Jonathan Chiriboga, Director of Marketing Innovation and Digital Excellence at AstraZeneca

[00:00:00] That was one of the big surprises I had coming into this industry of how the agency model is just so different than what I was used to.

[00:00:09] Welcome to The PharmaBrands Podcast. I'm your host, Neil Fallon.

[00:00:13] One of the things that I've loved most about spending almost 25 years in healthcare marketing is that people tend to really stick around.

[00:00:21] There's a passion for our industry that keeps people here, and there are opportunities that allow folks to move around without really having to leave the industry altogether.

[00:00:30] So that's why when I first met Jonathan Chiriboga at a conference almost four years ago, I was struck by the fact that he had just, and I mean just, come over from McDonald's of all places.

[00:00:43] Jon is now the Director of Marketing Innovation and Digital Excellence at AstraZeneca, and I was excited to sit down with him for this episode and catch up on his pharma journey.

[00:00:54] Thanks for joining us today, Jon.

[00:00:56] It's great to be here. Thank you.

[00:00:57] Let's start with Director of Marketing Innovation and Digital Excellence, because that's a big job title, and it could mean a lot of things.

[00:01:05] So what do you do?

[00:01:08] Well, I will say that my team is responsible for being the steward of the digital transformation within the organization.

[00:01:17] I would say that we're mainly responsible for customer engagement and customer experience from a digital perspective.

[00:01:24] And we support the brand teams with everything from email to web to paid media, and really just try to help them from a digital perspective on their projects.

[00:01:38] So I've been with AstraZeneca since 2020, so it's going to be five years in January, and it's been an amazing time.

[00:01:46] Where do you sit in the Venn diagram of kind of agency and brand leads on your side of the business at AZ?

[00:01:55] Are you at the table as a third party?

[00:01:58] Are you sort of behind the scenes helping to support and advocate internally?

[00:02:04] Do you work directly with the agency sometimes?

[00:02:07] Like, how do you fit into that mix?

[00:02:09] I would say we're definitely at the table, and we're there as a cross-functional partner to the brand marketing teams.

[00:02:16] So do we interact with the agency?

[00:02:19] Absolutely.

[00:02:20] We have conversations, and we put our voice out there and our opinion on what the best approach is.

[00:02:27] And again, it's there to support our brand marketers and making sure that we're all unified and we're doing the best thing for the strategy.

[00:02:37] And then we're there with the agency to help with the execution.

[00:02:40] I've spoken to other folks who kind of live in this world of a center of excellence, right, for example.

[00:02:48] So a digital center of excellence, for example.

[00:02:49] And they've described to me these scenarios where their internal stakeholders are sometimes divided into a couple of discrete groups.

[00:03:00] So folks who, if we just think about digital, folks who maybe are not as comfortable with digital or as adoptive.

[00:03:09] And for those folks, the exercise is to sort of support and kind of bring them in.

[00:03:15] So it's a bit of an outreach a little bit.

[00:03:18] And then there's this sort of second cohort that are often quite excited, maybe quite adoptive from a digital standpoint.

[00:03:26] And then the challenge there is to keep up or even kind of rein in at times and sort of put up some guardrails.

[00:03:35] So I have to imagine that your world is sort of split a little bit between helping to sort of prop up on some occasions and then being like an even like more of an accelerant or sometimes a bit of a break on other kind of folks or brands.

[00:03:48] Oh, absolutely.

[00:03:49] I mean, I think it would be naive to say that everyone is on board.

[00:03:54] I think that there are different people at different stages of the journey with us.

[00:04:01] You know, like you said, there are some that are super excited, super involved and super knowledgeable on where we're going.

[00:04:08] And then you have others who are more pessimistic or maybe just not ready yet.

[00:04:13] Or, you know, maybe some are set in their ways of how things have always been done.

[00:04:18] And so that's the thing about a digital transformation is that you have to assess where everyone is at and then try to gather those digital champions to move the agenda forward.

[00:04:31] But it's definitely something that I have learned in my previous life.

[00:04:35] And now I'm applying it here in a new industry that, you know, yes, I've been here for five years.

