Female Disruptors: Barbara Blasso of International Meetings and Science (IMsci) On the Three Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Take time to know yourself. Or as Aristotle said, “Know thyself.” When you know who you are, you can be wise about your goals, your dreams, your standards, your convictions. Knowing who you are allows you to live your life with purpose and meaning.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Barbara Blasso, president of International Meetings and Science (IMsci), a full service scientific communications agency that helps life sciences brands achieve their potential.
Barbara Blasso is the executive officer for IMsci and Phase Five with more than 30 years of experience in the field of healthcare marketing and communications. The founder of WTH’s medical educational unit, International Meetings and Science, Inc. (IMsci), Barbara has created and executed medical communications programs supporting the successful launch and uptake of some of the world’s best-known global brands. As president of this division, Barbara strives to create professional communications strategies that support brands and promote positive health outcomes while ensuring our diverse talents are aligned around clinical medicine and healthcare delivery.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I started my career in the exciting world of consumer advertising and public relations prior to taking on a role at the healthcare agency Gross Townsend Frank Hoffman (GTFH). While there, I had great mentors in Alan Gross and Jane Townsend, two industry innovators and legends. A co-worker there, Lynn Vos, had been hired to run the Merck account but then transitioned to starting Phase Five Communications, a medical education agency (Lynn eventually went on to become CEO of ghg | greyhealth group). I became fascinated by the medical education business. There were incredible opportunities that I hadn’t even known existed. Medical education is where brands have the opportunity to influence a marketplace by market conditioning. Educating healthcare practitioners (HCPs) on the unmet needs and limitations of current therapies is where it starts. Once you understand these limitations, providing mechanism of action stories, visualization and clinical trial data takes the HCP to the opportunity the new therapy offers.
As our Phase Five business grew, we began experiencing client conflicts. We also realized that we were doing a large number of continuing medical education (CME) programs that were accredited by other companies. We recognized that this could present a growth opportunity for our own business. At that time, I was living in Connecticut and commuting into New York City. Due to the needs of my growing family, that no longer worked for me. Lynn knew of office space that was available in Stamford, asked me to pull together a business plan, and IMsci was created in February 1998. We differentiated ourselves by becoming an Accreditation Council Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) provider, which enabled us to expand our medical education business. (IMsci is no longer accredited by ACCME since now CME providers are required to be nonprofits). IMsci also made it possible for us to overcome the challenges of client conflicts. I’m proud to say that IMsci will celebrate our 25th anniversary February 2023.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Influencer marketing is maturing as a business for many marketers and brands in in the direct-to-consumer world. And many experts say there was perhaps more pushback early on about whether social media influencers were a reliable investment. Influencer marketing is becoming a more common marketing tactic, as HubSpot’s 2023 marketing strategy and trends report notes. According to HubSpot’s survey of more than 1,200 global marketers, 89% of marketers currently using influencer marketing will maintain or increase their investment in 2023. We are building influencer strategies to incorporate smaller creators and develop large-scale campaigns. While influencers might be known for large followings, smaller creators, (KOLs) who perhaps have thousands to tens of thousands in followers, can be a gateway to more niche audiences and generate better engagement. In HCP education we are just starting to experiment with new tools from using artificial virtual influencers to micro influencers and smaller creators on social media. We have the benefit of learning from direct-to-consumer brands including partnering with Village Marketing, our sister agency.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I can tell you about an oversight that was made at a time when experience trial kits were popular. We would identify physicians who we knew would be willing to try a new (FDA-approved) medication, create an experience kit and attach it to a Phase 4 clinical trial. The kits were always packaged very nicely. In the case of one such kit containing a medication for asthma, the bottle with the pills came through with an old image, which was a stick figure of someone running. In error, we had never updated the image. The FDA interpreted our use of that image as though we were promoting exercise-induced asthma. This required us to discard 30,000 kits. The client was not only someone with whom I did a great deal of business but also a personal friend, and I was mortified. Once we corrected everything, she told me “You get one mistake. This is it.” We got through it and are still friends today. I never spoke to that designer again, and we never made that mistake again.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
