Although AstraZeneca (AZ) is a name most people won’t have heard of pre-pandemic, Gravit8 has been working with the British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company for nine years. Within this time, we’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with a plethora of truly brilliant event and marketing agencies to deliver multiple ground-breaking digital experiences for AZ’s global events programmes, every year since 2013.
Backed by a solid understanding of pharmaceutical event requirements, the Gravit8 team has completed several hundred digital projects for AZ, often providing digital solutions for more than 30 large key events each year across the world including the pharma giant’s top five congresses: ESC, ESMO, ERS, EASD and ASCO.
Most of these events were physical, in-person events before Covid hit. The pandemic provided an opportunity for further collaboration with AZ, enabling us to tap into our virtual event platform to develop solutions for its virtual/online events.
Through our work with AZ, we’re proud to have developed a heritage of innovation over the past (almost) decade, including a handful of global firsts – the world’s first interactive synched iPad wall, the world’s largest OR table and the world’s most hi definition multi-user touch wall. We also created the largest “fusion” wall, a huge touch wall which was also controlled via iPads, enabling many staff to have multiple conversations either next to or a distance away from the wall content, with a function to “take over” some of the screen.
Case study snapshot: Cambridge R&D centre – RFID “Golden Thread”
Our relationship with AZ has only flourished since we started working together in 2013, and as a result of creating many successful apps for its events over the years, we were trusted to deliver several projects as part of its Golden Thread framework at its Cambridge R&D HQ in 2019. The Discovery Centre is AZ’s state-of-the-art global facility, designed to foster collaboration and interaction to help accelerate the development of medicines for patients. To be involved in such a project for this illustrious landmark has proved to be one of the highlights of our client portfolio.
Golden thread is a framework which ties together all the interactives in one venue. It allows users or visitors to log in and, via a dashboard, instantly collect information that interests them by email with a simple tap of a card or tag at different points, or interactives.
In the facility, amongst other interactives, we created a pre-site online registration; RFID cards linked to that registration were given to the attendees once on-site. The cards then allowed the user to seamlessly log in to all the experiences and applications that we had created around the buildings, providing them with a tailored experience, whilst simultaneously capturing usage analytics for improved future performance. The apps and experiences we created around the facility ranged from games and touch apps to surveys and learning tools, providing AZ with real-time dashboards of usage and performance statistics.
The future of pharma
In recent years, digital innovation has fundamentally transformed the pharma and healthcare industries as it has done with the media, retail, and banking industries. Disruptive tech has delivered some truly game-changing solutions to broaden the healthcare landscape by enhancing patient engagement, driving value and forging the path to better understanding customers and strengthening those relationships. Over the years, we have developed a wide raft of interactive and experience-based solutions for AZ, including object recognition, RFID, augmented reality, iPad walls, clustered custom-sized LED hearts, games, photobooths, CECs and more. To be part of this whole journey is nothing short of incredible.
Here’s to the next decade!