PFIZER
Reframing Sickle Cell Pain
Peer-to-peer education designed to dismantle emergency department misconceptions about sickle cell patients — strategy and creative retained by Pfizer.
Role
Creative Director
Agency
Eveo (Capgemini Invent)
Timeline
2018–2019, 12 months
Deliverables
SCDTruths Educational Platform · Video Series · Clinical Print Advertisements · Point-of-Care Materials · Medical Congress Exhibit
The Challenge
Emergency department physicians held entrenched misconceptions about sickle cell patients — mischaracterizing pain crises as drug-seeking, carrying unconscious bias into treatment decisions, and working from outdated knowledge of sickle cell disease (SCD) management. Those beliefs were a barrier to both patient care and adoption of Pfizer’s new SCD treatment. The campaign had to change minds in a skeptical, time-pressed audience — using voices they would actually trust.
Approach
The strategy was research-first: an insight-discovery phase surfaced the specific misconceptions driving poor care, and everything downstream targeted those root causes rather than symptoms. Because entrenched beliefs don’t yield to brand messaging, credibility had to come from peers — we recruited rare sickle cell disease (SCD) specialists, emergency medicine opinion leaders, and patient advocacy voices, and built the “SCDTruths” video series and educational platform around them.
My role was both directive and hands-on: I concepted and led the integrated campaign, co-art directed and co-designed the platform, print advertisements, point-of-care materials, and congress exhibit, and led a cross-functional team of copy, medical direction, medical writing, and visual design. When Pfizer restructured mid-project, I built the ROI and strategic-value presentations that kept the program funded.
The Work
Campaign identity:
"What’s your Sickle Cell Disease truth?”
The peer-testimony framework that carried the campaign
Platform on laptop/mobile
Sickle Cell Disease Truths (SCDTruths) educational platform, co-art directed and co-designed
Video stills
SCD specialist and KOL testimony addressing misconceptions directly
Outcome
Clinical trial results ended the program before launch. Pfizer retained the complete campaign strategy and creative assets for future use.
One Learning
The insight phase, not the creative phase, determined this campaign. Discovering that the real barrier was unconscious bias — not information scarcity — changed who needed to speak and what they needed to say. It’s the discipline I bring to every regulated-audience campaign: diagnose before designing.
Planning a launch, rebrand, or congress season?
claire@clairemorrisdesign.com · 415-305-5452