Rethinking Omnichannel Marketing in Pharma: A Conversation with Nico Renner

Omnichannel marketing in the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most discussed topics right now, which leaves us wondering: is it overhyped?

To answer the question, Nataliya Andreychyk, the CEO of Viseven, hosted the episode of Pharma Talks with Nico Renner**, a product manager at BeOnes Medicines and a pharma marketeer with unique insights to share, during which they discussed the importance of omnichannel and what’s overused and underrated in marketing.

What Has Changed for Pharma Marketers in Recent Years?

Nataliya opened the conversation with what has actually changed for pharma marketers in recent years. Nico called the question tricky, noting that his perspective is shaped by the COVID years rather than the industry’s so-called “glorious days.”

From that point on, however, he sees clear change, particularly in how pharma customer engagement and marketing are approached. He pointed out that omnichannel marketing, a term he no longer particularly likes, is often misunderstood in pharma.

During COVID, Nico explained, the industry was pushed into a fully digital mindset.

We were suddenly asking: do we need face-to-face interactions anymore? Everything became digital.

Over time, that assumption proved incomplete. The pendulum swung back, as teams realized that human interaction still plays an important role.

As a result, pharma began integrating hybrid engagement models, combining digital and in-person interactions while continuing to figure out how digital fits into broader HCP engagement strategies. Looking back, Nico described the last few years as a period of recalibration.

We thought digital and omnichannel would solve many problems. But they didn’t solve everything.

Across the industry, he now sees a familiar ambition: to become the next Netflix of pharma.

The Expanding Role of the Pharma Marketer

Nataliya picked up on Nico’s comments and connected them to the growing pressure on marketers today. She noted that calling omnichannel overrated is a strong statement, but one that opens up important questions. She described how the role of the pharma marketer has expanded dramatically:

Today, marketers are expected to be data experts, journey experts, content strategists, and even MLR navigators.

She then returned to pharmaceutical omnichannel marketing itself, questioning whether it is overengineered or misaligned — impressive on paper, but difficult to operate in reality. She also asked how pharma’s interpretation differs from other industries. To answer, Nico turned to a vivid metaphor.

In pharma, we already have a nice picture of a skyscraper, but we’re still standing on a construction site, and we don’t know which tool to use first.

He explained that data-driven pharma marketing often focuses too much on terminology and theory, while neglecting execution and operations. This gap, he said, becomes especially visible in discussions around personalization and customer experience.

Why Pharma Is Not Netflix or Spotify

Nico reflected on the industry’s ambition to replicate the customer experiences of Netflix or Spotify. When he first entered pharma, he said, this comparison came up frequently, but he sees it as a fundamental flaw.

Netflix and Spotify are leisure activities. They’re voluntary. Pharma is different. Reading a clinical study is not the same as watching a movie.

While the ambition helped paint a picture of where the industry wanted to go, Nico believes it pushed pharma away from what is feasible and realistic.

Nataliya agreed with parts of Nico’s argument, but added an important dimension: the patient perspective. She said the industry often over-commercializes the Netflix and Spotify comparison by viewing it purely through a marketing lens.

Patients are responsible for their well-being. They want to understand what’s happening in their bodies, what options they have, and how their quality of life will be affected.

From her perspective, healthcare experience is not about entertainment, but about trust, understanding, and meaningful conversations with doctors.

The conversation then moved deeper into personalization and digital personas. Nataliya noted that personalization has become a dominant trend across the industry, including within agencies like Viseven.

We’re constantly pushed to build digital personas that drive content creation, but are we misunderstanding personalization?

Nico responded from a strict marketing and technical perspective:

Anything not created for one individual is not personalization. That’s segmentation.

He explained that personas are representative profiles, not real individuals. They don’t describe one specific person out of hundreds. The confusion, he suggested, may come from the terminology itself. If we called them “profiles” instead of personas, we might stop mixing the concepts up.

Is Personalization Worth the Effort?

Nico also raised the question of effort versus value. Personalization requires a lot of resources, and everything comes with a cost, including opportunity cost. He questioned whether individual-level personalization truly delivers added value.

If people share the same disease and similar conditions, does it really make sense to personalize for every single person? Or can we tailor to a subgroup with far less effort and nearly the same impact?

From his perspective, personalization is often misused when viewed through a purely academic or marketing lens. Nataliya agreed and reframed the discussion around real-world practice:

We often say segmentation is personalization at scale. But true personalization happens in the field.

She explained that sales or medical representatives are the ones who can genuinely personalize communication, doing so instinctively through real conversations and understanding the individual in front of them. Nico closed with a broader warning:

Around 70% of marketers think they’re doing personalization, but in reality, they’re doing segmentation.

Just as the difference between omnichannel and multichannel marketing is often misunderstood, so is the distinction between personalization and segmentation. The real risk is not the terminology itself, but the mindset it creates. In the end, the goal of pharmaceutical omnichannel marketing remains unchanged: delivering relevant information efficiently so HCPs can make better decisions for patients.

