How do you build a brand that wins with two very different audiences? It’s a classic challenge faced across many categories — from food brands needing to win over shoppers and retailers, to kids’ toys needing to appeal to both children and parents, to B2B2C services selling via brokers, advisors, or sales reps.
In pharma, this challenge is especially sharp. You have to win with healthcare professionals (HCPs) — who prescribe the drug — and with patients, who live with the condition. Get both right, and you unlock serious growth.
One brand that got it right? SKYRIZI, AbbVie’s treatment for autoimmune conditions, including the highly competitive psoriasis category. SKYRIZI has done something that only a handful of pharma brands do. They have created a big idea and set of distinctive brand assets, then used these consistently in communication to both audiences. This approach has helped turn Skyrizi into a blockbuster $11bn brand.
Here’s how they did it.
Post by David Nichols, Group Managing Partner and head of our Pharma practice.
1. Remember, intermediaries are consumers too!
When HCPs go home at the end of the day, they watch TV & YouTube too. They see the same commercials their prospective patients do. This means that they will recognize the brand on TV as the one the sales rep presented in their office, reminding them of his key message and reinforcing the memory of it. This helps explain why Skyrizi spend $400m on direct to consumer advertising.
2. Start with a Shared Need
In pharma, the two audiences that matter are
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Doctors want trusted, proven treatments that deliver real-world results. But they’re also time-poor and bombarded with messages — so the brand needs to be clear and memorable before the rep even walks in.
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Patients want symptom relief, confidence, and a better quality of life. The right campaign can prompt them to ask about a brand, or at least feel reassured when prescribed it.
SKYRIZI highlighted what the brandgym called “the sweetspot” of shared needs. The idea of achieving no visible symptoms is both a clinical endpoint doctors value and an emotional goal patients crave.
3. Build a Big Brand Idea and Distinctive Assets
Too many pharma brands blend into the background with generic promises and safe creative. SKYRIZI took a bold leap with a memorable brand idea and set of distinctive brand assets:
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Big Idea: Nothing is Everything — a counterintuitive, sticky phrase that flips expectations and encapsulates the brand benefit of no visible symptoms
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Distinctive Brand Assets:
- Endline Nothing is Everything
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Lifestyle-led visuals showing people thriving, not just surviving: with arms up
- Blue sky visuals
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Consistent logo, colour palette and pack style used across all touchpoints.
4. Execute with Fresh Consistency Across Audiences
Rather than fragment into separate campaigns, SKYRIZI applied one idea, two executions (see below)
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For : TV and digital campaigns with music, bright visuals, and emotional scenes of people enjoying life symptom-free
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For doctors: Clear, rational sales materials that still tie back to the “Nothing is Everything” idea — reinforcing outcomes and supporting prescribing decisions
This is a great example of fresh consistency. Consistent use of the idea and assets made SKYRIZI easy to remember and easy to spot — key ingredients for building mental availability. Flexing tone, content and channels allowed each of the two audiences to be effectively marketed to. And consistent use of distinctive brand assets in all their comms means the total effect is greater than the sum of the individual media channel spends.
5. Extend the Idea to New Indications
SKYRIZI has now been approved for 3 further indications beyond Plaque Psoriasis. Instead of starting from scratch to define a whole new marketing campaign for each, as their competitors do, they have simply extended the same campaign to cover new specific messages – keeping the key elements consistent. This means that any media spent supporting the new indication also promotes the existing one because patients recognize the brand which reinforces the previous message.
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The message shifted to “Control is Everything” — more suited to a chronic, flare-based condition.
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But the same brand assets, tone, and look & feel carried through — allowing the brand to grow without diluting its equity.
Again, fresh consistency in action — extending the brand without losing what made it distinctive.
In Summary
Whether you’re in pharma or another dual-audience category, Skyrizi’s approach offers clear lessons. Find the sweetspot of shared needs. Build one big idea and set of brand assets. Then flex these, consistently and creatively. This has helped SKYRIZI drive outsize results in its category.
