Pharma Marketers Say ‘Creepy’ Personalization Is Out – Context and Journey Are In
CANNES, France – Do you want to serve a physician a targeted ad based on their treatment of a current patient? Most pharma marketers know that’s a compliance violation waiting to happen. According to those Beet.TV spoke with, the key now is to target the context and the mindset, not the individual data point.
“Personalization does not mean I know exactly what you’re doing right now and I know exactly who you are,” said Oz Demir, CMO and head of digital marketing at Genentech, in a panel at the Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions. “It has to feel like it’s one-on-one and it has to feel relevant.”
The panel line-up:
- Oz Demir, CMO, Head of Digital Marketing, Genentech
- Baron Harper, GM, Business Development, Pharma, The Trade Desk
- Katie Carr, CRO, Swoop
Segments that never stand still
The mechanics of segmentation are changing faster than most marketing playbooks can keep up with. More data is available, data orchestration has improved, and lookalike modeling has become more sophisticated. But Demir cautioned against treating segmentation as a static exercise.
“The fact that you’re segment A today does not mean that you don’t move to B tomorrow,” he said. “I have to constantly use that data real time to understand, are you moving from here to here today because of what you either researched or engaged with, or did not interact with.” That real-time fluidity is where AI-driven orchestration earns its keep – not by replacing human judgment, but by processing signal volumes no analyst team could handle manually.
For Baron Harper, GM of business development for pharma at The Trade Desk, the opportunity is in ingesting those first-party signals and training models against them. “Brands understand the path to script better than we do,” he said.
“When we can use those signals, we can train the models to get really effective at giving them competitive advantage.” The Trade Desk recently introduced Kokai Zuma, the latest iteration of its Kokai platform, which adds agentic AI and simplified measurement tools designed to automate campaign changes and accelerate optimization — a direct expression of the orchestration logic Harper described.
The intelligence layer above the data stack
Katie Carr, CRO at Swoop, pushed the conversation upstream from activation to insight. Segmentation and measurement are table stakes, she argued – the real competitive edge lies in what she called an “intelligence layer” that answers strategic questions well before a drug ever reaches market. Only about one-third of drugs in development actually launch, she noted, which means the data gathered pre-launch can be decisive.
“How can you leverage our data to make those decisions sooner, better, and collect data during pre-launch so that you can make smarter decisions when you launch, so that you can then collect additional information and insights for smarter, better decisions all the way down to the cash register?” Carr said.
Swoop recently acquired Nimble, a prescription management platform serving 16 million patients across independent pharmacies in all 50 states, extending its data footprint from audience targeting through to prescription fulfillment and medication adherence.
AI is central to generating those insights at scale, Carr said, pointing to conversational signals from brand websites as one underutilized source. Tying those interactions back to real-world data, she argued, could sharpen decisions about creative, channel mix, and audience prioritization across the entire drug lifecycle.
HCPs are people who watch sports
One of the more grounded observations in the session came when the conversation turned to how physicians actually consume information. The instinct in pharma marketing is to treat healthcare providers as a professional audience reachable only through clinical channels – journal ads, rep visits, point-of-care placements. Demir pushed back on that assumption directly.
“These are human beings that make decisions 24 hours a day, not just in the office, not just during treatment,” he said. “They go home, they look at ESPN, they look at a World Cup game score, and they see a banner ad. Sometimes it triggers something for them.”
Harper echoed the point, citing YouGov survey data showing that almost half of HCPs recall pharma messaging encountered while listening to podcasts. “HCPs are just people too,” he said. “That’s kind of the way we try to operate.”
That human-first framing has implications for channel strategy. A Pew Research Center survey published in August 2026 found that 34% of Americans have used AI chatbots for at least one health or medical reason – a behavioral shift that Carr said is moving patients from a fragmented search journey toward a more guided, informative one.
That creates an opening for pharma marketers to provide clearer education at the moment of inquiry, she argued, rather than waiting for patients to find their way to a brand website. Meanwhile, Emarketer forecasts U.S. healthcare and pharma digital ad spending will reach $26.2 billion in 2026, with digital accounting for nearly 80% of total category spend as linear TV’s share continues to erode.