[00:04:42] But when I first started, it was it was a new industry and it was another opportunity for me to apply what I learned previously into into the pharma industry.

[00:04:52] So it's been a journey.

[00:04:54] You know, you're going to have advocates and you're going to have people who are still not all the way there.

[00:04:59] But I think that's what makes the journey fun.

[00:05:01] And you have to mix it up a little bit sometimes.

[00:05:05] There's a lot of folks in the healthcare vertical who are almost lifers, right?

[00:05:10] Have been here for a long time, have grown up in the space, have moved, you know, through roles and, you know, through sales and marketing and back to sales.

[00:05:17] You're not a healthcare lifer.

[00:05:20] You have a really interesting background sort of pre-AZ.

[00:05:25] Maybe talk a little bit about what you did kind of pre-2020.

[00:05:28] And then just as a spoiler, I'm going to ask you what it was like to transition into such a different kind of vertical.

[00:05:37] So what did you do pre-2020?

[00:05:38] Yeah, I mean, I grew up in my career in the CRM and the digital space, working for a lot of different companies and also did some agency stints as well.

[00:05:52] And for me, digital and CRM was always my passion.

[00:05:56] And in my career, sometimes I've jumped to organizations where I have no business being because I don't know anything about it.

[00:06:04] But I think that's where I've had to learn.

[00:06:09] And, you know, sometimes when I tell people where I've worked, they laugh because, you know, some of these companies, it's like, wow, you know nothing about power tools, yet you worked at the Home Depot.

[00:06:20] But, you know, you learn.

[00:06:21] And the thing about marketing is if you have a strong marketing skill set, you can apply that, I would say, to any industry or almost any industry.

[00:06:30] So previous to AstraZeneca, I worked at a brand that was very close to my heart as a child.

[00:06:39] Growing up, we didn't have a lot.

[00:06:42] And, you know, we didn't go to Disneyland or anything like that because we just couldn't afford it.

[00:06:46] So McDonald's was my Disneyland.

[00:06:49] And we didn't go often.

[00:06:51] But when we went, boy, did we have fun.

[00:06:53] And boy, was I excited.

[00:06:54] So in 2015, I got a call to join a global organization who was ready to start their digital transformation.

[00:07:03] And that perked up my ears.

[00:07:05] And when I asked who it was, they said McDonald's.

[00:07:09] And I was like, sign me up.

[00:07:10] I'm on board.

[00:07:11] I'm in.

[00:07:11] I'm in.

[00:07:12] I'm in.

[00:07:13] Exactly.

[00:07:13] So I want to go down one of those big slides again.

[00:07:15] Yeah, exactly.

[00:07:17] Exactly.

[00:07:17] It was an opportunity to work on like a childhood brand that just is so close to my heart.

[00:07:23] And so I joined and it was a very small team.

[00:07:27] It was almost like a little bit of a digital incubator of some sorts.

[00:07:32] You know, we were kind of like a startup within the organization.

[00:07:35] And I learned what digital transformation meant.

[00:07:41] And I learned about how to convince someone why digital was important.

[00:07:48] I got to work with the different marketing teams that, you know, were doing some digital prior to us getting there.

[00:07:55] But they were really focused on kind of the tried and true, which was TV and out of home and print and radio.

[00:08:04] And then I got to interact with franchisees.

[00:08:07] And that was a really interesting experience, too, because they only believe in channels that are in their world.

[00:08:13] And in their neighborhood.

[00:08:14] Exactly.

[00:08:14] Exactly.

[00:08:14] And some of them were just, you know, they didn't know what YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat were.

[00:08:20] Right.

[00:08:20] So introducing them to that as well was so.

[00:08:24] So I learned a ton and the team was in charge of launching the McDonald's app, which is now an app that is very successful and hopefully on the phones of many Canadians.

[00:08:38] And there's ordering and there's loyalty and all that good stuff.

[00:08:40] And so we launched that.

[00:08:42] And so a lot of that learning and a lot of the work that I did, I got to bring with me to AstraZeneca.

[00:08:48] And it's interesting to see it in another vertical.

[00:08:53] But, you know, some of the same things that I saw still apply and still are there.