My mentor would definitely be Lynn Vos, former CEO of ghg | greyhealth group and my former boss. Lynn’s confidence in my abilities made it possible for me to succeed in running a division and creating a major medical communications agency. I remember one time that IMsci won a big piece of business and Lynn called to tell me how thrilled she was. Although I wanted to bask in her praise, I felt the better response was to thank her for giving me the opportunity and for having the confidence in me to allow me to succeed. Lynn was a constant source of support and good advice. If I was every in doubt of something I would ask for her help, but because she had so much confidence in me, I made it a point to try and figure things out for myself first. It made me a better executive to think through problems on my own, explore various solutions and make decisions I could feel good about. Lynn was also known to come up with novel solutions to problems. For instance, at one point we realized that our account people were spending a great deal of time on estimating, budgeting, reconciliations, etc. Lynn said, “What if we just have someone dedicated to the financial side of business?” We now have an SVP who has been overseeing the business for 25 years and 6 business managers, and I attribute much of IMsci’s profitability to having a separate staff to manage the finances.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Sometimes disruption is caused by an outside force, like the COVID pandemic. Our tried-and-true systems and structures would no longer work in a world where in-person meetings could not take place. We were forced to pivot to virtual — a disruption that required us to change the ways in which we did business. Today, those new approaches are a part of our ongoing skill set. Not only that, but our work on the Covid-19 vaccine put us at the forefront of the scientific and global health crisis of our generation. We were challenged with creating a communications platform focused on renewing trust in science, dispelling misinformation, educating on the mRNA platform and moving target audiences from awareness to action. Strategy and tactics needed to be developed in a fraction of the usual time, and real-world data was constantly changing. To meet this need we developed PAACE: the Paediatric, Adolescent and Adult COVID-19 Education Programme, an educational training platform with globally recognized KOLs providing scientific data and knowledge with the goal of preparing potential speakers for engagements in local markets.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- Invest in yourself. (This one is self-explanatory)
- Take time to know yourself. Or as Aristotle said, “Know thyself.” When you know who you are, you can be wise about your goals, your dreams, your standards, your convictions. Knowing who you are allows you to live your life with purpose and meaning.
- Show up fully. Don’t dwell on the past, and don’t daydream about the future, but concentrate on showing up fully in the present moment.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
The future is streaming. This means that more opportunities are about to present themselves to marketers on connected TV services. There is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for marketing programs that tap into streaming audiences, although this will only make the competitive landscape more challenging.
A core strategy to compete in the streaming era will be creating a more personalized message across targeted platforms. We are in the process of using Artificial Intelligence to identify some of the video treatments our target audience prefer, so when we stream an educational format, it will be available based on learning style. This will revolutionize our ability to source and process data.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Throughout most of my career I have been lucky enough to work for supportive and encouraging women leaders who had impeccable skills and knowledge. The organizations they worked for expected nothing less. Women who haven’t been as lucky tell me that many of the men they work for have not been subject to the same expectations. Men may have the confidence, but they may not always have the skill set and experience to back it up. I believe women go the extra mile to safeguard how they are perceived.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
Be Fearless, by Jean Case
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would inspire a movement to nurture, support, and educate our employees. The better your people are, the better your work is. Employees are a company’s biggest asset, and they should be treated that way. That has always been my mantra.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My favorite” life lesson quote” was inspired by Lynn, my mentor. Her father would say, “You can’t park up front unless you drive there.” Like Lynn, I interpret that as “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” We have to be open to trying new and revolutionary ways of doing things, and we can’t be stopped by the fear that we may fail. I didn’t let fear keep me from opening up a new medical communications agency in Stamford, and now here we are on the cusp of celebrating our 25th year. We have been successful beyond all initial predictions. If I hadn’t tried, I wouldn’t have succeeded.
How can our readers follow you online?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbarablasso/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: Barbara Blasso of International Meetings and Science (IMsci) On the Three Things… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.