Hill Holliday launches new healthcare practice dubbed Quest, aiming to ‘infuse new energy’ in health and wellness market

Less than a year after Interpublic Group (IPG) sold Hill Holliday and Deutsch New York to global marketing services company Attivo Group, Hill Holliday is launching an entirely new healthcare practice.

Former Pfizer executive Christy Lopé will head the new unit, called Hill Holiday Quest.

The new practice is separate from Hill Holliday Health, which was consolidated into Rise & Run along with McCann Health New Jersey in May.

Lopé will bring her nearly 20 years of experience leading health and wellness brands at Pfizer to the managing director role. With her at the helm, Quest will tackle the challenges of the healthcare industry through the perspective of the client.

“Personally, health has always been my guiding light,” Lopé said. “I had the pleasure of connecting with [Hill Holliday CEO] Chris Wallrapp, and he started to share his vision for a new healthcare vertical… [He was] looking to bring somebody over from the client side.”

Quest will be powered by Hill Holliday’s “deep-rooted experience and legacy” in the direct-to-consumer (DTC) space, as well as a combination of its data science, strategy, media and creative teams, Lopé said.

Its focus will be on consumer healthcare and wellness brands — an expertise that Lopé knows well. Originally starting out at Kraft Foods and The Campbell’s Company (formerly The Campbell Soup Company) more than 20 years ago, she moved to Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, where she helped launch Advil PM and Children’s Advil.

After Pfizer acquired Wyeth in 2009, Lopé joined the women’s health franchise, which involved a stint as director, consumer lead of Premarin vaginal cream. She was also director, brand lead of smoking cessation drug Chantix and helped launch the Chantix “Slow Turkey” campaign.

Her experience at Pfizer also includes work in the company’s inflammation and immunology portfolio, such as the Xeljanz brand as well as ulcerative colitis drug Velsipity.

Lopé stressed that her background in consumer health and wellness brands will help build Quest’s foundation in the space — and ideally offer a fresh perspective. But Quest will also be drawing on Hill Holliday’s larger network of non-health verticals.

“Because the [healthcare] environment is so regulated, it can easily become stagnant — and that’s why you start to see things looking the same and feeling the same,” she said. “Hill Holiday is bringing vast experience from a multitude of different areas, from financial services and tourism to your typical consumer packaged goods (CPG) product lines, and we’re hoping it will infuse some new energy within the healthcare market.”

Lopé highlighted several challenges — like financial headwinds, post-pandemic headaches and generic issues — as being top-of-mind for pharma clients. With the unprecedented significant growth from the COVID-19 era stalling, industry players are seeking to drive revenues up again.

“Coming from the client side, I vividly remember the challenges that marketers are under to drive growth on a daily basis,” Lopé explained. “I’m excited to help clients do their advertising well, to help take some of the pressure off of them. Because if the advertising is working as it should, it will be driving those sales.”

It’s ultimately that perspective, as well as Hill Holliday’s legacy in DTC marketing, that Lopé believes will differentiate Quest.

“Speaking to a consumer is very different than speaking to a healthcare professional,” she said. “The fact that we know how to speak to consumers — there’s something real and tangible about that, and it will set us apart from others trying to get in the space.”

IPG sold Hill Holliday to Attivo earlier this year after owning the agency for more than two decades.

In a statement at the time, Wallrapp noted that “at a time of uncertainty for many well-known agency brands,” Attivo’s acquisition was a “strong vote of confidence in the power and endurance of the Hill Holliday name.”

Attivo was launched in 2020 and owns several marketing agencies, including 303 MullenLowe, Harvey Cameron and Gorilla Studios.