[00:09:00] I would say the major difference, though, is at McDonald's when I got there, people were more resistant to digital and they didn't get it.

[00:09:07] They didn't understand it.

[00:09:08] When I landed at AstraZeneca, they understood it.

[00:09:11] They just were asking me, how do we get there?

[00:09:14] So that was kind of the big difference.

[00:09:15] You know, when I think maybe about a local franchisee or, you know, even some of these big projects, I know that some organizations and I've experienced it to sort of struggle with what is the ROI, right?

[00:09:29] Quote unquote, on tactic X or project X or initiative Y.

[00:09:33] And that's especially true, I think, for digital when digital is adding complementary channels to things that I've already done before.

[00:09:40] Or, you know, what did you have to do at McDonald's to convince some of those folks who are skeptics about the value of some of these projects?

[00:09:49] And then has it been sort of similar at AZ where you've had some of those questions around, we think this makes sense, but we want to quantify it in a way that sometimes is really difficult to quantify when you're doing new work?

[00:10:02] Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, my favorite question, right?

[00:10:05] What is the ROI?

[00:10:08] We as digital marketers get that all the time.

[00:10:11] And, you know, sometimes I feel like it's unfair because they don't ask that question to any of the other kind of traditional channels that they've been used to doing or like maybe they do, but they are not as meticulous.

[00:10:23] But it just seems like whenever it comes to digital, they just drive that question even more.

[00:10:29] I would say at McDonald's, it was, yeah, that question came up a lot, you know, especially when you're developing an app and launching an app that has offers on it.

[00:10:38] Offers that are being funded by the franchisees, right?

[00:10:42] Yeah.

[00:10:42] And they're like, well, you're taking money out of my pocket.

[00:10:44] What am I getting for it?

[00:10:47] And I remember a conversation to the franchisees.

[00:10:53] I remember I had to do this really big presentation in front of the franchisee kind of board.

[00:10:58] And it was about like, you know, maybe like 200 of them.

[00:11:03] And I walked them through the vision.

[00:11:05] I walked them through the strategy.

[00:11:07] I walked them through the why.

[00:11:09] And then at the very end, I had to almost do like a little bit of a rally call to all of them and say, you know, do you want to be like Blockbuster or Kodak?

[00:11:20] Or do you want to be like Tesla and Netflix?

[00:11:25] And they just kind of resonated with that.

[00:11:27] And I said to them, this is going to require an investment.

[00:11:32] And I think sometimes people don't understand that in a transformation.

[00:11:36] You hear about that at Amazon.

[00:11:37] You hear about that at other places.

[00:11:39] And I think it's hard to hear when you're sitting on the other side.

[00:11:42] I get it.

[00:11:43] But some of these things require an investment and you need to make that investment before you see the return.

[00:11:49] And so that's what I was preaching early days at McDonald's.

[00:11:54] And I think where we landed and where they are now, like I think the app was a crucial part of their strategy when COVID hit.

[00:12:05] If they didn't have that, you know, that would have been a really, really, really bad thing for them.

[00:12:10] So thank goodness they all bought in in 2015, 2016 when we launched and we did that.

[00:12:17] But, you know, I think ROI comes in different shapes and in different forms, right?

[00:12:22] Like even now in pharma, when we talk about ROI, you know, do we always just have to go to scripts?

[00:12:30] Or can ROI also be, hey, we've engaged the field force to use digital assets more.

[00:12:37] And we've engaged them to do X or Y that is moving things along to finally get to that script lift.

[00:12:45] But like I remember being in a meeting with someone from the U.S. and they were saying to me, you know, ROI, like there's ROI in taking the football from, you know, one part of the field to almost the end zone.

[00:12:57] It just always doesn't have to be a touchdown every single time for the ROI to be maximized.

[00:13:02] Those little incremental plays that move you closer to the end zone, there's ROI in that.

[00:13:09] What was it like going from a McDonald's to an AZ and what prompted?

[00:13:14] Did you just kind of run your course at McDonald's and were looking for the next challenge?

[00:13:18] What brought you over to AZ?

[00:13:19] And then what was it like to get inside a really heavily regulated industry?

[00:13:24] Yeah, it was another phone call again.

