The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024
Jazz Pharmaceuticals pitches oncologists on ‘HER2.0’ — a next era for stomach cancer
With HER2 treatment stalled in stomach cancer, Jazz and Area 23 renamed the next era ‘HER2.0’ in conference posters aimed at oncologists.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals
What it had to solve
HER2 is one of the most widely accepted targets in cancer treatment — but only in breast cancer. For the more insidious stomach cancers, existing HER2 drugs had fallen short, and the lack of innovation had meant a great loss of hope; Jazz Pharmaceuticals was developing a precision medicine that could finally open HER2’s promise to stomach cancer.
How it works
Oncologists know HER2 as one of the most widely accepted targets in cancer treatment — a receptor that propels tumor growth and is synonymous with hope — but only in breast cancer. In stomach cancers, the same drugs had fallen short, and the lack of innovation had cost patients hope.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals was developing a new precision medicine that could finally open HER2’s promise to stomach cancers. Rather than introduce the science cold, the campaign renamed the moment: HER2.0, treating the next era of HER2 treatment like a software upgrade to a familiar system.
Area 23 executed the idea as a poster campaign aimed at oncologists at medical conferences. Eight out-of-home posters around the ASCO GI conference in San Francisco — on bus stops, buildings and billboards — showed a reimagined gastrointestinal tract carrying the phrase ‘HER2.0’, with each poster drawn in a different art style from 3D rendering to hand drawing to blown glass.
Why it lands
- HER2 was already trusted shorthand among oncologists, so versioning it transferred that trust to a new disease instead of starting from zero.
- Doctors are the audience who will prescribe the medicine, and medical conferences are where they gather — the campaign met the specialist in his own venue.
- Stomach cancer had been written off as beyond HER2’s reach, so the ‘.0’ upgrade framed the news as progress on a known target rather than a risky unknown.
- Eight art styles made one concept fill a conference city, so the single phrase repeated with craft instead of wearing out.
What it did
The versioning gave oncologists a one-word story: HER2 was not finished, it was being upgraded for a cancer where the target had never delivered. D&AD preserved the campaign in its awards archive, and Modern Healthcare profiled it in its 2024 Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards; the entry records no sales figures.
What you can take
When the science is familiar but the application is new, name the upgrade: a version number tells specialists instantly that a target they already trust is being taken somewhere it has never worked.
Since then
The HER2.0 posters met oncologists at the moment and place where gastrointestinal cancer data is discussed, giving the campaign relevance inside the specialty rather than around it. D&AD filed the work in its awards archive and Modern Healthcare profiled it in its 2024 Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards, where it stands as an example of marketing a pre-approval medicine by reframing a familiar target instead of introducing an unfamiliar molecule.
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