MIAMI – Building an in-house media operation isn’t anything special anymore. But when a major pharmaceutical company boasts of such an enterprise within its walls, it’s always worth paying more than a little attention.

After all, as an advertising category, pharma is huge, as Kantar notes the industry spends roughly $18 billion a year on media.

Building internal media expertise enables large healthcare organizations to navigate regulatory complexities while maintaining the agility needed for innovative marketing, said Josh Palau, VP of Performance Media at Pfizer.

“I always joke about my ‘Hotel California’… having people in the building who understand what’s happening, who understand the goals, objectives of the organization. It’s just that you’re embedded and you understand what we’re trying to achieve,” Palau told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the POSSIBLE conference.

Accelerating decision-making

For Pfizer, in-housing key media strategy functions has created advantages in both operational speed and strategic alignment across the organization.

“Just being able to coordinate conversations and learnings just happens at a much quicker pace when you’re all part of the same organization,” Palau said. “There’s also a big goal alignment.”

This integration proved valuable during high-profile marketing moments like Pfizer’s Super Bowl campaign. But Palau noted its importance extends far beyond special events.

“When you think about how an organization rallies around just the day-to-day performance stuff, having internal media strategy, being able to set the agenda, work with the brands, communicate the goals, all be centrally aligned, is just so powerful,” he added. “And just so much more quick in terms of how you can adapt and adjust what you’re doing.”

Data-led, not data-limited

Pfizer’s approach to performance media balances quantitative measurement with strategic judgment, something Palau calls being “data-led, not data-limited.”

“Let’s definitely look at the data, but let’s also think about, ‘Hey, we can’t really measure YouTube accurately, but do we really think there’s a downside to being there or having a bigger voice in places that can’t be completely measured?’” he said. “We’ve got our gut, we’ve got our instinct. And sometimes those things are right.”

This balanced approach recognizes the unique challenges of healthcare marketing, where the path to purchase is more complex than in consumer packaged goods.

“Our purchase cycle is very different from others,” Palau said. “Did [the consumer] visit a doctor? Did they go on script? Are they a new patient, the existing patient? Forget about these front-end metrics like clicks and CPMs. I call ‘em vanity metrics. They can be important, but it’s more about did that click actually yield someone who did something on our site or actually take an action to go to the doctor and actually get the product that we need?”

While pharmaceutical marketing faces significant regulatory requirements, Palau’s team has developed effective processes for vetting and implementing innovative approaches.

“The good news is we have a process in place, which is not what you would think in terms of, ‘Oh my gosh, it’ll take us 10 years to get this out there,’” he said. “My team has gotten in such a good rhythm that we know what they want to hear, we know where they want to focus, we know what the buzzwords are in terms of what’s good and what’s bad.”

This institutional knowledge represents another benefit of in-house expertise, according to Palau.

“It’s not a salesperson, your agency, a third party saying, ‘Oh, my secret sauce is the best.’ It is someone who has a vested interest in Pfizer and making sure we comply with everything we need to comply with,” he explained.

Scaling innovation across brands

Pfizer’s approach to media innovation focuses on identifying opportunities that can benefit multiple brands and disease states rather than isolated tests.

“We’ve tried to pull these things into bulk categories of what’s something at the platform level, what’s something at a creative level that we could, if we do this, it can be scaled across the organization,” Palau said.

This scaling strategy helps maximize the impact of successful tests. “We try to focus a lot of it on how we do things that touch the broader portfolio because that’s how you really get scale and that’s how you really get performance,” he added.

Build expertise and move quickly

For marketers in any industry trying to manage media complexity, Palau recommended two approaches: building in-house expertise and implementing change incrementally but decisively.

“I’m a big proponent of expertise in the building,” he said. “You need people in the building who have a deeper expertise in how platforms work and how creative works and how partnerships work because there’s just some level of that understanding that you marry with your brand background and the goals of the company.”

Once you have that expertise, Palau advises starting small but scaling successful approaches rapidly.

“Don’t give up. Just keep trying, but keep trying in places that are small at first,” he advised. “You don’t have to go for the big high, let’s redo our entire creative trafficking process overnight. Think through where your challenges are. But then at that point, let’s go across the organization. Let’s not let this take so long.”

You’re watching “Beyond the Buzz: Independence, Intelligence, Innovation,” a Beet.TV Leadership Series at POSSIBLE 2025, presented by Innovid. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.

By David Kaplan on    @