Why Healthcare Marketing Belongs in the Cultural Conversation
Marketers love to chase down culture, but in healthcare, we often act like it’s a conversation we don’t belong in. Cultural relevance is for sportswear, fast food and tech brands, not those tackling diabetes or cancer, right? Wrong!
The very definition of culture speaks to shared beliefs, behaviours and identity. For health that means how we live, age, thrive, and survive. Nothing is more ingrained in human culture. Healthcare isn’t a category, it’s a cultural pillar in its own right. We don’t need to chase culture, because we can shape it.
A cultural health-check for health
It’s 2025, and you can’t escape the flood of ‘COVID: 5 years on’ think pieces. On this half-decade anniversary of the global lockdown, everyone with a pulse and a platform wants to weigh in on the lasting impact of the pandemic. News outlets and research firms are busy crunching numbers and serving up the data that tells the story of normal life today; the behaviours that shifted and stuck, and the industries collapsed and emerged.
The most profound shift is how health itself surfaced. As if arriving overnight, health moved from background concern to mainstream conversation. And not just the science and epidemiology of COVID or the great Pfizer vs Moderna vaccine debate. The discourse has lingered and evolved, and become inseparable from our daily lives and identities.
Look at Ozempic. It’s up there with the Stanley Cup and Temu as a rising brand icon of 2024. But this T2D drug has gone far beyond being a product, it’s a force. From the Kardashians monetising GLP-1 supplements through Kourtney K’s wellness brand lemme to its presence across Hollywood and the black market, Ozempic has pulled medical weight loss into the limelight (for better or worse). It is inescapable in the media and has infiltrated our everyday vernacular.
COVID and Ozempic aren’t outliers. We’ve seen similar shifts with the menopause revolution and HRT shortages (dubbed the Davina Effect in the UK), and also with shifting conversations around period shame, erectile dysfunction, mental health and diseases like Alzheimer’s. From the way we talk about health to how we engage with it, even wear it, it is embedded into the everyday. These are not health issues, these are cultural conversations that define how we live.
The chase for cultural relevance
Whilst brands in other categories continue chasing relevancy, looking for the latest trend or viral moment to jump onto, just know that in healthcare, we don’t need to be that shallow. Health is universal. Everyone has a culture of health. And nothing is more relevant. And perhaps, this is healthcare’s greatest untapped superpower in marketing.
At VCCP Health, we recognise this strength. Populating culture is at the heart of our methodology and our benchmark for creative success. Because today’s audience demands it. And to ensure we truly deliver ideas that make the cut for culture, we ask ourselves three things:
- Will it make me stop? Whether we are talking to healthcare professionals or patients it's true that attention is a premium - we’re all distracted. So what will make our audience stop scrolling, pick up that leave piece the rep left behind or open the next promotional email amidst a mountain of admin?
- How do we get involved? Because we know that while the best ideas in health can deliver awareness and education, they also have an intrinsic ability to motivate engagement, inspire action, and create deeper memories and affinity brands.
- What keeps the conversation going? We take pride in ideas that have longevity. Ideas that aren’t only built to last the length of one expensive campaign burst but evolve over time, diving deeper into health conversations and lasting relevance for healthcare brands to keep healthcare professionals, patients and the general public engaged in meaningful ways.
Join the cult(ure)
We need to reframe how we talk about culture in healthcare marketing. Health and wellness brands don’t just have the right to engage in culture, there’s a responsibility to. Health isn’t niche, it’s not a subcategory of life, it’s a universal human experience, making it one of the most potent cultural commodities. Here’s three ways you can tap into this meaningfully:
- Leading health conversation beyond the clinical: Healthcare brands play a unique role in leading health education, and if COVID has taught us anything, it’s that the appetite for evidence-based science is there. People don’t need wellness hacks and fake fads, but reputable voices leading the conversation, meeting them where they are and speaking in their language - a la Doctor Disney.
- Transcending patients and prescribers: We need to remember that healthcare is bigger than patients and bigger than healthcare professionals. People can be impacted by diseases and health conditions indirectly, and cannot predict what’s in store for the future. Look at how Coronation Street integrated motor neurone disease into its storytelling, not a public service announcement but a deeply woven narrative. It starts a disease awareness conversation in a different place, one that feels more real and less clinically abstract.
- Orchestrate moments, not just campaigns: The most impactful campaigns are the ones that think beyond a single ad, and this is really where we can take bigger cues from consumer brands, the ones with enduring platforms that have the ability to flex across touchpoints and evolve to tell new stories. There’s no better example than VCCP’s own work with Cadbury. The creative platform There’s a glass and a half in everyone transcends the confectionery category to fuel some significant health conversations and partnerships, including loneliness in later life, young minds and mental wellbeing, and Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Next time you doubt your healthcare brand’s cultural relevance, ask yourself: Is it enough to keep pushing out the same traditional and clinical message, or will you recognise what you have, and start shaping culture?
