Making a Difference
Chuck Kapelke
In 2000, Merck, the global pharmaceutical manufacturer, partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help the African nation of Botswana fight a growing HIV and AIDS epidemic. In addition to donating $56.5 million, Merck pitched in the services of its marketing and advertising teams. Their challenge: to use their expertise to develop customized public health campaigns for various at-risk populations.
“We used a market segmentation strategy to figure out what was driving the epidemic,” explains Maggie Kohn, director of corporate responsibility at Merck & Company, Inc., based in Whitehouse Station, N.J. “There were...