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Using a healthcare metaphor, I want to describe my creative brain transplant from a few years ago.

First, let me offer you a sense of the symptoms I experienced in the midst of my ascendant advertising career.

More than a decade ago, I lost the tingles. My heart wasn’t beating like it used to and my feet were starting to itch. 

This was a moment when I was seriously struggling to find any joy. 

On any given Monday, I was peddling an alcoholic beverage down the throats of millions of people. By Friday, I was convincing children to drink syrupy sludge because it would evoke “happiness.”

If you’re a marketing creative like me, you also may have made a career pivot at some point. I felt like my creative soul was slowly dying and I needed a change.

In response to this feeling, I decided to search for a real purpose and found a local organization that needed some creative support. 

Africa Health Placements placed international doctors into rural hospitals near my hometown in South Africa.

In 2013, my creative partner and I designed a direct mail piece that would articulate this in a more alluring way than a simple letter.

Fortunately, it worked.

We created The World’s First Stethoscope Radio Ad, which helped thousands of people access the medical treatment they needed because there were now more doctors in the hospital.

This was a much better feeling than increasing the bottom line on a spreadsheet.

From that moment on, I knew that I wanted to work in healthcare. 

I wanted all of my energy to be spent trying to make the world healthier and myself happier — a decision that quite literally saved my life in the years that followed.

From my vantage point, when people understand the “why” behind their efforts, they often feel motivated to think more creatively. 

The need for healthcare is a matter of life and death — a responsibility that makes me much more attuned to my creativity. 

To those outside the medical marketing industry, there’s an assumption it is filled with overly cautious clients and impossible legal restrictions. While this can be true, some use regulations as an excuse. 

The reality is that health clients protect patients and challenge us to be more creative. It’s more work, sure, but it’s also more meaningful. 

To revisit my healthcare metaphor from earlier, after joining medical marketing, my heart began to pump with a revitalized beat. 

I saw every brief as an opportunity to save a life or use humor in a way that brings light to people who need it the most.

For example, our mockumentary film Sniffers urged patients with sexually-transmitted infections to consider using a private home-testing kit.

When I look across the industry, I know I’m not the only creative transplant around. 

Medical marketing is full of folks like me who now feel pure joy running through their veins. 

Thanks to this demographic shift, healthcare agencies are now being crowned with ‘Agency of the Year’ titles — even ousting consumer agencies.

Here are a few recent health projects that have won industry accolades across the globe:

1. The Most Beautiful Sound — Imagine you could hear cancer cells dying? This Gold Lion-winning campaign inspires more innovation in the category going forward.

2.  47 – Inspired by the journey of a boy with Down syndrome, this campaign created for Café Joyeux was recognized with four Cannes Lions in 2024. 

3. Make Love Last — An initiative from Viagra that shows the lasting power of the product through beautiful art direction and photography. 

4. True Cost of MS — This poignantly simple print campaign for Sativex from a few years ago helped me realize the power of creativity in pharma. 

Ask anyone in adland about the work they felt most inspired by recently and I can guarantee there’ll be at least a couple of health-related ideas in the mix. 

Finally, healthcare is where it’s at.

We’re seeing an influx of young creatives joining our industry because they prefer purpose over potato chips. Recently, I witnessed this first hand while participating in The One Show’s Creative Week. 

A few years ago, I was the only healthcare agency representative at the Young Creative Portfolio review day and only about two students came to see me. 

This year, we were flooded with portfolios, which means the future of our industry is looking more exciting than ever.

If you’ve experienced any of the symptoms I listed above and taken action, kudos for transplanting that beautifully big brain of yours into a creative career that can save lives. 

Cheers — let’s see how our collective creativity can make the world a healthier place.

Also, while I have your attention, please don’t forget to register your decision to join the real organ donation list.