Moderna’s new ad launches a high-tech identity

Moderna’s new ad launches a high-tech identity

After a decade as an R&D organization, Moderna skyrocketed into the top tier of pharma and biotech companies in 2021 when it was one of three companies (along with Pfizer Inc. and its partner BioNTech) to develop a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. Three years later, as the pandemic continues but has become less worrisome because of these vaccines, the company wants to show that its mRNA technology can treat more than just COVID, and has launched a video spot, “Welcome to the mRNAge,” that will appear online, on TV, and elsewhere.

As Kate Cronin, chief brand officer at Moderna, explains, “COVID was our first proof point that mRNA actually works. That was fantastic, but obviously, we had to quickly become a commercial company overnight, we needed to deliver hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines to people around the world, and really step up our commercial operation. And so, overnight Moderna became a global brand. But we’re not a COVID company. COVID happened to be our first proof point, and we’re very excited about that, and proud of that work. But we want everyone to understand what diseases we’re studying, and the potential of where we think our technology will take us.”

The point of the ad, which was created by TBWA\Chiat\Day New York, Moderna’s global agency of record, is to show that the company’s technology has the potential to cure, prevent, or treat multiple diseases. “We wanted to show up differently, and more like a tech company in terms of the visuals and the whole experience of the creative, because we’re not going to be a typical pharma, where you have people running on the beach with the dog, laughing,” Cronin says.

And as the former global CEO of Ogilvy Health before coming to Moderna in 2021, Cronin knows how pharma ads are usually developed. “There’s actually a formula for that,” she says. “When you do focus groups, and you do any research for an ad, it’s like, ‘couple, dog, beach,’ jacks up the engagement. We were not going to do that, because that’s not who we are. We wanted to show here’s who we are introducing Moderna, beyond COVID.”

Each of the nine life-size dioramas featured in the ad focus on the disease areas Moderna is currently researching. For example, the diorama featuring the pregnant woman in the subway highlights cytomegalovirus, or CMV, which Cronin highlights is the No. 1 cause of birth defects in babies. The hospital room diorama shows a boy with a rare disease, as the company is looking at treating ultra-rare and rare diseases with its mRNA technology. The diorama with the girls playing soccer represents how Moderna is studying pathogens that affect all aspects of the world across all different countries and regions, not just Westernized countries. And the diorama of the woman ringing the bell represents the company’s research in cancer, what the company prefers to call “individualized neoantigen therapy,” Cronin says.

The ad opens with a girl in a field playing with a strand of yarn and a voice intoning, “This is a piece of string. A strand. Doesn’t seem like much. Unless it’s a strand of mRNA – the code of life inside every cell of your body.” The concept of the strand has been representing Moderna since 2022, when the company did its new visual identity. The company even calls its employees “strand ambassadors,” Cronin says, adding that when TBWA was identifying concepts for the ad, the strand of RNA was proposed as the “hero” of the piece. And instead of representing the strand as a string of lights, TBWA chose to create a “sculptural strand” to run throughout the piece and goes through all of the dioramas, because “we didn’t want to end up looking like it was a telecom ad.”

Moderna’s goal for the ad’s tagline, “This changes everything,” is to get people “to understand that this reflects the already unique intersection of technology, humanity, and health that is the world that [Moderna] operate[s] in, and we want to change everything in everything that we’re doing,” Cronin says.

This includes how its vaccines are manufactured and how the company is providing medicines to other parts of the world. ”We’re working to actually create manufacturing facilities in certain countries so that they’re resilient, so if there’s a pandemic, they have access to vaccines quickly,” Cronin says. “Or if there is a variant of concern particularly in their country, they’ll be able to manufacture that vaccine and get it faster.”

Cronin is proud of the ways Moderna is able to distinguish itself from “big pharma” in the ad, and she believes it will get people to take a closer look at the company. “I think it shows up differently,” she says. “And it represents Moderna, the personality of Moderna, that we’re accessible, that we want to be transparent, that we want to engage with you, and engage patients and consumers, and all of our stakeholders with our brand.”