CVS voluntarily walked away from an estimated $2 billion in annual tobacco revenue in 2014 and rebranded as CVS Health, turning a business decision into one of the most-covered healthcare PR stories of the decade. Theranos built a multi-billion-dollar valuation on marketing alone, before its claims were exposed as fraud and its founder was convicted. Eight healthcare and wellness campaigns show how this category builds consumer trust, and how fast it can collapse without it.
Last updated November 13, 2026.
On this page:
- Which healthcare PR campaigns are covered
- How digital health brands built consumer trust
- How legacy brands made news with a single decision
- How a drug and a DNA test became cultural phenomena
- The cautionary tale: Theranos
- What patterns repeat across these campaigns
- How a healthcare brand can apply these lessons
- How AI search is changing healthcare PR
- Frequently asked questions
Which Healthcare PR Campaigns Are Covered, and What Did Each Achieve?
The eight cases below cover digital health, pharmacy, pharmaceuticals, genetic testing and one fraud. The table summarizes each approach and its documented result.
| Campaign | Period | Approach | Documented result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noom | Ongoing | Psychology-based weight-loss positioning, heavy podcast advertising | Became one of the most recognizable names in digital health |
| Hims & Hers | 2021 | Destigmatizing telehealth language and design | Went public via SPAC merger in January 2021 |
| Hims & Hers Super Bowl ad | February 2025 | First Super Bowl commercial, "Sick of the System," made in-house | A reported 650% spike in site traffic, alongside regulatory and political scrutiny |
| CVS Health | 2014 | Dropped tobacco sales, rebranded from CVS Caremark | Estimated $2B in annual revenue given up, sustained positive coverage |
| GoodRx | 2020 | Prescription price transparency | Public listing in September 2020 |
| Novo Nordisk | 2022 to present | Public conversation around Ozempic and Wegovy | Passed LVMH as Europe's most valuable listed company in September 2023 |
| 23andMe | 2021 to 2025 | Personal-discovery marketing | SPAC listing in June 2021, then a 2023 breach and a March 2025 bankruptcy filing |
| Theranos | 2014 to 2022 | Founder-led press narrative | Roughly $9B peak valuation, then fraud convictions |
How Did Digital Health Brands Build Consumer Trust?
Noom's Psychology-Based Weight-Loss Positioning
Noom built its marketing around behavioral psychology rather than calorie counting alone, positioning itself as fundamentally different from traditional diet apps. Heavy podcast advertising across hundreds of shows turned the brand into one of the most recognizable names in digital health in a short span, built on a message of mindset change rather than a specific diet plan.
Hims & Hers' Destigmatizing Telehealth Marketing
Hims & Hers built its brand on approachable, non-clinical language and design for conditions like hair loss and erectile dysfunction that consumers had historically found embarrassing to discuss. The destigmatizing tone, paired with a direct-to-consumer telehealth model, helped the company go public via a SPAC merger in January 2021.
Hims & Hers' First Super Bowl Ad, 2025
Hims & Hers bought its first Super Bowl spot for Super Bowl LIX on February 9, 2025: a 60-second commercial called "Sick of the System," created in-house, according to Adweek. The ad framed weight loss in America as a $160 billion industry that profits from failure and argued that effective medications are priced for profit, not patients. Fierce Healthcare reported that the spot aired in the third quarter of the most-watched Super Bowl ever, with 127.7 million viewers according to Fox Sports, and that traffic to the company's site spiked 650% afterward.
The attention came with scrutiny. Health advocacy groups asked the FDA to stop the ad from airing, Fortune reported, because the compounded products it promotes are not FDA-approved and the disclaimer flashed on screen only briefly. Lawmakers also raised concerns, per Fierce Healthcare, and Hims & Hers said it was complying with existing law. The case shows that a provocative healthcare ad can win attention and invite regulatory questions in the same weekend.
How Did Legacy Healthcare Brands Make News With a Single Decision?