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.
CANNES, France – Do you want to serve a physician a targeted ad based on their treatment of a current patient? Most pharma marketers know that’s a compliance violation waiting to happen. According to those Beet.TV spoke with, the key now is to target the context and the mindset, not the individual data point.
“Personalization does not mean I know exactly what you’re doing right now and I know exactly who you are,” said Oz Demir, CMO and head of digital marketing at Genentech, in a panel at the Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions. “It has to feel like it’s one-on-one and it has to feel relevant.”
The panel line-up:
- Oz Demir, CMO, Head of Digital Marketing, Genentech
- Baron Harper, GM, Business Development, Pharma, The Trade Desk
- Katie Carr, CRO, Swoop
Segments that never stand still
The mechanics of segmentation are changing faster than most marketing playbooks can keep up with. More data is available, data orchestration has improved, and lookalike modeling has become more sophisticated. But Demir cautioned against treating segmentation as a static exercise.
“The fact that you’re segment A today does not mean that you don’t move to B tomorrow,” he said. “I have to constantly use that data real time to understand, are you moving from here to here today because of what you either researched or engaged with, or did not interact with.” That real-time fluidity is where AI-driven orchestration earns its keep – not by replacing human judgment, but by processing signal volumes no analyst team could handle manually.
For Baron Harper, GM of business development for pharma at The Trade Desk, the opportunity is in ingesting those first-party signals and training models against them. “Brands understand the path to script better than we do,” he said.
“When we can use those signals, we can train the models to get really effective at giving them competitive advantage.” The Trade Desk recently introduced Kokai Zuma, the latest iteration of its Kokai platform, which adds agentic AI and simplified measurement tools designed to automate campaign changes and accelerate optimization — a direct expression of the orchestration logic Harper described.
The intelligence layer above the data stack
Katie Carr, CRO at Swoop, pushed the conversation upstream from activation to insight. Segmentation and measurement are table stakes, she argued – the real competitive edge lies in what she called an “intelligence layer” that answers strategic questions well before a drug ever reaches market. Only about one-third of drugs in development actually launch, she noted, which means the data gathered pre-launch can be decisive.
“How can you leverage our data to make those decisions sooner, better, and collect data during pre-launch so that you can make smarter decisions when you launch, so that you can then collect additional information and insights for smarter, better decisions all the way down to the cash register?” Carr said.
Swoop recently acquired Nimble, a prescription management platform serving 16 million patients across independent pharmacies in all 50 states, extending its data footprint from audience targeting through to prescription fulfillment and medication adherence.
AI is central to generating those insights at scale, Carr said, pointing to conversational signals from brand websites as one underutilized source. Tying those interactions back to real-world data, she argued, could sharpen decisions about creative, channel mix, and audience prioritization across the entire drug lifecycle.
HCPs are people who watch sports
One of the more grounded observations in the session came when the conversation turned to how physicians actually consume information. The instinct in pharma marketing is to treat healthcare providers as a professional audience reachable only through clinical channels – journal ads, rep visits, point-of-care placements. Demir pushed back on that assumption directly.
“These are human beings that make decisions 24 hours a day, not just in the office, not just during treatment,” he said. “They go home, they look at ESPN, they look at a World Cup game score, and they see a banner ad. Sometimes it triggers something for them.”
Harper echoed the point, citing YouGov survey data showing that almost half of HCPs recall pharma messaging encountered while listening to podcasts. “HCPs are just people too,” he said. “That’s kind of the way we try to operate.”
That human-first framing has implications for channel strategy. A Pew Research Center survey published in August 2026 found that 34% of Americans have used AI chatbots for at least one health or medical reason – a behavioral shift that Carr said is moving patients from a fragmented search journey toward a more guided, informative one.
That creates an opening for pharma marketers to provide clearer education at the moment of inquiry, she argued, rather than waiting for patients to find their way to a brand website. Meanwhile, Emarketer forecasts U.S. healthcare and pharma digital ad spending will reach $26.2 billion in 2026, with digital accounting for nearly 80% of total category spend as linear TV’s share continues to erode.
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.
