Television has evolved beyond its traditional broad reach positioning to deliver the precision targeting capabilities once exclusive to digital channels, fundamentally changing how healthcare brands approach video advertising strategies.
“Television is delivering the kind of precision targeting that we once thought only possible in digital,” Ashley Luongo, CRO of TV ad platform OpenAP, told Beet.TV Editorial Director Lisa Granatstein. “We can look at it holistically as a video channel that can deliver both precision and targetability at massive scale.”
This transformation eliminates the historical trade-off between reach and targeting that forced marketers to choose between broad awareness campaigns and precise audience segmentation. Advanced capabilities including audience onboarding, impression-based buying, cross-screen planning, and unified measurement have collapsed traditional media silos.
Solving healthcare targeting complexity
Healthcare brands seeking condition-specific audiences can leverage OpenAP’s extensive data sourcing partnerships to reach precise consumer segments across all premium video endpoints simultaneously. The platform’s centralized approach eliminates the operational complexity of managing multiple data relationships and distribution channels.
“Any pharma or life sciences brand can come to OpenAP and describe who they want to reach from a consumer standpoint,” Luongo said. “We’ll go out and find the very best sources of that data. We have direct integrations with all of these partners. We’ll onboard those audiences centrally, we’ll make those audiences available for use on all screens and all platforms.”
This syndicated distribution model connects brands instantly to premium video supply while enabling data partners to onboard audiences in hours rather than days or weeks, creating efficiency gains across the entire ecosystem.
Privacy compliance
OpenAP implements data protection standards that go beyond NAI and HIPAA compliance requirements, particularly for sensitive personal information in pharmaceutical advertising. The platform’s extensive diligence process with data partners adds protective measures on top of existing supplier processes.
“We believe that NAI and HIPAA compliance are kind of the bare minimum standard requirements for compliance, but that you really ought to go well above and beyond that,” Luongo said.
Data partners must approach targeting using campaign IDs that cannot be tied to individuals or households from a reporting perspective, or demonstrate use of data falling outside sensitive personal information categories. This includes reaffirming no personally identifiable information collection, ensuring data is de-identified and encrypted, implementing minimum audience size controls, and avoiding demographic profiling that could enable condition inference.
Zero knowledge methodologies
The most stringent privacy approaches involve zero knowledge data methodologies, which allows for proof of facts (like someone being over 18-years-old) through blockchain technology, thereby avoiding any inferences about individual consumers’ health conditions as well as privacy issues. Partners like Swoop utilize techniques that eliminate seed lists, lookalike models, and demographic profiling capabilities.
“We’re working with partners really closely to ensure that they can unpack their methodology granularly as it relates to ensuring that not only are they not collecting data and using PII, but that no inferences can actually be drawn either,” Luongo said.
This proactive approach positions OpenAP ahead of potential regulatory changes rather than simply meeting current minimum requirements.
TV’s viral potential
The rapid household name recognition achieved by GLP-1 drugs, which help treat conditions like diabetes, illustrates television’s unique power to create mass awareness that spreads across cultural touchpoints. This real-world case study demonstrates how premium video can generate momentum that extends far beyond initial advertising impressions.
“It’s remarkable how quickly these treatments became household names, and awareness spread at lightning speed. That is the power of mass reach and of premium video and of television in particular,” Luongo said.
The success creates a template for applying similar strategies to rare diseases, cancer research, and other condition-specific treatments that could benefit from broader awareness campaigns.
Cultural health trends
Wearable technology adoption and increased health consciousness among younger demographics create new data assets and audience opportunities for healthcare marketing. The integration of health tracking into daily routines generates behavioral signals that can inform targeting strategies.
“Wearables, like Oura rings and Whoop and Apple Watches, have made health a priority every day and are rich data assets all unto themselves,” Luongo said.
These cultural shifts toward proactive health management expand the addressable audience for healthcare advertising beyond traditional patient populations.
“With the right data and identity and measurement, TV and streaming can connect those treatments and draw those connection points between consumers and physicians and actually track whether that awareness led to consideration and actual impact and outcomes,” Luongo said. “I think if we apply all of this intentionally and with accountability and responsibly, we can use these pharma advertising not just to sell more, but to actually change lives for the better.”
You’re watching “Omnichannel Starts with TV: The Evolving Role of TV in Healthcare Marketing”, a Beet.TV Leadership Series, presented by Swoop. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
