Spectrum Selected for MM+M’s 2021 Agency 100

Spectrum Science was ranked #60 in MM+M’s Agency 100 list, an annual ranking of the industry’s top healthcare marketing firms based on North American revenue. Information for the Agency 100 is compiled by MM+M from questionnaires submitted by the companies themselves.

Agency 100 Movie Poster

MM+M asked agencies submitting to this year’s Agency 100 to come up with movie posters representing their firms, and they didn’t disappoint.

Agency 100 Movie Trailer

MM+M invited agencies to create short movie trailers promoting themselves and their offerings. The organizations that took the offer might soon find themselves on the receiving end of a few calls from Hollywood studios.

Agency 100 2021: Spectrum Science

The following is an excerpt from MM+M’s Agency 100 profile for Spectrum. 

After assuming full ownership of the science-centric agency in the summer of 2018, CEO Jonathan Wilson focused on foundation-building. The goal: to grow Spectrum from a PR-focused shop into a fully integrated marketing and communications agency with a broad scope of work. While lots of agencies are making moves toward fuller integration, Wilson argues that Spectrum’s approach is unique, in that it’s building from the ground up…

While lots of agencies are making moves toward fuller integration, Wilson argues that Spectrum’s approach is unique, in that it’s building from the ground up. “We’re doing it by acquiring talent rather than by acquiring agencies,” he notes.

Spectrum’s strategy may be paying off. In the second half of 2020, the agency added 10 assignments, some in categories the agency had never pitched before. “We’re now pitching as a medcomms firm, as an ad firm, as a PR firm, as a public affairs firm, as a CTR firm,” Wilson explains. “We are pitching against competitors in all those different areas and we’re winning.”

Among 2020’s new client additions were diagnostic company Foundation Medicine (for consumer AOR work), Glaxo-SmithKline (for global vaccine R&D), Regeneron (for global development) and biotech company Alector (for disease state awareness education and clinical trial enrollment). Spectrum also grew its relationships with longstanding clients Takeda (on a global AOR engagement in organ transplant) and Neurocrine Biosciences (for tardive dyskinesia treatment drug Ingrezza).

The year’s biggest win for Wilson, however, was that Spectrum weathered the pandemic without any layoffs or salary reductions — and bonuses were paid in early 2021 as originally planned. As a new way to invest in junior talent, the agency also launched a fellowship program for college grads.

“When COVID hit, it was this unknown world. You were thinking, ‘Are we going to have a business in a few months?’” Wilson explains. “Being able to carefully manage the business and reward our staff for all the great, hard work that they did was the real victory.”

These materials originally appeared as part of MM+M’s 2021 Agency 100. Read the full feature on Spectrum for more on our innovative approach.