Butler/Till’s Amanda DeVito: Pharma Brands Are ‘In a Conversation They Didn’t Start’
Patients arrive at medical appointments having already formed beliefs through TikTok rabbit holes, Reddit threads, and AI-generated health information — a behavioral shift that requires pharmaceutical brands to reshape how they think about the entire funnel, from upstream awareness through clinical conversion.
“The patient is no longer a passive recipient of any sort of information. They’re showing up having already formed some sort of a belief. And with AI, I feel even more empowered to believe that belief,” Amanda DeVito, CMO of Butler/Till, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “The brand is now in a conversation it didn’t start. The real question becomes how are you shaping that pre-conversation to the best of your ability?”
This dynamic intensifies pressure on both DTC and HCP marketing strategies, requiring credibility-building rather than awareness alone.
Independence enables structural problem-solving
Independent agencies build teams, technology stacks, and processes around specific client problems rather than routing decisions through layered organizational structures or protecting proprietary platforms built for standardization at scale.
“The independence piece means that we can really build the team, we can build the tech stack, we can build the process around the actual problem. We’re really just solving the problem. And that’s not a philosophical advantage anymore. That is actually a structural one,” DeVito said.
This structural flexibility becomes critical in complex categories like healthcare and emerging technology that resist standardized playbooks.
Speed reduces time between insight and action
Redefining speed away from simply moving faster toward shortening decision cycles between recognizing market signals and executing meaningful responses creates sustainable competitive advantage without sacrificing strategic discipline.
“Speed is really reducing the time between insight and action. The question I tend to ask is how long does it take an organization to actually recognize a market signal and turn it into a meaningful response?” DeVito said. “The goal is really responsiveness, not recklessness.”
In healthcare particularly, where regulatory changes can shift campaign parameters overnight, independent agencies convene decision-makers same-day rather than routing through legal, compliance, and regional oversight layers.
Silos contradict patient experience
Separate budgets, goals, and teams for brand awareness and performance conversion create organizational structures that contradict how patients actually experience healthcare marketing — as a single continuous journey rather than discrete siloed touchpoints.
“Patients don’t experience any of our marketing in those silos. They experience the experience, and that experience is the brand, and that experience is the launch,” DeVito said.
Measurement architecture designed around connected KPIs — linking early funnel signals to late funnel executions — naturally breaks down those silos more effectively than organizational mandates alone.
Leadership alignment preconditions conversion
Executives who understand brand affinity as a prerequisite for conversion rather than a soft metric separate from performance create the conditions for collapsing traditional upper and lower funnel distinctions.
“Brand investment rarely shows up in next quarter’s numbers. The brands that do really well have executives who really understand that affinity is a precondition for conversion. It’s not soft, it’s actually sequencing,” DeVito said. “The brands and the leadership alignment that always kind of had that in their DNA tend to be really, really exceptional at collapsing typical brand marketing and performance upper funnel with these lower funnel conversions.”
You’re watching The Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions 2026, presented by Swoop. For more videos from this series, please visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2026 here.
Patients arrive at medical appointments having already formed beliefs through TikTok rabbit holes, Reddit threads, and AI-generated health information — a behavioral shift that requires pharmaceutical brands to reshape how they think about the entire funnel, from upstream awareness through clinical conversion.
“The patient is no longer a passive recipient of any sort of information. They’re showing up having already formed some sort of a belief. And with AI, I feel even more empowered to believe that belief,” Amanda DeVito, CMO of Butler/Till, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “The brand is now in a conversation it didn’t start. The real question becomes how are you shaping that pre-conversation to the best of your ability?”
This dynamic intensifies pressure on both DTC and HCP marketing strategies, requiring credibility-building rather than awareness alone.
Independence enables structural problem-solving
Independent agencies build teams, technology stacks, and processes around specific client problems rather than routing decisions through layered organizational structures or protecting proprietary platforms built for standardization at scale.
“The independence piece means that we can really build the team, we can build the tech stack, we can build the process around the actual problem. We’re really just solving the problem. And that’s not a philosophical advantage anymore. That is actually a structural one,” DeVito said.
This structural flexibility becomes critical in complex categories like healthcare and emerging technology that resist standardized playbooks.
Speed reduces time between insight and action
Redefining speed away from simply moving faster toward shortening decision cycles between recognizing market signals and executing meaningful responses creates sustainable competitive advantage without sacrificing strategic discipline.
“Speed is really reducing the time between insight and action. The question I tend to ask is how long does it take an organization to actually recognize a market signal and turn it into a meaningful response?” DeVito said. “The goal is really responsiveness, not recklessness.”
In healthcare particularly, where regulatory changes can shift campaign parameters overnight, independent agencies convene decision-makers same-day rather than routing through legal, compliance, and regional oversight layers.
Silos contradict patient experience
Separate budgets, goals, and teams for brand awareness and performance conversion create organizational structures that contradict how patients actually experience healthcare marketing — as a single continuous journey rather than discrete siloed touchpoints.
“Patients don’t experience any of our marketing in those silos. They experience the experience, and that experience is the brand, and that experience is the launch,” DeVito said.
Measurement architecture designed around connected KPIs — linking early funnel signals to late funnel executions — naturally breaks down those silos more effectively than organizational mandates alone.
Leadership alignment preconditions conversion
Executives who understand brand affinity as a prerequisite for conversion rather than a soft metric separate from performance create the conditions for collapsing traditional upper and lower funnel distinctions.
“Brand investment rarely shows up in next quarter’s numbers. The brands that do really well have executives who really understand that affinity is a precondition for conversion. It’s not soft, it’s actually sequencing,” DeVito said. “The brands and the leadership alignment that always kind of had that in their DNA tend to be really, really exceptional at collapsing typical brand marketing and performance upper funnel with these lower funnel conversions.”
You’re watching The Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions 2026, presented by Swoop. For more videos from this series, please visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2026 here.
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