[00:13:30] And the recruiter was telling me, you know, we have a brand that is wanting to go through another digital transformation and would you be interested?

[00:13:39] And I said, yeah, because I really enjoy the building part, like the digital transformation piece.

[00:13:46] I know maybe some people don't enjoy it because you got to go back and you got to build.

[00:13:52] But I love the building piece.

[00:13:53] And so when I asked, okay, who's the brand?

[00:13:57] And the recruiter said, AstraZeneca.

[00:14:01] And I said, who's that?

[00:14:04] And you said Astra, who?

[00:14:05] I said, who's that?

[00:14:08] What industry is that?

[00:14:09] And then they explained, oh, it's in pharmaceuticals and things like that.

[00:14:14] And I had no idea.

[00:14:16] Like, I didn't know anything about that world.

[00:14:19] And I, my brother was a pharmaceutical sales rep.

[00:14:23] And so maybe I had a little bit of exposure via just having conversations with him about his experience there.

[00:14:30] But I honestly, like, again, I go back to like, sometimes I enter into industries I have no business being in.

[00:14:38] And I went through the interview process.

[00:14:41] And I had my boss who was, who was going to be my boss.

[00:14:46] She had sat me down.

[00:14:48] We had a great conversation.

[00:14:50] And, you know, thank goodness she was looking for someone with kind of outside experience.

[00:14:54] But at the same time, a little bit of that is a risk because one is, and when I'm interviewing people from the outside, bringing them into pharma, it's like, are they going to like it?

[00:15:04] You know, can they persevere through some of the obstacles that we have in this industry?

[00:15:10] So I was really grateful to her for taking a chance on me.

[00:15:14] And when I came in, I remember sitting down with her at our status meetings.

[00:15:18] And she always, always reminded me, she's like, stay who you are.

[00:15:23] Don't conform to us.

[00:15:24] Like we brought you in here because you had outside experience.

[00:15:28] So don't, don't transform to how we are.

[00:15:30] Like you need to change us.

[00:15:32] And I was like, okay.

[00:15:33] Continue to be like a challenger brand.

[00:15:35] Yeah.

[00:15:36] Yeah.

[00:15:36] Exactly.

[00:15:37] Exactly.

[00:15:37] And so what were some of the early, you know, the early items on that digital transformation to-do list as you, as you came over into, into AZ?

[00:15:47] Like kind of what level of adoption or readiness was the organization at?

[00:15:51] Because by, by 2020, lots of folks and brands on the industry side had lots of stuff.

[00:15:57] That stuff wasn't always optimized.

[00:16:00] So was it a, we need some stuff or we need to make our stuff better?

[00:16:06] I think it was a little bit of both.

[00:16:07] I mean, I came in January, 2020, right.

[00:16:11] And the great thing about that time period was that global AstraZeneca had a team and was getting on board.

[00:16:19] Awesome.

[00:16:19] And so I started global starts and now we're walking together and I had global experience working at McDonald's because it was a global brand.

[00:16:28] So I had experience working with global teams and I knew what I was getting myself into.

[00:16:32] So the first thing out of the gate, which, you know, for the last five years, every pharma company has been doing, I think, you know, is the buzzword omni-channel.

[00:16:42] Yeah.

[00:16:42] And so, okay, we're going to get into omni-channel and we need to teach the organization how to do that.

[00:16:47] Let's get started.

[00:16:48] Let's get started.

[00:16:49] So that's kind of like the first thing on my plate.

[00:16:52] Right.

[00:16:52] And then we had some kind of a digital literacy program, right.

[00:16:56] Trying to teach people about digital and moving that forward.

[00:16:59] But, you know, the biggest lever in our digital transformation had to be COVID.

[00:17:03] I'm sure for every single industry.

[00:17:05] Yeah.

[00:17:06] You need a digital transformation tool.

[00:17:08] Well, you have it right there.

[00:17:09] And so then you start to build email consent and you start to get that database up and rolling.

[00:17:16] You start to form an email program and send out emails.

[00:17:21] But, you know, one of the things that I learned really quickly when I got there was people didn't understand how to respect the channel.

[00:17:30] Yeah.

