guaranteeing truthful and equitable pricing for males’s and girls’s like merchandise
- We’re providing new menstrual and menopause providers via Minute Clinic in addition to launching digital care providers 7 days every week
- We’re offering entry to psychological well being assist via Aetna when it’s most handy to her
WM: The rest that we didn’t point out right here?
DV: Our advertising workforce acts partially because the coach and the quarterback of our broader workforce at CVS. It takes a village for an enterprise marketing campaign that highlights the worth of our built-in merchandise and repair choices. We’re a well being care firm with a retail pharmacy, a retail clinic, a medical insurance providing, a PBM, a Specialty pharmacy, at-home and digital care, and a rating of different assets that may assist customers on their well being journey – and we’re proud to proceed constructing a world of well being care round each particular person we serve.
To do that, groups within the discipline and throughout digital, authorized, and medical, inventive, media and PR are all aligned in direction of that widespread purpose, and I’m wanting ahead to all the nice work we now have in retailer for the longer term as we proceed working in direction of our function.
Govt Bio: Diego Vaccarezza, Vice President Enterprise Media, CVS Well being
As Vice President of Enterprise Media for CVS Well being, Diego is chargeable for main the workforce that create the media methods and handle the execution of paid media campaigns in assist of all enterprise models together with Pharmacy, Entrance Retailer, Minute Clinic, Well being Companies, and Enterprise Model.
At CVS Well being for over eleven years, Diego has led the evolution of media from a primarily Retail print circular-driven group, to an Enterprise that executes multi-channel campaigns with refined viewers segmentation and strategic use of knowledge and applied sciences. He has performed a management position in proving the worth of selling investments in successfully driving core enterprise KPIs in an ROI-positive method resulting in elevated investments 12 months over 12 months.