CVS Health's Tobacco Exit, 2014
CVS announced in February 2014 that it would stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products in all its stores by October of that year, a decision the company itself estimated would cost roughly $2 billion in annual revenue, according to its SEC filing, and rebranded from CVS Caremark to CVS Health to reflect the shift. The decision generated sustained, overwhelmingly positive earned media coverage that a traditional ad campaign of any size could not have purchased.
GoodRx's Price-Transparency Positioning
GoodRx built its entire brand around showing consumers the real, often wildly different, prices pharmacies charge for the same prescription, a direct challenge to an industry not known for pricing transparency. The positioning carried the company to a public listing in September 2020 built almost entirely on consumer trust earned through transparency rather than traditional brand advertising.
How Did a Drug and a DNA Test Become Cultural Phenomena?
Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy Cultural Wave, 2022-Present
Novo Nordisk's diabetes and weight-management medications became a sustained cultural and media phenomenon starting in 2022, with widespread public conversation about Ozempic and Wegovy. On September 1, 2023, Novo Nordisk passed LVMH to become Europe's most valuable company, according to Bloomberg reporting, an unusual case of a pharmaceutical brand becoming a mainstream cultural topic.
23andMe's Personal-Discovery Marketing
23andMe built its consumer genetic-testing brand on the appeal of personal ancestry and health discovery, marketing that helped the company go public via a SPAC merger in June 2021. The brand's later struggles, including an October 2023 data breach and a Chapter 11 filing announced on March 23, 2025, show how a consumer-trust brand built on personal data can unravel just as quickly once that trust is broken. For how healthcare organizations plan their response to an incident like that, see 5W's healthcare crisis communications work and its behavioral health crisis communications plan.
The Cautionary Tale: Theranos, 2014-2022
Theranos built one of the most covered healthcare brands in Silicon Valley history on marketing and personal charisma, with no working product underneath it. Founder Elizabeth Holmes built a cult-of-personality press narrative around a claimed revolutionary blood-testing technology, reaching a peak valuation investors put at roughly $9 billion on magazine covers and founder profiles rather than peer-reviewed results. Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou's 2015 investigation began exposing that the technology did not work as claimed. On January 3, 2022, a jury convicted Holmes of conspiracy and wire fraud against Theranos investors, and she was sentenced to 135 months, or 11 years and 3 months, in prison that November. Theranos remains the clearest case in healthcare of a PR-built brand that outran the product it was supposed to represent.
What Patterns Repeat Across These Campaigns?
A Single Values-Based Decision Can Beat Years of Advertising
CVS's tobacco exit and GoodRx's price transparency both worked because the brand gave up something real rather than just saying the right words.
Destigmatizing Language Is Itself a Growth Strategy
Noom and Hims & Hers both built entire brands around making an uncomfortable topic easier to talk about.
A Provocative Ad Wins Attention and Scrutiny Together
Hims & Hers' 2025 Super Bowl spot drew a reported traffic surge and, in the same weekend, calls for the FDA to act, so a bold healthcare message has to be ready for regulators as well as audiences.
Cultural Phenomena Can Outrun a Brand's Own Marketing Budget
Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy attention came from public conversation that the company did not control.
A Healthcare Brand's Trust Is Only as Strong as Its Weakest Real Claim
Theranos's marketing-first approach and 23andMe's data breach both show that a health brand's story eventually has to match what's actually true underneath it.
How Can a Healthcare Brand Apply These Lessons?
A healthcare brand can apply these eight cases in six steps, each tied to a campaign above.
- Give up something real to prove a values claim, as CVS did when it dropped tobacco.
- Show the customer a number they could not see before, as GoodRx did with prescription prices.
- Use plain, non-clinical language for topics people find embarrassing, as Hims & Hers did.
- Put required safety and regulatory disclosures where viewers can read them, and brief counsel before a high-profile ad runs, the exposure the Hims & Hers Super Bowl spot showed.
- Keep every public claim backed by evidence a regulator or reporter could check, the test Theranos failed.
- Treat data security as part of the brand promise, because 23andMe's trust story did not survive its 2023 breach.
