Branding the pandemic: what big pharma brands should do next

Paul Domenet, partner and communications creative director at Free The Birds, offers an Expert View on how big pharma can improve its image.

The pandemic has catapulted big pharma brands like Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) and Moderna (Nasdaq: MRNA) into the foreground of public imagination like never before. While they have been making well-known consumer brands for years, they have only now themselves become household names. This presents a huge opportunity for their future growth.

It’s an opportunity for them to lose some of the mistrust that’s plagued them for decades and become a more human presence in people’s day-to-day lives. To do this, they need to align themselves more closely with growing values in contemporary consumer behavior such as transparency, humanity, and empathy. For a sector that’s kept its corporate distance, striking the right tone here is critical.