[00:17:30] And email, I used to see things across my desk where they would take a PDF, shove it in an email template and off we go.

[00:17:38] And that's not how we need to do things from a design standpoint, from a user experience standpoint.

[00:17:45] And so, you know, I had to go back and work with them on what are best, you know, design practices for email, what are best user experience practices for email and start to just educate the organization on that.

[00:17:58] And so, you know, off we went and now five years later, you know, we're doing some amazing things and people understand what it is that we have to do.

[00:18:08] But it's been a journey for sure.

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[00:18:59] I think there's so much work sometimes in the pharma industry to get stuff out the door, working with your agency and regulatory.

[00:19:07] And there's such a relief to just sort of have this thing done that thinking about what happens when it goes out the door, sometimes it can almost be like a bridge too far.

[00:19:18] It's like, we got this thing done.

[00:19:19] Like, what are you talking about?

[00:19:20] How's it going to land?

[00:19:21] So having somebody that's got the perspective that you do who can come in and say, okay, great.

[00:19:27] Getting it done is amazing.

[00:19:28] How do we get it done right, better, et cetera?

[00:19:31] Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:32] No, I totally resonate with that.

[00:19:34] And, you know, I think over the last year, I would say, you know, I've been talking within the organization a lot about customer experience, right?

[00:19:43] Which is what you're talking about.

[00:19:44] Like, what is that customer experience with the HCP when AstraZeneca walks through the door?

[00:19:50] And, you know, like, is there coordination and orchestration between the rep and then everything else that happens around that?

[00:19:59] And so I always tell my team, and I've been saying this since I got there, is why can't we deliver an experience like those brands outside in different verticals?

[00:20:10] Like, why can't we deliver a pharma experience like a Starbucks or like a McDonald's or like a retailer like Home Depot, right?

[00:20:17] Like, at the end of the day, HCPs are human beings and they shop at these other retailers and they experience these other things with brands.

[00:20:25] And so we strive to deliver an exceptional customer experience where we can surprise and delight our HCPs within the boundaries that we can do that.

[00:20:35] But, you know, I'm constantly pushing for the organization to think about the customer experience.

[00:20:41] And what does that look like?

[00:20:43] Like, you know, something else that I just want to mention, too, was around sometimes people within the organization will say, well, you know, digital is great, but, you know, I'd rather focus on the rep.

[00:20:56] And my answer back is always, well, why does it have to be that or that?

[00:21:02] Why can't it be that and that?

[00:21:04] Like, you know, digital here is meant to complement what the rep is doing.

[00:21:08] It's not meant to compete.

[00:21:09] And so when we were doing this at McDonald's, the restaurant, the brick and mortar, right, that is the central kind of part of the experience.

[00:21:18] And all these things that we were doing was to just augment that, that experience.

[00:21:23] So we, we, we had the app, then we got into partnerships with Uber Eats and Skip the Dishes and had ordering.

[00:21:30] And then when you walk into a restaurant, you would walk in and interact with these digital touchscreens to order your food, right?

[00:21:38] Like, these are all different things that we built from a technology standpoint to augment your restaurant experience or to augment your experience with McDonald's.

[00:21:47] And so that's kind of the mindset that we're also trying to do at AstraZeneca is, is using digital augment the rep experience, or if the rep can't be there, then have a digital stream and try to surprise and delight in that, you know, digital direct stream.

[00:22:03] You've mentioned omni-channel a couple of times, you know, you mentioned Starbucks and Starbucks to me feels like a pretty classic omni-channel example, right?

[00:22:11] You've got physical stories, you've got, you know, an app that's geolocated and I order on my app, but then I go to my physical store and my name's on my coffee and I grab my coffee.

[00:22:20] And when I leave the store, my app gets updated with my points and my, you know, my CRM is tied to, you know, my geography and what my purchasing habits are.

[00:22:28] Like, that's a pretty integrated omni-channel experience.

[00:22:31] But in firma, there's, there's a, there's a whole bunch of barriers that would hold a band, a brand back from having as tightly integrated an omni-channel experience.

[00:22:44] So what's your definition of what really great omni-channel might look like for a brand in firma?

