Creative That Performs: Madeline Scalzi on Strategy & Results

I'm Madeline Scalzi, the Associate Director of Social Creative Strategy at DNY and SociStudio. Outside of that, I'm also a content creator focused on home decor and DIY. My career began in 2017 in the health industry through the Student Worksite Experience Program, where I worked on the Zika Response Task Force at the CDC. Since then, I've worked on accounts like AstraZeneca and built up experience in social media strategy for regulated industries.

CityMD is a household name in the greater New York City area, but not everyone is familiar with all of the services they offer, especially as it relates to young people seeking care. Through extensive social listening, we uncovered that Gen Z largely turns to social media, and TikTok specifically, to answer health-related questions.

We wanted to find a way to safely and effectively help members of our Gen Z New York community access the health information they need in a timely and safe way, going beyond the confines of doom scrolling.

SociStudio is a quick turn social content shop founded on the legacy of DNY, built by creators, and driven by data. In my position, I oversee the day-to-day functions of social content creation from client onboarding and upfront strategy all the way through the final delivery of assets.

We are still collecting the final data from this initiative to be able to share a larger impact story.

Following the success of a robust paid social and OOH campaign with CityMD, our team uncovered data around how Gen Z consumes medical-related information and healthcare advice on social media. This led us to turn to TikTok to educate young people on the services CityMD provides, highlight CityMD health care providers as true experts in the medical field and begin to destigmatize sometimes awkward conversations around real health topics.

Moving away from the more traditionally branded world of paid social, we intentionally kept the branding on these assets to a minimum, opting instead for editing directly in CapCut, and choosing socially native formats and text overlays to feel familiar and really resonate with our target audience.

We are still collecting final numbers on the true far-reaching impact of this campaign, but we know that people are viewing the campaign videos - with a Video View Rate 3x more than the health industry benchmark - and that they’re seeking out more information, with a CTR 59% above the health industry benchmark.

For this campaign, it was of the utmost importance to us to make the assets feel both educational and highly entertaining, a practice we refer to as ‘Edutainment.’ Before we even began assigning brand messaging to our concepts, we each spent time on the TikTok platform socially listening and observing trends we thought were relevant for our target audience.

We wanted to hit a sweet spot where the assets we created were going to feel relevant and timely, but also not too much into a trend where the trend would be over by the time our content hit the feed. One of my favorite elements we used is the ‘Fail jump cut’ intro, where we show a person doing an action which may result in them hurting themselves, which jumps to our HCP talking about CityMD. It grabs the user's attention and entertains through the element of surprise.

As SociStudio is the newest arm of the DNY family, formally announced less than a year ago, this is our first award! We are so honored to be included among some amazing initiatives and look forward to continuing to push the envelope in our work and dedication to the craft.

Answered above, but additionally, we saw the traction the videos were getting on TikTok with our target audience; the TITAN Health Awards focus on achievements in healthcare, with a belief that healthcare achievements are at the core of welfare for society and communities. It felt like a perfect fit.

The biggest challenge for this project really was nailing down which concepts we felt would most resonate with our target audience. We had no shortage of ideas for this campaign, and we wanted to ensure we were finding a sweet spot between timely trends and evergreen messaging.

Because Soci is a newer entity to DNY, this campaign was a strong proof point for our ability to create affordable, quick-turn content for our clients that is social first and culturally relevant.

Work in healthcare and regulated industries can feel incredibly personal, more so than other brands we work on day to day. With this campaign, we knew we were going to be hitting on some topics that were going to be slightly uncomfortable, but the public addressing of that awkwardness empowers young people to feel more confident in asking their HCPs questions that are important to their health. That level of vulnerability is something you don’t really see in other industries.

I think one of the interesting things about the health industry in the United States is that there is a lot of public misunderstanding and sometimes misconceptions about healthcare resources. I hope through our work we are able to begin to close that information gap, and help people get the real care they need.

My hope is that we will begin to see more health companies lean into social-first content to help educate their audiences about resources and preventative care. We are already seeing this on the creator front with a range of HCPs and specialists going to TikTok as a way to spread education and increase awareness.

Building on Q15, communication skills on social media are an area to focus on - how to adapt to different platforms, reach different audiences, and create the type of content that resonates.

My brother is a big inspiration to me. He also happens to be one of my biggest fans when it comes to my career goals and ambitions. He has helped me recognize and utilize my talents in communication and storytelling.

Don’t be afraid to take risks and safely push your clients out of their comfort zones. Trust that you are the expert in your field and take the opportunity to be a partner and educate your clients on best practices and opportunities.