KESIMPTA competes in a highly fragmented, strictly regulated marketplace. More than 23 disease modifying therapies are available to a finite number of 400,000 people diagnosed with MS. If that wasn’t a big enough challenge, only a quarter of those patients are dynamic (“available” for a new therapy) given the diagnosis rate and because once an MS patient starts treatment, they may stay on it for nearly 3 years before considering an alternative.
KESIMPTA is often “outshouted” by the competition who consistently outspend as much as 3-fold. The objective was move beyond traditional SOV strategies with a social first approach, delivering breakthrough creative for the MS category and for pharma, purpose-built for each platform. Leveraging the lived experiences of real Kesimpta patients, others could learn to advocate for why Kesimpta makes sense as their first treatment choice. Because the grant rate from a clinician is as high as 84% when an appropriate patient asks for the brand, this helped the brand exceed the patient request KPI. We disrupted industry tropes, breaking through to have real patients teach others, improving their ability to self-advocate for KESIMPTA to health care providers. We set out to harness the influence of social proof to give suitable patients confidence that choosing KESIMPTA is a well-informed step to help provide control in an unpredictable MS journey.
We aimed to encourage individuals to actively participate in their care by fostering an open dialogue with their health care providers—helping them feel confident in expressing their priorities from the start. We embraced the spirit of empowerment by highlighting the strength of our K Crew community (real Kesimpta patients) —experienced voices offering guidance and encouragement to those newly navigating life with MS. Across Pinterest, Reddit, and YouTube plus programmatic advertising, the content delivered authentic conversations to help patients cut straight to what they need to know during those first steps in their new journey.
Patient-driven content was a focus because recommendations from other patients are a top driver in treatment decision-making throughout the patient journey.
Representation in our content was important to reach the Black and Hispanic communities, who have been historically under represented despite making up ~25% of the MS population.
Our data strategy was critical to flawlessly executing a multi-platform approach. Each partner’s strengths were utilized including Native Interests, Reach Video Engager, and 3rd party data partner audiences based on HIPAA-compliant behaviors.
During a heavy up in MS Awareness Month, the effort exceeded all primary KPIs, achieving as high as +6.8 point lift in Ad Recall (55% higher than platform benchmark), +3 point lift in Brand Awareness (43% higher than platform benchmark), and +6.6 point in Intent. Website visits driven by social platforms increased 117% and high value action file downloads increased by 143% compared to prior month.
With YouTube, we are capitalizing on a channel where patients go to learn from one another, and minimal therapeutic storytelling is available. At the time of this entry, our YouTube channel has nearly 60,000 subscribers, the most in the MS category.
Average view time increased since we launched on YouTube as we adapted to the platform’s strengths (+1 minute). Cost per views steadily decreased 59%, creating efficiencies which allowed In-Feed placements to generate 42% more impressions at a 23% reduction in spend Oct ’24-Sep ’25, VYA.
ROI across platforms is exceeding enterprise norms.