[00:22:51] And it doesn't even need to be a, this is what we're doing for brand X at Astra.

[00:22:55] But people talk about omni so much, like what is the holy grail, you know, in your view of an omni program in pharma?

[00:23:03] The holy grail.

[00:23:04] And this is something that we have started doing in the last two years or two years and a half.

[00:23:10] But the holy grail is not just focusing omni-channel on the commercial side of the business, but also looking at the medical side of the business.

[00:23:18] And because when you look at holistically, you know, the customer experiences the medical side and, and, and gets the science.

[00:23:29] And then, you know, they get the commercial side where we talk about brand.

[00:23:34] And so if you can figure out how to coordinate it in a compliant way, but, and, and where things are shared compliantly, but that it feels like a unified experience.

[00:23:47] And you feel like the, like the company understands what you need and respects your time and is sending you things that are personalized according to what you're looking for and meets you where you're at.

[00:24:07] I think the coordination orchestration of all of that is the holy grail.

[00:24:11] And so we've been, we've been trying to focus on that.

[00:24:15] But again, you have to do it in a way that is compliant, right?

[00:24:19] There's certain things that you can't share.

[00:24:22] There are certain things that even between medical and commercial that you can't share.

[00:24:26] There's two stakeholder groups that don't often connect really tightly, medical and commercial.

[00:24:32] There's a technology lift there.

[00:24:34] There's internal challenges to navigate, to try to, how to get one program to work through all of those, those groups.

[00:24:40] For sure.

[00:24:41] For sure.

[00:24:41] And, and from a medical standpoint too, like I've, I've had to go through and educate myself and be educated on, on what role they play.

[00:24:49] And they, you know, the big play with medical is they have to keep their integrity, right?

[00:24:54] Like they're not in it to sell anything.

[00:24:56] And the HCP has to be confident that medical is there from a medical perspective.

[00:25:00] So I totally get it.

[00:25:01] I totally understand.

[00:25:02] At the same time, it's a holistic experience for the HCP.

[00:25:07] And so I think we're just trying to figure out how we're going to do that compliantly and what that looks like on the end of the HCP.

[00:25:17] You mentioned your team a couple of times.

[00:25:19] What does your team look like?

[00:25:21] Oh, my team has gone through, I would say a little bit of an evolution over the five years that I've been with the company.

[00:25:27] And now where we're at is, you know, I have some team members that are, you know, digital customer engagement managers.

[00:25:34] And they're responsible for, you know, partnering with the brand teams and helping them from an end to end perspective when it comes from anything from omnichannel all the way to digital execution.

[00:25:45] And then I, when I came in, I wanted to bring in a product manager.

[00:25:51] And when I mean product manager, I don't mean like product brand, but product technology.

[00:25:56] And so, you know, I brought in a product manager and now I have two of them and they serve the business and they're responsible for being those subject matter experts when it comes to technology and innovation.

[00:26:08] And they're out there hunting for the next innovation and now they're there working with generative AI and helping us to figure out what that's going to do for the organization.

[00:26:20] So, and then I have a digital governance and operations manager to help us with the governance of all of these different elements and that we are, we are doing things properly and that things are documented.

[00:26:33] And so when, if we ever get audited, you know, or when we get audited, you know, everything is in place.

[00:26:40] We have the right SOPs and, and that everything runs just efficiently from, from, from an operational standpoint, but making sure you have proper digital governance, that's, that's key.

[00:26:50] And so I wanted to make sure I had a role on my team that was focused on that.

[00:26:55] And you mentioned Gen AI in there, you know, where are you guys on the, on the adoption?

[00:27:00] How are you using it?

[00:27:01] Where do you see it fitting?

[00:27:04] Whatever I'll say in the next year, because five years out is probably a little bit long, but, but what's your view on how Gen AI is going to change the way, you know, you, your team or AZ is kind of creating and doing business.

[00:27:18] Yeah.

[00:27:18] I would say it's very early days and we need to ramp up this quickly, but I would say that, you know, I think the theme of 2025 for everyone is going to be efficiency.

[00:27:29] Everyone's working with their budgets and, and whether they've been lowered or not, they need to find efficiencies and how they do things.

