CANNES — The convergence of real-world health data, artificial intelligence and omnichannel media is reshaping pharmaceutical marketing, but for Marcella Milliet Sciorra, chief marketing officer of healthcare omnichannel platform Swoop, patient privacy remains the industry’s most essential responsibility.
“Pharmaceutical marketing now really has the ability of bringing the real-world health data into the linear TV planning place,” Sciorra told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. “TV has always been huge for the pharmaceutical category. It’s very important and remains important for awareness, that’s never going to go away.”
What’s new, she explained, is how data-driven strategies are bridging once-siloed media channels, allowing marketers to coordinate campaigns across linear TV, connected TV, social media and programmatic advertising — the automated buying and selling of ad inventory using software and audience targeting.
Sciorra emphasized that Swoop’s evolution reflects this shift. Once focused solely on healthcare audience segments for direct-to-consumer campaigns, Swoop now provides healthcare provider segments, AI-powered chatbots for brand websites, and more than 60 condition-specific patient communities.
“We are becoming much more than just the patient,” she said. “We really are a platform where we can help connect brands, HCPs and patients safely across all the different segments.”
Data-driven, privacy-first
The pharmaceutical sector’s caution around targeting is well-earned, given the sensitivity of health information. But Sciorra said advances in technology and methodology have made privacy protections more robust than ever.
“That is one of the reasons why I joined Swoop and I love working with Swoop,” she said. “Their methodology really is about zero knowledge — removing every single identifier, every single health condition, every single demographic condition — and building audience segments in a way that taps into AI and machine learning, all in a privacy-regulated way.”
This enables pharmaceutical marketers to predict key moments in a patient’s health journey — such as when someone may be considering treatment — without compromising personal information.
“If you don’t have the chance of educating a patient before they meet with the provider about a treatment… it could take another one-year cycle for the patient to learn about a treatment that could potentially save their life,” she said.
Pharma steps into the spotlight
Pharmaceutical brands, long cautious participants in high-profile events like Cannes Lions, are becoming more visible, Sciorra said.
“It was really about the agencies and the creative they were doing. But the brands themselves—they were not here,” she said. “Fast forward to today, a lot of the C-level executives from the brand direct, they are here. They are part of the conversation.”
Far from avoiding regulation, she said, the industry is embracing privacy standards to better educate patients about life-saving treatments. “We are not shying away as an industry from regulation,” Sciorra said. “We are using that to help patients learn about those treatments in a very privacy-forward way.”
Starting with data consistency
For pharma marketers, true omnichannel engagement remains elusive without seamless data integration.
“My favorite thing to say is: You don’t have omnichannel without data consistency,” Sciorra said. “Omnichannel starts with TV, and then omnichannel cannot happen unless you have the consistency of the data between TV, programmatic, linear and then the measurement.”
Swoop’s platform-agnostic approach allows brands to execute campaigns across linear TV, connected platforms, DSPs and measurement tools, ensuring consistent, compliant data across all channels and states. That purview includes regions with strict privacy laws like Washington’s My Health Data Act.
AI for actionable healthcare insights
Looking ahead, Sciorra sees AI playing a critical role in improving patient outcomes, not through generic automation, but through actionable insights.
For example, she explained, Swoop’s AI tools can analyze healthcare provider lists to identify physicians with patients likely to drop prescriptions, providing sales teams with targeted education opportunities.
“Over 70% of co-op programs go unused because of lack of education,” Sciorra said. “AI is pulling those little nuggets of insights that can actually drive better patient outcomes.”
While caution remains baked into healthcare marketing, she said, brands are now better equipped to balance innovation, privacy, and patient impact.
“We are all highly regulated,” Sciorra said. “But the change I see is the level of comfort and knowledge within brand partners. They’re working with privacy experts, people who understand the technology — and they’re trying to find solutions, not just blocking innovation.”
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