Marketing in the small-molecule drug development space requires navigating a highly technical and regulation-dense landscape. CDMOs work with large pharmaceutical companies and small biotechs to refine, scale, and manufacture drugs — and often can’t publicly reveal the work they’re doing. That combination of secrecy, complexity, and constant innovation makes storytelling and marketing difficult.
Finding the right story, the right angle, the right people to talk to — it’s all part of the challenge.”
– Jesse Harris, Senior Editor at C&EN BrandLab
Recently, a multinational CDMO partnered with C&EN BrandLab, our custom content studio, to demonstrate innovation, build trust with scientific decision-makers, and generate an ongoing pipeline of high-quality leads. C&EN BrandLab works with brands and organizations across the scientific enterprise to deliver engaging, credible content through ACS platforms, including C&EN. Here’s how this partnership came together to drive results through a full‑funnel B2B science marketing campaign.
Finding the Big Idea: Start with the “Nugget”
Every strong scientific campaign begins with a question worth answering. Harris described the process as searching for a “nugget” — a detail, historical thread, or surprising fact that sparks genuine curiosity. For this campaign, that spark came from a simple question: How has small-molecule oncology drugs evolved over time?
It was a question to which Harris, a trained chemist, didn’t know the full answer. “If I don’t know the answer and would be interested to learn more, that’s usually a good starting place,” he said.
This became the seed of the narrative. From there, the team developed an outline, looking for anecdotes and scientific shifts that could anchor the story. The goal was to build a narrative that scientists would respect and that broader audiences could follow. This process created the backbone for a long-form native content feature that would eventually serve as one of the campaign’s most engaging assets.
Takeaways for Marketers
- Big ideas often begin with curiosity, not messaging decks.
- Use outlines to build structure around insights before developing content.
- A strong story is a prerequisite for creating strong assets.
Choosing the Right Formats: Matching Story, Audience, and Intent
Once the story was clear, the next step was to identify the right vehicles to deliver it.
Technical White Papers and E-books: Lead-Gen Workhorses
These formats are “the currency scientists respond to,” explained Heather Lockhart-Neff, account and marketing manager at C&EN BrandLab. Chemists trust technically rigorous content, especially when distributed through a respected scientific publisher. Historically, C&EN BrandLab has significantly exceeded its lead guarantees because of the quality and relevance of these technical assets.
Technical white papers and e-books formed the bottom-of-funnel core of the campaign, which was the primary goal at the beginning of the partnership.
Native Feature: Broader Education and Brand Building
Once a foundation for lead development was established, the C&EN BrandLab team introduced higher-funnel assets to build broader awareness and brand affinity. They created a native article rooted in storytelling, which takes an in-depth look at the past, present, and future of driving innovation in small-molecule oncology drug development.
This asset allowed the team to reach a broader audience through video and interactive features while also showcasing the CDMO’s history of innovation. Because it wasn’t gated, it cast a wider net.
It also performed exceptionally well. “The piece delivered an average time on page of three minutes and 26 seconds, which is well above typical benchmarks for long-form digital content,” Lockhart-Neff said. “That level of engagement validated the decision to invest in a story-first, narrative-driven approach.”
Infographic: Education Through Visual Storytelling
An additional campaign asset — an infographic focused on optimizing solid forms in small molecule drug development — offered an interactive way to communicate the complexity of small-molecule development, using motion, interaction, and simplified visuals to keep its audience engaged.
Repurposed Client Videos: Adding Context and Value
The CDMO also had several promotional videos available for use in the campaign. C&EN BrandLab incorporated them directly into content pieces to extend the use of these existing assets.
The program used each asset for a distinct purpose: visual formats increased interest and dwell time; ungated formats helped with reach; and gated formats qualified interest and generated leads, exceeding the client’s guarantees. Together, the assets formed a holistic funnel.
Takeaways for Marketers
- Use outcomes to define formats: gated PDFs are better for leads, while shareable native content boosts awareness and education.
- Use narrative-driven formats to retain interest and drive memory retention.
- Leverage existing assets by placing them within a compelling story to provide additional context.
- Multiformat campaigns serve broader needs and extend content lifespan.
Executing the Campaign: Distribution as Strategy
With assets in place, the team shifted to focus on distribution. As our custom content studio, C&EN BrandLab is uniquely positioned to leverage the reach of ACS’ trusted platforms, including C&EN, enabling the campaign to connect with scientific audiences without relying on external media buys.
“Chemists trust ACS and read C&EN,” Harris said. “Pharmaceutical scientists already consume content there. Even graduate students entering the industry rely on ACS resources. It’s a channel ideal for both present and future decision-makers.”
This built-in trust is core to C&EN BrandLab’s success: ACS’s reputation with scientists helps to earn and keep attention.
Takeaways for Marketers
- Scientific audiences prefer content delivered through trusted, discipline-specific channels.
- If you’re marketing to chemists, identify the distribution channels where chemists already gather and source information.
- Channel credibility directly influences perceived content credibility.
Adapting as the Campaign Evolved: Agility as a Competitive Advantage
Though it unfolded smoothly over time, this campaign wasn’t a single, preplanned arc; it unfolded over years and evolved as client needs shifted — managing new brand identities, launches, and priorities across that time.
When an unknown bottleneck delayed approval for one e-book, for example, Lockhart-Neff accelerated design work instead — flipping the typical process to keep momentum. “We wanted to make their lives easier,” Lockhart-Neff noted, “even if they were hitting a roadblock internally.”
Takeaways for Marketers
- Vet partners for flexibility, especially for long, complex campaigns.
- Vendor-client partnerships build trust and lead to better outcomes.
Standing Out in an Era of Audience Fatigue
Scientific audiences are feeling the same attention pressure as everyone else: fewer resources, more emails, more noise. Harris outlined two essentials for cutting through:
- Exceptional content packaging. “Titles and subject lines are underrated,” he said. “However important you think they are, they’re more important than that.” A strong asset can underperform without strong packaging. It’s critical to understand your distribution channels to package your content effectively.
- Genuine innovation at the product level. No amount of clever messaging can compensate for content that isn’t meaningful. “If you’re not introducing something truly new, people won’t care,” Harris warned. The CDMO’s focus on speeding development timelines and advancing core technologies gave this campaign the credibility it needed.
Lockhart-Neff added that it’s important to engage external partners to bring fresh perspectives and disrupt internal echo chambers.
When organizations self-reference too much, their messaging goes stale.”
– Heather Lockhart-Neff, Account and Marketing Manager at C&EN BrandLab
To overcome attention fatigue, science marketers must invest time in framing and labeling assets for performance. Focus messaging on substantive, differentiated innovation rather than incremental updates, and actively bring in external perspectives to pressure‑test narratives.
