The independent healthcare communications agency, Medulla led by Praful Akali, has set its sights on the world’s biggest advertising market – US, making it the agency’s second international office, following its recent expansion to Singapore.
Remember that the agency founded in Mumbai has won many global awards including Cannes Lions Healthcare Agency of the Year in 2016. In an exclusive conversation with IMPACT, Praful Akali, Founder and Managing Director, Medulla and Andrew Schirmer, Director of Medulla’s US operations, share how they intend to capture the US health tech space using emotions, insights and authenticity which have been at the heart of their success at the agency.
After Singapore, why is Medulla expanding to the US and are there any other markets in your ‘go global plan’?
Praful: There have been a number of healthcare advertising agencies expanding from the West to the East – thus bringing in Western sensibilities – but there has been no healthcare advertising agency from the East spreading its wings across the APAC markets, thus we chose to open an office in Singapore. On the other hand, US is the largest healthcare advertising market in the world. US is a rare market with regulatory allowance of direct-to-consumer communication for pharma brands – of course with clear restrictions. With most global pharma communication being built in the US, it commands a very high share of global healthcare advertising revenues. I’ve always felt that you can only truly call yourself a global healthcare ad agency if you succeed in the US. So, launching is just the very first step – we’ll call ourselves global when we succeed! Not entering any other market for now.
What would be the strategy to establish Medulla’s presence in the United States?
Andrew: To kick-start our US business, we intend to target a niche within healthcare advertising – the health-tech and healthcare startup industry. Medulla brings in the rare combination of performance marketing and brand communication that these brands need – first to build business at the 0-1x stage and then to scale the business through brand communication at the x-to-10x stage when start-up brands can afford to invest in mass communication and brand-building. These are often handled by different agencies and this transition then becomes a common point of failure for many healthcare startups. Also, our services will extend across search, social media advertising, digital advertising, performance marketing, content marketing and more.
Are there any plans to partner with a US based agency? Would the workforce have majority of locals to better understand the sensibilities of the market there?
Praful: You’re right! That’s where Andrew Schirmer comes in, he is a ‘local’ and has more than 30 years of experience at agency networks including WPP (Ogilvy), IPG (McCann) and Omnicom. He has partnered with healthcare companies, governments and NGOs to deliver life-saving communication strategies across categories, geographies and channels. His leadership will be instrumental in building Medulla’s footprint and influence in the US. However, the reason for Medulla winning global awards has been our incredible team and processes in India. For this reason, we do not intend to rebuild a team from scratch in the US to recreate that magic but continue to transparently use India as the delivery centre. This gives our targeted startups in the US the cost-effectiveness that they need, charging them what their current digital advertising agency or performance marketing agency might but delivering a lot more than that. Also providing them with the combination of local market understanding and insights with global advertising capabilities.
WARC had predicted major headwinds for advertising in the US market, which commands a 39% AdEx share globally, especially with Trump Tariffs coming into play. How would that impact your expansion?
Praful: So far, the buzz and interest from potential clients and partners in the US has been incredible and gives us the sense that there is significant long-term value seen from Medulla. I don’t know yet if the US tariffs would impact us significantly but I am certainly not worried for now.
Which of your existing clients in India would you potentially tap in the US?
Praful: Medulla has had the privilege of partnering with some of the world’s leading global companies including Pfizer, Novartis, Ferring, Mylan, Braintap, Bayer, Kenvue, Big Muscles, IAPC, Muscle Blaze and more. We already have a couple of clients in the US health-tech space based on our network that has been created from India. With Andrew’s leadership and an official US launch, this base should multiply exponentially in the next two years.
It has been nearly 10 years since Medulla created a name for itself on an international stage like Cannes bringing to fore India’s prowess in healthcare creativity. Why did you wait so long to go global and capitalise on that glory?
Praful: In 2015, we sent our entries to Cannes Lions for the first time and were surprised to be announced as the number three Healthcare Agency of the Year at the Lions. That kickstarted a global awards journey for the next 4-5 years of winning the world’s biggest creativity and marketing effectiveness awards, including being announced as the 4th Most Effective Independent and Specialist Agency globally by the Effies and WARC respectively. However, just when we were ready to invest in using these credentials to expand our business globally – ready with funds, unique services, marketing plans, and more – we were all hit by the pandemic and it made sense to focus on the existing business rather than stretching resources thin. Only in the last 1-2 years has Medulla been aggressively planning our global expansion as well as expansion into new and unique services for healthcare clients, resulting in the big announcements that we have made over the last few months.
Medulla is perhaps India’s first healthcare agency to operate in the US. What is the ambition and target that you have set for yourself?
Andrew: The first step over the next 3-4 years is to be the agency of choice in our chosen niche of health-tech and healthcare startup clients in the US. We believe this alone would ensure Medulla’s annual revenue in the US would exceed that from the Indian market in 2028. Once we achieve that, there is significant room for growth in other more competitive areas of healthcare in the US – especially consumer health, healthcare professional communication, hospitals and healthcare delivery services.
