McCann veteran David Shen joins China Health Media as CEO

China Health Media is a hospital-based LCD media network that has more than 30,000 LCD panels in more than 3000 top-tier hospitals in 37 markets across China. Shen will report to Sophia Zhao (赵松青), the founder and board director of CHM.

Key CHM clients include Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, TSKF, Sanyuan, and Beijing Double-Crane Pharma.

Shen's departure makes him the third senior boss to leave McCann Worldgroup China in the past four months. As reported last October, TH Peng, a 17-year McCann veteran and CEO of McCann Worldgroup Greater China since 2001, resigned and will take on the newly created role of chairman and CEO of Grey Greater China starting in March 2012. Another McCann veteran Jason Chau, previously MD of MRM Greater China, joined SapientNitro as China MD last December, after working for MRM Worldwide for 11 years.

Shen (pictured) said what interested him to make the career move was the great opportunity to transform CHM into a patient education platform leveraging what it has built as a media network.

Healthcare is a highly regulated industry in terms of advertising and promotion, he explained. Prescription medicines are not allowed to do direct-to-public branded advertising; only over-the-counter medicines and health supplemnets can do so.

Even advertising for OTC brands is different from FMCG advertising. Normal 30- or 15-second advertising spots are not sufficient to educate patients and trigger product adoption, hence patient education is essential for pharma branding and promotion. CHM is an excellent ready-made media platform that can fill a current gap, Shen said.

The key of a successful media outlet is to create value for its audience, and the value of CHM is to provide the right educational information to patients when they most need it, in a hospital setting.

For example, Shen cited information about the daily management of a disease, which doctors often do not have time to fully explain because they get only five to seven minutes for face-to-face conversation. Yet the patient's visit may be a two-hour process.

Shen said he is grateful for McCann for offering him a fantastic platform to learn, develop, and grow. He joined McCann Healthcare as an account executive in 2000 and climbed up the ladder to become the agency’s MD in 2009. "I had an open exchange of views with the senior management of the agency, who are supportive in my pursuit of the new opportunities and challenges outside of McCann."

Meanwhile James Hammond has joined McCann Healthcare Worldwide as president, China.
Hammond has more than 20 years’ experience in ethical and consumer healthcare advertising, in senior agency roles across a range of international markets.

Hammond joined Medicus Sydney as account drector in 1996 and was promoted to managing director in 2001 when Publicis Groupe purchased the agency. He moved to become Asia Pacific Hub Director for SanofiLab with Publicis Groupe in 2004, then DDB’s regional director of healthcare in 2009.