How were these healthcare cases selected, and where do the figures come from?
The list covers eight publicly documented healthcare and wellness campaigns. The CVS revenue estimate comes from the company's February 2014 SEC filing, the Holmes verdict from a Department of Justice release, the 23andMe bankruptcy date from the company's own announcement, and the Novo Nordisk ranking from Bloomberg reporting republished by Fortune. The Hims & Hers Super Bowl details come from Adweek, Fierce Healthcare and Fortune, and the traffic and viewership figures are as those outlets reported them. Other dates and valuation figures come from company announcements and press coverage of each case. Phrases such as "most recognizable" or "sustained positive coverage" describe how the press characterized each campaign and are not a measured brand score.
How Is AI Search Changing Healthcare PR?
About a third of U.S. adults (32%) said they had turned to AI chatbots for health information or advice in the past year, according to a March 2026 KFF poll of 1,343 adults. A healthcare brand's public record, its regulatory history, its substantiated claims, its data-handling track record, is part of what an AI engine can cite when a consumer asks which brand to trust, which makes that record as important as traditional media relations. 5W's own Health Insurance AI Visibility Index 2026 tracks how AI engines name insurers and health plans. See 5W's GEO and AI search services for how that measurement turns into a program.
What This Means for a Healthcare Brand's Next Campaign
5W is a healthcare and wellness PR firm building media credibility and AI-search visibility for health, diet, and digital health brands, with client experience including GNC. Brands comparing firms can use the guide to choosing a healthcare PR agency. No agency can guarantee media coverage or an AI citation. The difference between the brands on this list that built lasting trust and the one that remains a cautionary tale was rarely the sophistication of the marketing. It was whether the brand's claims could survive the scrutiny that eventually comes to every healthcare brand that gets big enough to attract it.
Teams planning their own announcements can start with the healthcare PR guide for hospitals and health systems. Brands choosing a firm can also compare options in a ranking of healthcare PR agencies.
For more campaign roundups, see 5W's ranking of the top 25 PR campaigns of all time, plus the best crisis PR campaigns and fintech PR campaigns, two other categories built on public trust.
For data on which dental brands AI assistants name most often, see the Dental AI Visibility Index.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Was the Hims & Hers Super Bowl Ad?
Hims & Hers' first Super Bowl commercial, "Sick of the System," aired on February 9, 2025, during Super Bowl LIX. The 60-second, in-house spot argued that the weight-loss industry and drug pricing favor profit over patients. Fierce Healthcare reported a 650% spike in site traffic afterward, and health advocacy groups and lawmakers questioned the ad because the compounded products it promotes are not FDA-approved.
What Happened to Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes?
Theranos built a peak valuation investors put at roughly $9 billion on claims about revolutionary blood-testing technology that did not work as advertised. A 2015 Wall Street Journal investigation began exposing the gap between the marketing and the product, and founder Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors in January 2022 and sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
Why Did CVS Stop Selling Tobacco Products?
CVS announced in February 2014 that it would stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products in all stores by October of that year, a decision the company estimated would cost roughly $2 billion in annual revenue, and rebranded as CVS Health to reflect the shift toward a healthcare-focused identity.
How Did GoodRx Build Its Brand Around Price Transparency?
GoodRx built its brand by showing consumers the often wildly different prices pharmacies charge for the same prescription, a direct challenge to pricing opacity in the pharmacy industry. The transparency-first positioning carried the company to a public listing in September 2020.
What Happened to 23andMe After Its Data Breach?
23andMe, which built its brand on personal ancestry and health-discovery marketing, disclosed a data breach in October 2023 affecting millions of users and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 23, 2025, showing how quickly a consumer-trust brand built on personal data can unravel once that trust is broken.
How Is AI Search Changing Healthcare Brand Choice?
About a third of U.S. adults (32%) used AI chatbots for health information or advice in the past year, according to a March 2026 KFF poll. A brand's regulatory history, substantiated claims, and data-handling record are part of what an AI engine can cite when a consumer asks which brand to trust.