[00:27:36] And, you know, we're trying to figure out how can generative AI help us to potentially reduce costs to get things to market faster.

[00:27:45] But, you know, we're working closely and, and actually I, um, I joined a working group, uh, with PAB.

[00:27:52] Um, there's a couple of industry people that have joined this working team with PAB and we're, we're, we're, we're talking about it.

[00:27:59] And, and I'm just so happy that PAB kind of reached out and wanted to form a working team because, you know, they're a huge player in our industry.

[00:28:08] And so if they're, if they're working on it, you know, we'd love to help them because at the end of the day, they help us.

[00:28:14] So how can we work together to find some solutions so that we can bring things to market a lot quicker?

[00:28:21] Yeah, that's really interesting.

[00:28:23] Interesting.

[00:28:23] And I think it's in this industry, especially, I think it's going to sort of take a village to, to, to, to, to raise AI.

[00:28:29] It will.

[00:28:30] Yeah.

[00:28:30] So, you know, you mentioned that 2025 being about efficiency and earlier in the conversation, you're talking about, you know, how you and your team are situated sort of amongst the agencies that are, that are partnering.

[00:28:42] What would you like to see more of from the agency partners in general that are servicing the healthcare industry?

[00:28:52] Like, what are you seeing that you're liking?

[00:28:53] And is there an area where you, you know, you'd just, you'd, you'd love to see agencies come to the table with, with more of X or less of Y.

[00:29:01] You know, I will say that that was one of the big surprises I had coming into this industry of how the agency model is just so different than what I was used to.

[00:29:11] How so?

[00:29:11] Well, I mean, like at McDonald's, like at McDonald's, there was one creative agency.

[00:29:17] Yeah.

[00:29:18] And there was one media agency.

[00:29:21] Yeah.

[00:29:21] And they work together to bring proposals to the McDonald's brand marketing team or to my team.

[00:29:30] And, and it's just, it's just built differently.

[00:29:33] I don't know.

[00:29:33] It's just, it's, it's when, when I, when I came to this industry, you know, multiple agencies using multiple media agencies.

[00:29:41] And, and sometimes they weren't working together.

[00:29:44] And how do you.

[00:29:46] Sometimes, and sometimes multiple, sorry to interrupt, but sometimes multiple agencies on a single brand.

[00:29:50] Yeah.

[00:29:51] Yeah.

[00:29:51] Yeah.

[00:29:51] And so, and so how do you build a cohesive plan?

[00:29:55] And how do you bring that to the, to the farmer organization?

[00:29:58] If everyone's kind of doing their own thing in a siloed way.

[00:30:01] And so those are things that I think early days I was trying to figure out and, and trying to see how I can streamline some things.

[00:30:11] And, but, you know, I think, I think from an agency perspective too, like sometimes some of these agencies are, I would say they're like, oh, we can't do much because we're in a regulated field.

[00:30:23] And I would love for that attitude to change.

[00:30:25] Like I would love for some of these agencies to come in with ideas, you know, and, and come and say, hey, we've looked at the different rules and barriers we have, but we found a way of how we can do this, but compliantly.

[00:30:37] So, you know, I think, I think there are some of those agencies that are definitely doing that.

[00:30:41] And, and those agencies are definitely appreciated.

[00:30:43] And then others, you know, maybe are, maybe could do better at bringing some more innovative thinking to, to our industry, you know?

[00:30:51] Yeah.

[00:30:51] I think, I think that peripheral vision of, of what are marketing best practices and how can we get the most out of those within healthcare versus, well, we can only do X in healthcare, right?

[00:31:03] That's, it's just, it's, it's kind of a different mindset.

[00:31:05] Exactly.

[00:31:06] Okay.

[00:31:07] You know, maybe this is a bit of a controversial question.

[00:31:11] Sure.

[00:31:11] But there's a pretty significant shift that, like, I think it's been going on for a while, but it's something I hear more and more about.

[00:31:21] I was just talking to someone out of the U.S. who's, who's, who's sort of fully adopted this model.

[00:31:26] And I know that other industries are a bit ahead of the game, which is that the concept of the internal agency where, you know, I'm seeing more organizations start to build up.

