Fresh from the NEXT Pharma Summit in Dubrovnik, I’ve reflected on some of the highlight talks, moments and key messages from this year’s event. The spotlight was firmly on AI, with a strong thread of customer focus running throughout.
Here are some of my highlights from the summit:
Helpful content, not disguised messaging
My main take away from the event was that I hope AI’s impact on marketing will be that it makes companies and brands create truly helpful content; not just the message they want to share disguised as helpful content. It’s a sentiment that resonated with much of what was discussed at the event: a renewed emphasis on usefulness, clarity and putting the audience first; whether that audience is a patient or a healthcare professional (HCP).
There were a number of talks that sparked fresh thinking and reinforced the importance of strategic, human-first marketing. So what were they all about?
SEO is not dead; it’s the starting point for a user-first strategy.
Matt Lowe and Harry Sklavounos gave a powerful talk about the role of SEO in pharma. They made it clear that search is still the best foundation for any user-first strategy, obviously a message we fully support at Varn Health.
Blending creativity, data and process.
Dan Buckland and Lee Simms gave a sharp reminder of the power of combining data, creative thinking, and defined processes; especially when using hyper-local data to improve campaign performance.
Smarter digital strategy and improving experience.
Rob Verheul and Roeland van der Heiden delivered an important talk for any big business with a complicated digital portfolio. They showed how they can save over 75% of the cost of your web portfolio while delivering a best-in-class customer experience.
Cross-functional leadership matters.
Erica Taylor, Ph.D. shared the importance of building teams with broad, cross-functional experience which was a much-needed reminder in an industry often siloed by specialism.
AI: fear it or manage it.
Marco Andre offered an engaging and honest assessment of the AI landscape: you can either fear it or manage it; but ignoring it is not an option.
Moving from push to pull.
Wayne Simmons championed and encouraged a shift in mindset no matter what your industry: from campaign-led ‘push’ marketing to ‘always-on’, customer-centric strategies that meet people where they are.
Don’t lose the human.
Alyssa Fenoglio underscored the importance of human-first thinking in marketing, supported by powerful case studies.
My final reflection: always focus on the customer
As Dario Safaric said in his opening keynote at NEXT: “Always focus on the customer.” It’s a deceptively simple idea; but one that is too often forgotten. Across every session, and every conversation at NEXT, that principle remained clear: AI is only valuable when it’s in service of something real, useful and human.
Still have questions?
Get in touch with our team to discuss AI search and how it might affect your pharma business.
