• by Les Luchter , Staff Writer, December 28, 2023

Readers of this column appreciate using sound as a medical tool, judging from the two most-read Pharma & Health Insiders of 2023. Another common denominator in the two articles was the Klick Health agency.

The No. 1 story, “Best Pharma Ads: The Sound of Cancer Cells Dying,” focused on Klick Chief Creative Officer Rich Levy’s choice of the American Society of Clinical Oncologists’ “The Most Beautiful Sound” (from Grey New York) as one of the year’s best health campaigns.  The society created an experience where, as people were going through their cancer therapy, they could actually hear their cancer cells dying.

Another of Levy’s favorite campaigns was Dell Technologies’ “I Will Always Be Me” (from  VMLY&R) in which people who have specific diseases where they lose the ability to speak used “voice banking” to type on a computer, and the computer would speak for them.

A Klick campaign for NextMed Health was the subject of our No. 2 column, “Turn Up The AC/DC, I'm Going Into Surgery!” Seems that surgeons perform better when listening to music from hard rockers AC/DC – or from soundalikes, like those who performed on the NextMed-distributed album, “Highway to Heal” (a play on the band’s breakthrough 1979 album “Highway to Hell”).

Sleep played a pivotal role in two most-read columns of the year.

Following yesterday’s news) about how sleep problems increased during 2023, it will be interesting to see if sleep-related products will be trending at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show. That’s because, for last year’s CES, sleep products were one of the three categories we highlighted in our show coverage (the others were home testing and wearables). The column placed fourth on our most-read list.

No. 6 on the list looked at how “A Good Mattress Means A Healthier Life” at Mattress Firm. “Junk sleep is just as bad, if not worse, than junk food,” the retailer’s senior vice president of marketing Sam Bennett told Pharma & Health Insider.

Mental health issues also figured in two of the top 10 stories.

No. 3 looked at how Man Therapy addresses the lack of male mental health resources, while No. 7 explored gamification as mental health medicine.

Two other columns on the list were female-oriented.

“Menopause's Workplace Stigma Costs Businesses $” the fifth most-read column, reported on a TBWA\Chiat\Day New York pro bono campaign, while the tenth most-read found Claritin revealing that female trees can fight allergies.

Celebrities played a part in the remaining two members of our top 10 list.

“Is That Cate Blanchett Looking Healthier? 'Wellness' Swag At The Oscars,” placing eighth, examined healthcare and wellness brands who were spending between $4,000 and $35,000 (per Forbes) to target just 27 people -- all the acting and directing nominees at the 2023 Oscars, plus host Jimmy Kimmel -- with free samples.

And no. 9 featured our talk with former Disney Channel star Christy Carlson Romano about her nostalgia-oriented team-up with Haleon’s Emergen-C Crystals. The “Even Stevens” star, a natural to reach millennials and Gen Z-ers with a Pop Rock-style vitamin, told us that she wants to make people aware that they can use the brand not only when they’re sick, but as a daily supplement.