How AI Is Transforming Healthcare Marketing, Starting With Trust

Cliff Covey: I think trust is absolutely critical. We’re in a world where patient privacy and data are forefront.

Jeanniey Walden: I’ve got Cliff Covey with me. I’m so excited to have you on the show, because we’re going to get down into the specifics around healthcare and pharmacy.

Cliff Covey: I’ve been in healthcare 20 years, almost my entire career in the pharma space, and I’m incredibly excited about the transformation in AI and the impact we’re going to have on patients’ lives.

Jeanniey Walden: That’s exactly what I want to talk to you about. Let’s talk about AI and what’s happening with it as it relates to the healthcare industry, because there must be so many positive opportunities to impact everybody’s life.

Cliff Covey: I am incredibly excited. There’s obviously a lot of trepidation in the world about AI and the impact it’s going to have on our lives. But I think we should approach AI from a healthcare standpoint with enthusiasm. It’s going to create exciting and innovative medicines, but from a media standpoint, I’m incredibly excited about the impact it’s going to have on our collective health, the ability to transform doctor-patient conversations and meet patients where they are. Pharma has a reputation of pushing ads at people, we all see the same 30, 60, 90 second ads. But what’s most exciting is the ability to take healthcare data and patient data and create meaningful experiences about where patients are in their journey.

Jeanniey Walden: With the companies you work with, and I imagine you work with so many in healthcare and pharma, where do you see AI giving them a huge push forward into more positive results, from a marketing and branding perspective, from a customer trust and advocacy perspective, and from an educational perspective on what the customer asks the doctor?

Cliff Covey: I think you hit the nail on the head with trust. Trust is absolutely critical. We’re in a world where patient privacy and data are forefront, so it’s not just on agencies, it’s on the entire industry to get this right, because it’s a lot harder to ruin a reputation than to gain it back. From a data standpoint, we’ve long worked in very siloed data sets: patient data, prescription data, rep data, and none of it really speaks to each other. AI is going to give us the ability to bring all of that together and action it in real time. This was previously unmanageable data, and being able to action it in real time is going to be incredibly impactful and serve those meaningful experiences.

Jeanniey Walden: I know you’re working with AudiencePath to leverage their AI-powered signals and mirror technology to identify the meaning in the moment. That must be such a different approach from what you’ve been able to legally do in the past, identifying people based on what they’re watching, understanding their interests, and being available for them when they need you most.

Cliff Covey: Completely. It’s transformational. We’ve historically dealt with healthcare-modeled audiences based on claims data: this looks like a group of people who look like patients with a specific condition. That can be very dated data. AudiencePath’s ability to give us signals in real time that patients may be experiencing symptoms or may have a condition gives us the opportunity to reach them in the moments that matter most and drive them to the doctor to talk about their symptoms. And from the HCP perspective, there are 5,000-plus pieces of literature published daily. It’s impossible for a doctor to keep up. We’re seeing LLMs developed with HCPs at the forefront. If we can meet a patient when they’re experiencing a symptom and educate a doctor, that creates meaningful conversations and ultimately much better health outcomes.

Jeanniey Walden: You’ve been in healthcare 20 years. You probably sit at conferences and see things from retail, tech, or fintech and think, I wish we could do that. What can you steal from other industries now that you’ve got a little more leniency with AI?

Cliff Covey: I think creative. We need to make sure our creative is fair-balanced and accurately represents the clinical trials, but the ability to adapt that creative to the patient and their journey is key. Someone just diagnosed with lung cancer is in a very different spot than someone who’s had it for four or five years, and we shouldn’t give them the same message in the same channels. It’s not one-size-fits-all. Other industries can adapt their creative much more. The word personalization isn’t my favorite, but a much more personalized way to meet patients where it matters most, that’s what I’m really excited about.

Jeanniey Walden: Everything you’re doing at CMI is fantastic, and I can’t wait to see how you’re bringing all these brands and activations to life.

Cliff Covey: We’re very excited. We love the clients we work with. We have a strong tenure at CMI, it’s a great team, and we’re very excited about the future of the health space.

Jeanniey Walden: Thanks so much for being on Liftoff.

Cliff Covey: Thank you so much.

Jeanniey Walden: And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Liftoff. I don’t know about you, but I am inspired. Follow us at Liftoff Show on every social channel, and make sure you catch our next episode.