Personalization Isn’t a Detail — It Shapes How Pharma Uses Resources

Nico said this part of the discussion may sound “stupid” at first, but stressed that it can have a serious impact on how pharma companies allocate resources and set marketing goals.

Nataliya agreed and emphasized that resources in customer-centric pharma marketing are limited. She said this makes it unrealistic to pursue extreme one-to-one execution at scale. Instead of building hundreds of individual emails, even with the help of AI, teams should focus more on strong, relevant messaging and on reaching the right target audience.

To challenge common assumptions, Nico asked whether basic email personalization still has any real effect:

If you receive an email from an insurance company, does it really matter if the first sentence is personalized?

Nataliya reflected that in the early days, personalization created the feeling that a message was truly meant for the recipient. At the beginning, it made us think: this is for me. Today, however, she believes that awareness has changed. Now that people understand how automated personalized HCP journeys work, there is no real sense of that touch in most emails, which makes this type of personalization far less impactful.

AI and the Loss of the “Magic” of Personalization

Nico added that AI has accelerated this shift. He said that people now understand how easy personalization has become, which has removed the sense that someone put real effort into tailoring a message. At the same time, Nico stressed that personalization still plays an important role — just not primarily in automated marketing.

He explained that customer-facing roles remain critical because those individuals are driven by service and relevance. According to Nico, real personalization happens when someone actively decides what is most useful for a customer. He gave an example: if a representative has ten marketing assets and selects the three most relevant ones for a specific HCP, then that’s where personalization really happens in pharma. In contrast, he described marketing-led ambitions for full personalization as largely unrealistic and difficult to operationalize.

Nataliya agreed and said that as machines and marketing automation in pharma become more present, human connection will become even more valuable. When we are optimizing omnichannel marketing in pharma, we often forget about the goal of our efforts. People are increasingly aware of whether they are interacting with a real person or an avatar, and that this awareness will shape future expectations.

The more we automate, the more we’ll value real human effort.

She added — on a light moment — that there are no avatars in the podcast. The conversation itself, she said, is an example of real people discussing real challenges in segmentation and marketing.

From Theory to Action: What Should Pharma Do Next?

As the conversation turned toward advice, Nataliya asked what pharma companies should focus on next. Nico responded that the list is long, but pointed out that AI is currently reshaping the industry. He said AI should be used to speed up processes, improve segmentation accuracy, and help identify what is truly relevant for customers — primarily to save them time.

He highlighted that physicians often receive between 15 and 20 emails per day. If AI is used simply to generate more content, he warned, engagement may drop even further. Instead, Nico argued that AI should help marketers do less, but better — producing fewer, more relevant messages.

Based on discussions at conferences and within the industry, he said his strong belief is that pharma needs to get segmentation right first: more reliable, more efficient, and more focused on real value. We all lack time, Nico said, adding that marketing activities should be reduced to those that genuinely help HCPs.

Nataliya concluded that AI should ultimately support a deeper understanding of patients and their needs, while keeping patient benefit at the center of every decision. She noted that today, information is delivered through many different formats — videos, podcasts, and still a large volume of emails, which remain one of the most widely used ways information travels.

AI as an Amplifier, Not a Replacement

There’s a lot of information presented in a way that can be easily consumed. Anything that helps us share ideas faster matters. We need AI to be our amplifier, Nataliya said, especially if pharma wants to keep pace with how people consume information today. Nico challenged the common belief that attention spans are shrinking:

Our attention spans aren’t getting shorter. If something is interesting, we invest the time.

What has changed is the sheer volume of information available. Content is always on, always accessible — which makes earning attention much harder. The information offering has grown rapidly. The hook has become more complicated. This is where relevance becomes critical. Customer segmentation, not volume, is what makes attention possible.

If I know what’s relevant for you, I can create a hook. If I just send a generic yearly summary, you don’t even know whether it matters to you.

According to Nico, pharma can learn a lot from influencers in other industries, particularly how they earn attention by being relevant, not louder. Nataliya built on that idea and gave it a broader meaning.

If we become those influencers, we can help improve the quality of life for other people.

For her, this isn’t about visibility or reach — it’s about responsibility. She framed it as a “battle for life,” where relevance, clarity, and trust truly matter.

Hot or Not: Rapid-Fire Opinions on Pharma Marketing 

The conversation wrapped up with a Hot or Not section — a series of statements where Nataliya and Nico quickly agreed or disagreed. 

“Personalization is the biggest myth in pharma marketing” — Hot 

“Segmentation is the real growth engine” — Hot 

“Doctors want the Netflix experience from pharma” — Not 

“More channels mean bigger HCP engagement” — Not 

“Most omnichannel initiatives are overpromised and underdelivered” — Hot 

“Marketing should own personalization, not sales” — Hot 

“Pharma should kill half of its ongoing digital products” — Not 

Nataliya closed the session by thanking Nico for the discussion, calling the questions deliberately contradictory and noting that there were no right or wrong answers — only perspectives. 

**Nico Renner is strictly sharing his personal views and opinion as an individual, not his current employer’s position on the discussed topics.

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