WE ARE
MARICICH HEALTH

 
We’re a healthcare branding, advertising and marketing communications agency with a unique perspective. By leveraging our Brandtivity process, we work with clients as navigators of an evolving healthcare landscape focused on rapid innovation and engagement with diverse audiences. We believe that doing effective marketing is not enough. It has to serve a higher purpose. So when we help our clients grow by doing more good for the populations they serve, everyone wins.

BRANDTIVITY FOR THE INTEGRATED
HEALTHCARE ECOSYSTEM

 
We develop branding and marketing campaigns rooted at the intersection of strategy, creativity, diversity and data-driven measurability — the sum of which we call Brandtivity. It’s our approach to improving brand relevance and consumer experiences by aligning core human truths with business objectives for measurable results. Brandtivity allows us to effectively influence diverse consumer audiences and healthcare stakeholders for those in the integrated healthcare ecosystem: hospitals, health systems, payers, retail-focused providers, device/life science innovators and emerging healthcare companies.
 

CLIENTS
 
 

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center
Healthy Driven
L.A. Care
Tenet Health
Western Dental
UC Irvine Health
UCSF Medical Center
Baush+Lomb
Aramark
BeckmanCoulter
3M Unitek
Alignment Health Plan
Beverly Hospital
DermOne
MemorialCare
Drexcel Pharma

TEAM LEADERS
 
 

Mark Maricich

CEO & Chief Strategist

A 25-year communications industry veteran, Mark is CEO and chief strategist for Maricich Health. He has led many strategic and marketing initiatives for health systems, medical groups and payers, such as UC Irvine Health, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, L.A. Care Health Plan, Western Dental, and many others. Mark also directed global and national medical marketing and branding initiatives for accounts such as Bausch + Lomb, 3M Unitek, Aramark Uniform Services, Sandel Medical, Visiogen and Oraya Therapeutics. Mark served as president of the Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Association (HPRMA), a leading marketing organization for hospitals, medical groups, IPAs and health plans. He received a B.A. in communications from California State University, Fullerton.

David Maricich

President & Chief Creative Officer

As a navigator of the integrated healthcare ecosystem, David’s personal mission is to help the world be a healthier place through consulting on healthcare innovation, branding, marketing and communications. As a result, he’s led major initiatives in his role as President/COO and Chief Creative Officer for Maricich Health. For over 20 years, David has overseen numerous change management, investment / private equity, advocacy and growth-oriented creative campaigns for hospitals, health systems, Fortune 500 medical device, life sciences and other healthcare companies across the U.S. and internationally. He’s also led numerous public health campaigns to improve the health of diverse audiences while serving on the board of TAAN Worldwide, a global network of marcom, digital and media firms.

Renita E. Smith

VP, Brand Strategy

Renita E. Smith is a seasoned strategic marketer with years of healthcare and multicultural experience in driving brand success at companies ranging from digital health startups to Fortune 500 companies.  A marketer driven by her passion for healthcare and life sciences, Renita has developed a specialty focus in the sector, devising and implementing marketing, branding, and content strategy for a range of companies targeting HCPs and healthcare consumers. Renita holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Stanford University and a M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Patrick Markovsky

VP, Client Engagement

With over 15 years of marketing experience and an entrepreneurial spirit, Patrick is a seasoned business leader responsible for providing exceptional management and service to the agency’s accounts. As the Client Engagement Director, Patrick has the keen ability to manage internal teams and executive clients, while keeping all projects on time, on brief, and on budget.  Prior to joining the Maricich team, Patrick held various senior level roles in both the corporate and ad agency environments, providing strategic oversight and campaign development for clients such as Tenet Healthcare, SCAN Health Plan, Healthcare Partners and Golden State Medicare.  When he’s not in the office, you can find Patrick coaching sports teams for his daughter and son, or at the beach with his wife and Zoe, their Labrador.

Debbie Karnowsky

Executive Creative Director

Debbie is known worldwide as one of the top creative forces in healthcare marketing. She is the author of “THRIVE” for Kaiser Permanent and responsible for the direction of that brand turnaround campaign. As much a strategist as creative mind, her work with healthcare brands breaks through the competition in unexpected ways. Debbie’s work for Western Dental encouraged customers to “CHEW ON,” going beyond the competitive “smiley” sea sameness into a place of lifelong oral health and fitness. Her creative direction on L.A. Care and Santa Clara Valley Medical Center have garnered awards for both results and creativity. Ad Age named Debbie as one of the “100 Best and Brightest Women in Advertising” and Adweek voted her a “Creative Director All-Star.” Debbie’s TV advertising work is in the permanent collection of MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and judges the Emmy Awards. She received her education at Indiana University.

Jim DiPiazza

Creative Director

Jim believes the foundation to creativity is having a healthy mind and spirit. He’s a vegan, a marathoner and an Ironman triathlete. Throughout his career, he’s focused on getting the message right, and then presenting it in the most engaging way possible. Jim is a writer by trade, a lover of beautiful design, an organizational freak and a fearless leader with an entrepreneurial spirit. Over the last 10 years, Jim’s been ECD at Swirl and at Campbell Ewald, where he oversaw the Kaiser Permanente business. He’s been around the country at small shops and big agencies — turning Airwalk into a cultural icon, winning Xbox at McCann, creating the Bacardi & Cola campaign, rebranding a nutrition company, helping win VW at Deutsch, and then launching the Beetle and a 360 campaign on the Super Bowl. As an ECD at Deutsch, he won Uber and also managed the massive Sprint account, which included the business-reinvigorating campaign in which the Verizon guy switched. As ECD, Jim also oversaw all general market and multicultural work at Walton Isaacson. At Maricich, Jim brings his experience, creative passion and healthcare acumen to campaign development, reaching healthcare consumers and public health audiences for clients like Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and Riverside University Health System.

Soa Kang

Senior Brand Strategist, Asian Market

Soa has over 25 years of marketing experience within the Asian market, including 10 years on the client side. Some of the successful campaigns she has worked on include L.A. Care Health Plan, Kaiser Permanente, Hepatitis B vaccination campaign for the Asian Liver Foundation of Stanford University, and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s efforts to educate Asians about early diagnosis and treatment. She has also served on the planning committee of L.A. mayor’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month for the past five years. She is a current and past board member of community and business organizations such as Korean American Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles, Korean Food Globalization Association, Asian American Advertising Federation, and Asian Business Association of L.A.

Russell Droullard

Director of Digital Marketing & Performance

Russell is a digital marketing strategist and analyst with over 20 years of online marketing strategy, intelligence and analysis experience in both consumer and B2B environments. At Maricich Health, Russell develops and manages digital marketing campaigns while defining actionable insights based on analysis of marketing campaign KPIs, web analytics and social information. He’s also played a key role in the development of our Skylight Marketing Performance dashboard, a dynamic online resource for measuring campaign performance and conversion results. Russell has previously held Director of Marketing positions for global manufacturers as well as emerging start-ups. His expertise includes business intelligence visualizations, website development, search engine marketing, lead generation, branding and marketing data analytics.

Diego Pombo

Creative Director, Hispanic Market

Diego has over 20 years of experience in the U.S. Hispanic market working with a variety of healthcare companies, hospitals and foundations including Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Blue Cross of CA and many others. He has been an instrumental part of each team, helping to improve brand awareness and perceptions within in the Hispanic community.

AWARDED BY THE
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY

 
We are consistently recognized for our client outcomes by our peers and colleagues in the healthcare and medical industries. This includes best-in-shows, delegates choice and multicultural awards by a variety of competitions including Healthcare Ad Awards, Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards, ADDYs, Tellys and MM&M.