Driving Creative Excellence and Inclusivity in Healthcare

“I enjoy entertainment, and I started in that space. But, being able to help people and help them lead healthier and happier lives through our products and services at Haleon is an unmatched opportunity.” 

Now Global Partnerships Director at Haleon, Christopher Concerto has been working at the company for 13 years across the marketing and partnerships functions. He’s spent all of his professional life in marketing, but his current core focus is bringing together media, creative, and technology, balancing a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to ensure Haleon’s marketing impact can be measured and validated.

For Chris, bringing these stakeholders together is both the most challenging and exciting part of his role. “In such a big company, you need to collaborate for impact, across both markets and functions.” This throws up unique issues, but “There’s a beauty in it. I get to see lots of different parts of the business and work with people from all around the world who bring unique perspectives to the challenges we face.” 

Speaking to the historic industry focus on media effectiveness, Chris sees a shift at Haleon towards the importance of creative, and building systems to drive creative excellence. “Understanding just how important creative is in driving results for the business, we had to double down on creative excellence.” 

Achieving creative excellence for Chris means “Being able to understand the consumer, and connect with them on an emotional level. Clearly articulating the challenge they face and the solution we provide for them.” Achieving this rests on a “Bit of both science and art, a blend of left and right brain,” and while “there isn’t always a magic formula, there are certain things that we know work when building connections with consumers.”

“At Haleon we leverage our two key strengths: a connection with and deep understanding of our consumers, but also the science behind our products.” 

Technology plays a central role in Chris’s vision for creative excellence. “It sometimes feels like it’s moving so fast it’s impossible to keep up with, but it’s such an enabler of media and creative effectiveness.” 

“The way we connect with consumers and how consumers are expected to be communicated with are changing, and technology plays a fundamental role in that shift.” To that end, one of Chris’s core areas of focus over the last year has been inclusivity across Haleon’s advertising and how technology can be employed to drive more inclusive advertising. 

“When we spun off from GSK, our renewed purpose as Haleon was clear: To deliver better everyday health with humanity. To do that effectively, we need to make healthcare more accessible, easy to understand and comprehend, and ensure that our messages and the voice of our brands are representative of the diverse range of audiences we serve.”  

Working with CreativeX, Haleon developed the Health Inclusivity Screener, the first AI-driven tool to assess creative content for accessibility, comprehension, and representation. The screener has been piloted with Panadol to help inform inclusivity commitments for Haleon and is now being scaled across other brands. 

“It was really important for us to take a step back and assess how we were showing up with consumers. We produce so much content around the world, so it becomes incredibly challenging to gain an understanding of exactly what content is being delivered across different markets and brands.” 

The screener aimed to improve inclusivity across Haleon’s advertising and drive stronger connections with consumers, but research with MetrixLab also affirmed that inclusive content produced better business outcomes. “We were able to validate that small changes help consumers better understand products and services and ultimately drive improvements in key performance metrics.” 

The ambition for the next five years? 

“To take the Health Inclusivity Screener and scale it across Haleon, tracking reporting over time to ensure we’re progressing and improving. But we’d also love to bring the tool to all advertisers so that we’re collectively better serving consumers and helping them make more thoughtful and informed decisions about their health.”