Healthcare Marketing in the AI Era!

Pierre Robinet, President of Ogilvy Health in APAC, brings over 20 years of marketing and advertising expertise. He has worked across digital, brand, and media agencies, offering a comprehensive view of the marketing landscape. Since 2017, Robinet has advised the Singapore government on AI transformation, giving him unique insights into AI's transformative potential in marketing and beyond.

In the regulated world of healthcare marketing, the landscape has seen significant shifts, especially post-COVID. Before the pandemic, there was anticipation for the healthcare and pharma sectors to undergo transformation. However, COVID-19 acted as a catalyst, accelerating change in consumer and physician behavior. Post-COVID, 89 percent of consumers expressed interest in health maintenance and lifestyle changes, with 65 percent focusing on immunity. This shift has made consumers more empowered, seeking information and solutions actively. On the physician side, over 50 percent prefer mobile or iPad content consumption, and 60 percent turn to social media for information. Webinars and webcasts have become the preferred channels for 68% of physicians to receive pharmaceutical information.

This new chapter demands the industry's response to empowered consumers and changing physician needs. The industry is adapting by creating new platforms and tactics to engage both consumers and physicians effectively. Despite the challenges of operating in a regulated industry, technology has matured to support compliance, especially in terms of data management and privacy. This advancement allows for innovative approaches that blend content, data, and technology to engage patients and doctors effectively.

Patient-Centric Outcome-Based Models

Today, focusing on patient-centricity in the pharma and healthcare sectors is contributing to the shift towards outcome-based models. Here, companies aim to deliver better value to patients and measure the impact of their efforts in terms of patient outcomes rather than just financial and business metrics. Furthermore, being patient-centric in marketing requires placing the patient at the core of strategies and reimagining engagement plans to serve patient outcomes. This entails reallocating investments from traditional channels targeting doctors to channels that engage patients directly. The focus shifts from measuring clicks or website visits to evaluating how marketing activities contribute to improving patient lives.

Events like the recent SXSW summit highlighted the concept of "whole healthcare support," emphasizing comprehensive and holistic support for patients. Pharmaceutical companies are encouraged to provide patients with advice, information, and resources tailored to their journey. In this new paradigm, marketing success is measured by behavior change and tangible improvements in patient well-being. It's about delivering value to patients and enhancing their lives through meaningful engagement and support.

Harnessing Data and Technology for Personalized Engagement

To achieve the level of personalized engagement necessary for modern consumers, patients, and physicians, leveraging data and technology is essential. Personalization has become the goal across all sectors, and achieving it requires advanced tools, new capabilities and a proper culture change agenda. Ogilvy stands out with its comprehensive marketing tech capabilities, offering consulting, recommendations, and operational services to implement cutting-edge technologies like Customer Data Platforms (CDP) for healthcare clients. CDPs enable precise segmentation of individuals, allowing for personalized engagement based on collected data. With a CDP, healthcare providers can now connect various channels, moving from siloed, channel-specific approaches to integrated omni-channel strategies. This integration ensures consistent and cohesive engagement across all touchpoints. 

On the content front, personalization demands a shift from traditional content creation methods. Modular content models are emerging as the solution, allowing technology to assemble and deliver tailored content to individuals based on their interests and preferences. In summary, delivering personalized content at scale requires a synergistic blend of data, technology, and new operational models. Data informs segmentation and content delivery, while modular content creation allows for scalability and customization. This approach ensuresthe generation of a compliant and much more effective engagement with consumers and physicians.

Crafting Memorable Connections

But technology alone won’t deliver meaningful engagement without empathy, and creativity remains essential despite technological advancements. In today's competitive environment, standing out demands a blend of creativity, influencer marketing, and embracing new platforms. 

If we wish to form memorable connections with consumers and professionals alike, it becomes essential to focus on ahuman-centric storytelling methodology delivering memorable content to each individual. Welcome to a new health marketing chapter where one to one connection with all different stakeholder is the new normal.

In addition, influencer marketing has demonstrated great impact and the rise of health & wellness influencers must be considered to deliver better patient centric marketing. Leveraging more than 15 years of expertise in this domain, Ogilvy recently released a dedicated Health Influencer offering, to support health and wellness brands in navigating this complex landscape while remaining hyper compliant. And naturally, social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram offer fresh avenues for engaging storytelling. Clients increasingly seek to utilize these platforms for disease education and promoting proactive health behaviors. Incorporating these elements allows organizations to carve a unique niche, establishing a compelling presence that resonates with their audience.

Leveraging AI-Powered Healthcare Marketing

The rise of AI presents a huge catalyst for innovation in healthcare marketing. 

First, AI highly contributes to combat misinformation, a major challenge in healthcare, especially concerning topics like vaccines. With the help of AI, we now can analyze extensive data set to validate claims, andoffer the public accurate information. 

Second, AI revolutionizes content creation. Leveraging new large language models, and dedicated GenAI solutions we can easily verify medical information against a vast database of medically approved content,and ensure that any new asset and suggested content to clients is both credible, compliant, and medically approved, elevating the quality of healthcare communications. 

Lastly, AI can further enhance healthcare professionals’ understanding of consumer behavior; by analyzing consumer patterns, we can craft personalized messages that are more relevant and impactful. 

As always, the approach should center around patient-centricity, using AI to reintroduce care and more empathy into healthcare. With the rapid access to those AI solutions, players in the healthcare sector can strive for improved outcomes and a compassionate healthcare ecosystem.