How Moderna is marketing itself amid new vaccine rollouts

Autumn is here and with its changing leaves and brisk temperatures comes an increase in germs and viruses, including flu, COVID-19 and respiratory illness RSV. Moderna, which gained mainstream awareness for its mRNA science during the pandemic, recently released a newly calibrated COVID-19 vaccine designed to combat this year’s dominant strain of the coronavirus. The shot is currently rolling out to doctors’ offices and drugstores including Walgreens and CVS. But there is still opportunity for the pharmaceutical brand. Kate Cronin, a former executive at Ogilvy Health who joined Boston-based Moderna two years ago as chief brand officer, has been working to continue the momentum COVID-19 brought the brand as it stretches into new products and offerings. Below, she talks with Ad Age about how Moderna got to where it is today, and what comes next. Hear more about Moderna’s plans when Kate Cronin speaks at Ad Age's Business of Brands conference on Nov. 8-9. Reserve your spot here. The conversation below has been lightly edited for clarity. Moderna really catapulted to mainstream recognition with its COVID-19 vaccine. How does it feel to have such attention on the brand right now? It’s been quite a thrill. Moderna is a very unique company. We’re a unicorn, we’re not a pharma company, we’re not a technology-alone company, but we merge technology, science and health together to solve the world’s greatest health challenges. That’s why I wanted to come to Moderna. Also because never in history has anyone asked for a vaccine by manufacturer name. Suddenly, there is global brand recognition. I knew this company was not just a COVID company and you’re branded by your greatest success. While we’re super proud of our greatest success, we know there’s going to be so much more success to come in terms of treating and preventing other diseases. That’s an opportunity and a challenge that a brand marketer can't say no to. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs How has the company’s marketing changed since COVID first hit? We didn’t want to be known as only a COVID company. You saw what happened to companies that did well during COVID—the stocks went down after. Our technology works across a number of pillars. We’re studying mRNA for infections, diseases, cancers, rare diseases and latent viruses as well so there’s a huge opportunity. When I joined, my first order of business was to create the brand identity, the brand narrative, the brand story and the brand strategy and start building that out. When I came, there were just two or three people on the team. We’ve more than doubled—my team went from three to approximately 15. We’re still small and mighty and nimble. We’re never going to be a big pharma company, but we believe we can be nimble and agile because we work quickly and we are uber-focused on serving patients. [Watch Moderna’s ad below about its work beyond COVID vaccines] How has consumer sentiment around vaccines and their importance evolved in recent years? I worked in vaccines for many years and traditionally you have people who will get a vaccine and then the anti-vaxxers. Those were the two categories. Now, post-COVID has created this new category which is the “vaccine fatiguers,” and these are people who have gotten the vaccines the first three or four shots and now they wonder how many more shots they need. Our job at Moderna is really to inform and educate on why it’s important to stay updated with your vaccines. We see the COVID market moving in the direction of the flu where once a year you get it in the fall and stay up to date because every year the virus mutates. How are you leaning into this with your marketing, particularly around the new shots? Our strategy is leaning into the people who are going to get the flu shot. It’s a habit and there’s a lot of people who automatically go in early and get a flu shot every year. Those are the people we believe should automatically get a COVID shot as well while in the pharmacy. The CCD has informed us that you can get a flu and a COVID shot at the same time, so why not? As we move into the coming years, we just released data efficacy with our combination vaccine showing that our flu-COVID combination vaccine is now going to go into additional studies and it demonstrates efficacy. We’re also eventually looking into a COVID/flu/RSV single shot. Are you using the current momentum around COVID vaccines to bolster Moderna in other ways—do you have other pharmaceutical products to market and promote? We’re doing a few things, we have some creative we launched this past year called “Welcome to the mRNAge.” It highlights the potential and wonder of mRNA, where it can take you in terms of preventing and treating diseases. We’re using traditional advertising channels like digital and then activations. I’m leaning into this idea of education and entertainment, which I call “edutainment.” The best way for people to learn and retain is when they’re entertained because they remember more. We did the U.S. Open activation there was a sponsorship there and the Arthur Ashe campaign. We associate ourselves with changemakers that is how we’re differentiating Moderna’s identity. We’re a changemaker. Last year we had Billie King and this year we have Arthur Ashe. We aren’t traditional pharma and we struggle with how we are being identified by others. They put us in a pharma bucket or a biotech bucket. Our operating system is mRNA technology and you can update it with apps for different diseases—it’s similar to an Apple iOS system. It feels like some of Moderna’s science lends itself to physical demonstrations. How are you connecting with consumers in person? We did a booth at the U.S. Open. People would come in and talk to folks at the booth, learn about mRNA and then we had a fun and engaging “sign the [camera] lens” and had them post on social media. We’re collecting names of people who can opt in and become part of the Moderna community. We were at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas. We have the two messages of information about mRNA and Moderna and then stay up-to-date with your vaccines this fall. The timing is great because September is the prime month for getting vaccinated. At the festival, we had wristbands that would light up and had a QR code that would tell people where they could get vaccinated. Ryan Seacrest was a spokesperson. We look at demographics. For iHeart, 69% of the music festival ticket buyers are 35 and up and that’s our demographic. What can we expect to see from Moderna for the rest of the year? We’re working with some NFL teams such as the Giants and the Patriots. We’re doing work with the Celtics and some other Boston teams like the Red Sox. Some of these teams have STEM days. There’s opportunities to do a lot with these teams, going back to that “edutainment” idea. People having fun don’t want to be lectured to, we want to engage them when they’re open-minded and that’s what we’re looking at doing. Most vaccinations happen between now and Christmas so it’s important to stay vaccinated for the holidays so you can see your loved ones. We’ll have some small giveaways with the Moderna logos on it. Given that it’s a consumer brand, everybody wants a giveaway and I think people enjoy that. They’ll talk and upload their information. It’s no pressure it’s more about what we’re doing so they understand if I just got the vaccine this summer, why do I need another one. That brings people in on the journey a bit more. If you know a company, what they stand for in their ethos, you’re more likely to engage with that company. That’s why we’re open and transparent about who we are and what we’re doing. We also have a campaign with Cleo Abram, an online influencer, who is explaining mRNA science in her own words. She explains it in such a natural way so that it’s not lecturing at you. You realize the power of influencers on TikTok. These younger folks, Gen Z, are going to become older and have families of their own so we’re trying to stay up-to-date with the folks who influence all these generations.

How Moderna is marketing itself amid new vaccine rollouts

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