The most successful healthcare marketing campaigns worth studying in 2026 share four ingredients: an emotional patient truth, a platform-native creative format, measurement built in from the start, and a willingness to say something specific — not “we care about your health.” Below are 12 campaigns from health systems, pharma, telehealth and public-health groups, with the year, the channel, the core idea and a source link for each. Where the brand or a trade outlet has published a result, we show it. Where nobody has, the table says so.
Campaign breakdown table
| # | Brand | Year | Channel | Core idea | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cleveland Clinic — “Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care” | 2013 | YouTube / caregiver training | Short film that asks viewers to see care through the eyes of patients, families and staff | 8.2M YouTube views; still shown at every new caregiver orientation (Cleveland Clinic, Feb 2026) | Cleveland Clinic Consult QD |
| 2 | Pfizer — “Here’s to Science” | 2024 | Super Bowl LVIII TV spot + campaign site | Oncology-focused corporate campaign for Pfizer’s 175th anniversary, pointing viewers to LetsOutdoCancer.com | Not publicly reported | MM+M |
| 3 | Ad Council — “Love, Your Mind” | 2023–2025 | Donated-media PSAs: TV, online video, OOH, radio, digital (English and Spanish) | Make caring for your mental health normal; Nov 2025 expansion with 17 pro athletes and major sports leagues | $90M+ in donated media, 2.2M+ website visits, 49% awareness among U.S. adults 18–44 (Ad Council, Nov 2025) | Ad Council press release |
| 4 | Novartis — “Your Attention, Please” | 2025 | Super Bowl LIX TV + microsite + patient advocacy partners | Move breast cancer from awareness to action: learn your risk and get screened | Screening results not publicly reported; Novartis followed it with an NFL partnership and a 2026 Super Bowl prostate-screening spot | Novartis release; Novartis NFL page |
| 5 | Hims & Hers — “Sick of the System” | 2025 | Super Bowl LIX TV (60 seconds) | Promoted compounded GLP-1 treatment with a voiceover critiquing the pharma industry and how society treats obesity | Polarizing: EDO rated it the fifth highest-performing ad (7.7× median engagement); USA Today Ad Meter ranked it 49th; two senators asked the FDA to review it | MM+M |
| 6 | Ro — “Healthier on Ro” | 2026 | Super Bowl LX + linear TV, paid social, OOH | GLP-1 benefits beyond weight loss, told by patient ambassadors Serena Williams and Charles Barkley and real Ro patients | Not publicly reported | Ro press release |
| 7 | Amazon Health Services — “Healthcare Just Got Less Painful” | 2025 (award year) | Short film (30 seconds and under) | Honest, funny scenes of real, embarrassing health moments instead of polished healthcare imagery | Shortlisted, Clio Health 2025 (Film, 30 seconds and under); business results not publicly reported | Clio Awards entry |
| 8 | Boehringer Ingelheim — “Detect the SOS” | 2025–2026 | Super Bowl LX TV (30 seconds) + influencer marketing | Urge people with type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure to get one kidney screening (uACR) | Not publicly reported | MM+M |
| 9 | Viatris (Viagra) — “Make Love Last” | 2025 (award year) | Unbranded video (agency: Ogilvy Shanghai) | Real couples filmed with time-lapse photography, so intimacy shows only as blur; no product claims | Pharma Grand Prix, Cannes Lions 2025 | MM+M |
| 10 | Planned Parenthood — “We’re still here” | 2025 | Blog + “Care Continues” video | Tell patients that care continues after the federal Medicaid “defund” | Not publicly reported | Planned Parenthood |
| 11 | BetterHelp — podcast advertising | 2024 | Podcast ads | Heavy, sustained podcast ad spending, with comedy as its top genre | Top podcast advertiser in Magellan AI’s August 2024 report ($6.45M that month). Also a warning: a 2023 FTC order required $7.8M and banned sharing health data for advertising | Radio Ink; FTC |
| 12 | Intermountain Health + American Heart Association — “Cherish Your Heartbeat” | 2025 | Hospital heart-health fairs + year-round community education (Colorado) | Know your numbers: blood pressure checks, hands-only CPR and cardiac rehab information on National Wear Red Day | Not publicly reported | AHA newsroom |
What the winners have in common
Across this list, four patterns keep showing up.
1. They lead with a patient truth, not a service feature
Cleveland Clinic’s “Empathy” film is about what patients and families are carrying, not about the hospital’s technology. Ro’s Super Bowl spot leads with Serena Williams’s own health numbers, not pharmacy logistics. The emotional patient truth — “I feel alone in this,” “I’m embarrassed to ask,” “I just want answers” — is the hook. The service is the resolution, not the opening line.
