PFE: Chief of Marketing's New Order

Beth Snyder Bulik
Senior Editor

As Pfizer continues to transform its brand and business, advertising and media agency changes are next on its list.

The largest pharma company in the world is consolidating its agency relationships and, on Wednesday, Pfizer hired Publicis Groupe as its “global marketing engine” to head up media, technology and production functions, while Interpublic Group was named its lead creative partner.

The agency shake-up comes after Pfizer named its first chief marketing officer in August. Drew Panayiotou joined from Alphabet’s Verily Life Sciences, where he had been the healthtech company’s first chief marketing officer. Before that, Panayiotou served in a wide range of consumer marketing roles at the Coca-Cola Co., Best Buy, the Walt Disney Co., the Hershey Co. and Johnson & Johnson.

Panayiotou launched Pfizer’s agency review in February, putting incumbent Dentsu’s Carat media group and a broad group of creative agencies up for scrutiny. He hinted at the behind-the-scenes process about a month ago, writing in a LinkedIn post: “Coming from Big Tech to pharma has been fascinating. Doing a full agency review at scale has been equally fascinating for different reasons.”

Pfizer began its business transformation in 2019 before Panayiotou arrived in a bid to become more agile, innovative and science-driven. It adopted a new purpose statement at that time to create “breakthroughs that change patients’ lives.” However, it was the pandemic the next year that gave Pfizer the opportunity to live up to the pledge.

Panayiotou’s hire aimed to incorporate marketing in the transformation, and he’s been at the forefront since he joined, leaning into today’s technology and data-driven marketing.

In a recent blog post, Panayiotou said “the best marketing is high-touch and high-tech,” in explaining his vision for using data and technology to serve patients. He added that Pfizer needs to be “radically obsessed with the voice of the patients.”

After the agency selection was announced, he said in an email to Endpoints News:

One of the most important things we’re going to do at Pfizer is to innovate new ways to connect with patients and healthcare providers, reimagining the ways we help them to access our breakthrough therapies. The expertise that our growing marketing organization brings, combined with the capabilities of our agency partners will allow us to usher in the next generation of pharmaceutical marketing.

After the official end of the US public health emergency this month, Pfizer’s challenge is transitioning from the Covid-era record pace of vaccine and treatment development and distribution — with matching record earnings — to more typical times. While the company has dozens of new pipeline prospects — including an anticipated 19 launches in the next 18 months — plus the upcoming Seagen merger, it’s also facing exclusivity losses in the US on a handful of important brands including blood thinner Eliquis and breast cancer treatment Ibrance by 2030.