[00:31:36] You know, you're seeing more of internal capabilities.

[00:31:38] You know, you're seeing more of internal capabilities, maybe not to deliver like the big DTC TV campaign, but, you know, almost internal studios.

[00:31:45] Is there been, you know, is that on your radar at all?

[00:31:48] Like, what are your thoughts about the, you know, maybe the benefits or the, or the drawbacks of starting to build up internal capabilities in an organization?

[00:31:56] And maybe you've seen it in, in your, in your past life.

[00:31:59] Maybe you're seeing it now, but give me your thoughts on that whole concept of the, of the internal agency or internal studio.

[00:32:05] There are pros and cons to both models.

[00:32:08] I mean, I've worked in the agency space, so I kind of consider myself an agency guy at times too.

[00:32:15] So, you know, I think there are, there's definitely a lot of value that an external agency brings to the table.

[00:32:22] Um, there's a lot of thinking, like creative thinking and innovative ideas that they bring.

[00:32:29] They contribute to the strategy and really support the brand marketing teams tremendously.

[00:32:34] So I don't want to take anything away from them.

[00:32:37] There's definitely a valuable part that they play in making this all happen.

[00:32:41] Um, to your, um, kind of question around like this internal agency model.

[00:32:47] I mean, I'm not sure.

[00:32:49] I, like, I still think, you know, there are a lot of pros maybe to that model as well.

[00:32:53] Right.

[00:32:53] There's, you know, if you can, if you can have an internal agency do it, you can, you know, take those tasks and those costs away from an external agency.

[00:33:01] But I think there are some drawbacks there as well, because you don't like, are you losing the strategic voice or maybe the agency plays a different, a different, uh, they play a different role, right?

[00:33:13] Maybe the agency focuses more on strategy.

[00:33:15] The internal agency does more of the output.

[00:33:19] I can, I can, I can tell you, um, that there's pros and cons to both.

[00:33:22] And, uh, right now that's not something that we're, that we're looking at.

[00:33:27] I think we're looking at how to build better agency relationships and, and how to push our agencies to do more.

[00:33:35] I think that, I think it's interesting either way, whichever way you go, but I don't think there's a silver bullet on this.

[00:33:42] I think, I think you have to look at the pros and the cons, evaluate that in your model and see, and see what you, what you think will work best for, for the organization.

[00:33:54] A thousand percent.

[00:33:55] I, I surely, you know, that question wasn't leading to what I thought was an obvious answer.

[00:33:59] There's it is, it's really complex and I find it interesting.

[00:34:02] I surely don't talk to anybody who's contemplating or is in the process of standing up an internal team who says, oh, wow, this is great.

[00:34:10] And so much better.

[00:34:11] Like there's, there's, there's challenges on both sides.

[00:34:13] And I do think to your point, there is, and look, like I've only been an agency guy, so, uh, I'm pretty biased, but, but I think there is a huge spot.

[00:34:22] It should, and can remain a huge spot for the right creative agency partner or the right technology agency partner, for sure.

[00:34:29] Absolutely.

[00:34:30] John, this has been an amazing conversation.

[00:34:32] I feel like I've, you've, you've taken me on the journey from the McDonald's app to today's Omni channel.

[00:34:37] So I appreciate all that you've shared in the last, uh, little while in this conversation.

[00:34:42] And, um, with all this stuff that you've got going on, I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to talk to us today.

[00:34:47] Absolutely.

[00:34:47] Well, thank you for having me.

[00:34:48] I really appreciated the discussion.

[00:34:52] Hi, it's me again.

[00:34:54] As some of you know, our next conference, Creativity Now, is taking place on November 26th here in Toronto.

[00:35:00] This is going to be unlike any firm, a conference you've been to.

[00:35:03] I can guarantee you that this one's all about showing the work, sharing case studies and telling stories about how brand leaders and marketers went from insight to execution.

[00:35:14] Early bird prices end this week.

[00:35:16] So check out pharma brands.ca for the agenda and to get your ticket.

[00:35:20] And while you're online, head over to metrics group.com and learn more about our amazing partner metrics.

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