Inside STAT Plus: How do you rebrand a clinical trial?

For the better part of four years, Samantha Meltzer-Brody had been trying to recruit thousands of women for a large study she was leading to investigate the potential role of genetics in postpartum depression. After a promising start, signups waned. Then she heard from someone at a creative agency called Wongdoody who had read a story about the study’s lagging participation. “Your first question is, 'Who is Wongdoody?'” Meltzer-Brody said. But impressed with the agency’s understanding of postpartum depression, she took it up on its offer to rebrand her study, forging an unlikely partnership in a world where academic medical research and creative agencies rarely, if ever, cross paths. Megan Thielking explains what happened next on STAT Plus.