From Todd LaRoche, EVP, Managaing Director of Creative, Palio

In the March issue of Pharmaceutical Executive, you’ll find this article, which highlights the “trend setters, the image makers, the creative geniuses” who have architected some of this year’s most memorable and innovative pharmaceutical ads. It’s a great display of work, completely worth looking through.

As the introduction asserts, “The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars every year marketing treatments that they spent billions to create, but more often than not, no one knows who the ads’ creators are. Much like the Wizard of Oz, drug ads are heard and seen, but the teams get little credit for their ingenuity. For years, pharma companies have kept the agencies behind their products a secret, and few of their stories have ever been told.”

So take a look at the article to see some great examples of compelling creative and to find out a little about the people behind the work… “the unsung heroes behind a large portion of the advertising you see every single day on television, on the radio and Web, and in magazines and journals.”

And when you do, let’s not forget about the unsung heroes behind the unsung heroes. No article such as this can truly recognize all of the people that it takes to create Great Work. Sure, the creative leads are the “front men” of the band when it comes to recognizing creativity. But Great Work, creative work that achieves its purpose, takes Brand Planners who capture the insight that drives the strategy behind the work, it takes dedicated Editors who make sure every detail is correct in the presentation, it takes Designers (at Palio we engage our Design Lab on most every creative project) to bring the work to a finer finish, it takes skilled Production folks who ensure the work will appear right in the various media being employed, it takes Medical Writers and Strategists who keep the work credible, it takes dedicated Project Managers who keep the development of the work moving ahead on schedule, and it takes talented Account people who are adept at keeping relationships strong and the business on course. In fact, it takes a whole lot more people than those I just mentioned — it takes an entire agency.

So here’s to the cast of 2010 All Star creatives behind the work, and also to the people behind them who had major roles in making the work Great!