2. They’re platform-native, not repurposed
Short-form vertical video is written for the phone. Podcast ads are written to be heard, not read. Connected TV is written for a living room. Viagra’s agency, Ogilvy Shanghai, had to promote the brand in a market where pharma ads are banned, so it built an unbranded film around that constraint and won the Cannes Lions Pharma Grand Prix. The failure we see most often is the opposite: a 30-second TV spot cut down and posted to TikTok unchanged. If you are planning the creative, our healthcare video production page shows how we brief each format separately.
3. HIPAA-aware measurement from day one
We have not seen these brands publish their tracking setups, so this one is our recommendation, not something we observed in their campaigns. Plan server-side conversion tracking, a business associate agreement with any vendor that touches protected health information, and forms that ask only for what you need before launch, not after. The cost of skipping it is public: in 2023 the FTC ordered BetterHelp to pay $7.8 million and banned it from sharing health data for advertising. A federal court vacated part of HHS’s online tracking guidance in 2024. That ruling was about tracking on public-facing web pages; it did not change HIPAA’s rules for patient portals or for the health information patients type into booking and intake forms. Our HIPAA-aware analytics and attribution work is built around keeping that data out of ad platforms.
4. They said something specific
“We care about your health” is not a campaign. Boehringer Ingelheim’s “Detect the SOS” names one test (uACR) and one audience (people with type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure). Specificity is what separates ads that earn clicks from ads that earn bookings.
The 2026 campaign template 210 Digital Marketing uses
When we build a healthcare marketing campaign in 2026, we run this template:
- Patient truth: 1 sentence capturing the emotional state of the ideal patient.
- Specific offer: the service, the outcome, the timeline, and who it’s for.
- HIPAA-aware conversion events: what we’ll track (call, form, booking) and how (server-side).
- Native creative per channel: separate creative briefs for Reels, Performance Max, CTV, and email — never one creative reused everywhere. Our healthcare paid media team plans the channel mix around this.
- Measurement window: 30-day learning phase, 60-day optimization phase, 90-day scale decision.
- EEAT anchors: named physicians, credentials, cited outcomes, last-updated dates on all content assets.
Related Reading
- Podcast Production Company
- 210 Digital Marketing | Healthcare Digital Marketing Agency
- What Degree Do You Need for Healthcare Marketing in 2026?
- The 3-3-3 Rule in Marketing: How to Hook, Engage, and Convert in 2026
Frequently asked questions
What makes a healthcare marketing campaign successful?
A successful healthcare marketing campaign combines an emotional patient truth, a specific offer, platform-native creative, HIPAA-aware measurement, and named clinicians patients can check. That is our view from working only in healthcare, not a research finding. The market reason it matters: Harvard Business Review reports that U.S. patients are not loyal customers and split their care across an average of four to five provider networks a year.
What are examples of award-winning healthcare marketing?
Viatris’s “Make Love Last” for Viagra won the Pharma Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2025, and Amazon’s “Healthcare Just Got Less Painful” was shortlisted at Clio Health 2025. For current winners, check the Cannes Lions Pharma and Health & Wellness lists, the Effie Awards and the Webby Awards health categories.
How much does a healthcare marketing campaign cost?
It depends on geography, channel mix and how many service lines you promote. National TV sits at one extreme: MM+M put a 30-second Super Bowl LX spot at around $8 million. A single-location practice can start with search, local SEO and a small paid social test. Whatever the budget, we would rather see it focused on one service line, one geography and one patient type than spread thin.
How do healthcare marketing campaigns stay HIPAA-aware?
They keep protected health information out of ad and analytics platforms: server-side conversion tracking that strips identifiers, a business associate agreement with any vendor that handles PHI, forms that ask only for what is needed, and URLs and event names that do not reveal a condition. Sending patient identifiers to Meta or Google through standard browser pixels is the risk to design out; the FTC’s 2023 BetterHelp order shows what it can cost. We sign a business associate agreement whenever an engagement touches protected health information, and we design programs so that most of them never need to.
Related reading from 210 Digital Marketing
- Medical Advertising in 2026: Examples, Rules and Costs
- 11 Healthcare Marketing Trends Dominating 2026
- 9 Types of Healthcare Marketing That Win Patients
- The 7 Objectives of Healthcare Marketing in 2026
Want a HIPAA-aware campaign built for your practice? Request a campaign blueprint from 210 Digital Marketing.
Related: The campaigns above belong to the brands named in the table, not to 210. For work we have done, see our healthcare marketing case studies, or read more about 210 Digital Marketing.
How we research and fact-check: every statistic links to its source. Read our editorial standards.
