[00:02]
We are powered by human intelligence, not artificial intelligence. So certainly we realize and understand the value that our teams, our experts are bringing to analyze this information and really make sure that we’re delivering the best work for our clients. It’s not about awards, it’s about the brand.

[00:20]
It’s about what’s going to be most effective in the market for that brand and for that client because at the end of the day, it ultimately impacts the patient and it ultimately impacts their ability to get on the right therapy and to get back immersed in their lives.

[00:42]
Hi, I’m Lecia Bushak, Pharma Editor at MM+M. This is the MM+M Agency 100 Strategies for Success podcast with Deerfield Group. Today we’ll be talking about scaling smart, how Deerfield Group is redefining growth marketing and comms, and what makes the agency uniquely valuable in the marketing comms and media landscape.

[01:02]
Here with me today, Amanda Sellers, President of Global Communications at Deerfield Group and Dominic Viola, President of Integrated Marketing at Deerfield Group. Amanda and Dominic, thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having us. I’m excited to kind of delve into what makes your agency unique and that’s been a big theme of our agency 100 profiles this year.

[01:26]
But first, could you tell me a little bit about how the Deerfield Deerfield Group model is structured to meet and even exceed expectations from clients and how you create long-term value for clients. Sure. So Deerfield was founded on the principle that a one-size-fits-all model rarely works in healthcare marketing and communications.

[01:47]
With the increased pressures that the pharma clients are getting needing to move quickly, needing to pivot quickly based on learnings in the market, we built in a lot of efficiencies in our model. So we leverage an on-demand model that allows allows us to pivot and scale when needed. We apply specialists as needed throughout the process with them, but making sure that we’re only providing those resources that are necessary to get the job done. And then at the center of our organization, which I think differentiates us the most, is what we call our agency of brand model.

[02:17]
And our agency of brand model is really an all-in-one creative engine that allows us to pull through all the execution once the strategy and the larger campaign ideas are created, creating a lot of efficiencies, uh increasing speed to market on those pieces. Um we also have a very dedicated compliance department that really reviews everything, making sure everything is up to the integrity that the clients want.

[02:42]
So we produce uh in addition to doing some of the upfront strategic and creative assignments, we also pull through a tremendous amount of projects on a daily basis for our clients, allowing them to reach their audience with impactful messages in a very efficient manner. Yeah, and just to build on Dom’s description of Deerfield Group, we are very much problem solvers at heart.

[03:04]
So, as Dom mentioned, the agency is built, it’s specifically designed to really meet the needs of our clients and whether that’s strategy from the integrated marketing side, whether that’s tactical pull through, clearly on the communication side, which is is where I have the opportunity to lead our teams really digging into what are what is that intersection between communications and marketing?

[03:28]
And then of course we have a range of specialists ranging from paid media to creative to scientific staff. So it’s really for us at Deerfield it’s very much bringing forward all of those different disciplines that we know our clients need at very specific times in their life cycle and being able to do that in a really nimble and agile way.

[03:51]
What challenges are clients often coming to you with when they first engage with the what would you say are kind of the biggest problems or challenges that clients are facing? when you see them work with you? There’s probably a couple key areas where clients are facing challenges. I would say that the first one is just increased pressure on reducing costs. So they don’t have the amount of resources they used to have.

[04:16]
So they really need to be nimble and agile and how they approach their launches and get out into market. So they need to have to Amanda’s point earlier, the right capabilities, but being able to pull those in at the right times to create those efficiencies and to create those impactful programs and strategies so that we can effectively get out into the market very quickly without spending all their resources and all their time and all their money. I would say the other thing is just making sure that we have the right people in the right place at the right time.

[04:46]
So to Amanda’s point, there’s a lot of different thinking that needs to go into crafting messaging and creating campaigns and strategies that are going to be effective in the market. And and while it takes a village, it doesn’t take a village all at once. So so the Our idea is, with our on-demand model, we deploy brand champions at the center of everything we do. And these people are experts at understanding exactly what the clients need and aligning our capabilities to those needs at that time.

[05:14]
So that’s been really helpful in helping to support them in what they need when they need it and providing what they need and not more than they need or not less than they need. Yeah, and to build on Dom’s comments, certainly efficiency is a big part of this.

[05:29]
To Dom’s point, bringing in the right people to have their right lens and also being able to bring forward diverse perspectives and thinking to clients which maybe they haven’t been getting because they have teams that are you know, sort of siloed or, you know, working not across disciplines. And that’s really the the benefit of of our team at Deerfield is that, you know, we are all under one roof. We are a truly integrated team.

[05:56]
If I need someone from a comms client who needs marketing support or guidance, all I have to do is call over to someone else on the team and they’re right there to help us. The comms and marketing teams are integrated on probably a third to a half of the business that we have internally at Deerfield. And that’s really a testament to the model, right? So when we’re trying to solve these problems for our clients, we have access to all the specialists we need and we can pull them in when we need it.

[06:23]
Whether it’s someone on the com side or someone in the media department or someone on the tech side. I think one of the other things that clients are faced with today is is also understanding the impact of what we’re doing for them. So without the ability maybe to spend as much as they typically would up front getting the right insights, getting the right learning We really need to learn in market and adapt. And how do we do that?

[06:47]
That’s really through our data and analytics department, making sure that we have the right measurement framework in place for all the activation plans that we put together, make sure we’re monitoring that on a regular basis, bringing those insights to our client and adapting in real time to make sure that those campaigns are constantly being optimized and that they’re getting the essentially the biggest bang for their buck with what they’re putting out into the wild.

[07:08]
And what would you say sets your strategic approach apart part from traditional health care agencies and really kind of driving deeper into to what makes that unique. From a strategic perspective, I I think one of the things that our clients value is our ability to adapt and scale.

[07:25]
So, depending on how much time they have and how many resources they have, there’s a lot of different ways you can approach building a strategy for a launch and I think that within Deerfield because of the diversity of clients we’ve had, we’ve been able to see things through so many different perspective and so many different lenses that we’ve been able to that.

[07:43]
So, whether it’s something that needs to be done a little bit scrappier with less resources or something that’s fully funded with a lot of different departments on the client side that are feeding into those insights, we have the ability to plug holes. So, if the clients don’t have certain capabilities or certain knowledge and insights, that’s where we bring in our specialists. We complement what they deliver and then we bring that forward to effectively deliver a very cohesive launch plan.

[08:08]
Well, and I will say that part of our model two is also about being able to service clients at all stages of the life cycle. So, we are working with a range of life sciences, biotech and biopharma companies who may be in startup phase. Some of them may be pre-clinical or early stage clinical development. Others are sort of making their way through the regulatory filing and clinical system. And then, of course, we’re working with commercialized products.

[08:37]
And and to Dom’s point about, you know, really those different organizations have different needs when it comes to strategy and insights and and counsel, but also that tactical pull-through. And so really we are able to scale based on if it’s a startup that really just is is scrappy and needs to get going really quickly or we’re working on on a pharmaceutical launch, you know, years in advance.

[09:03]
So our model really lends to that flexibility and scalability that helps us work with so many different types of clients and and really understand their business. And shifting gears a little bit and going towards the AI question because we’ve also been hearing from every agency this year about the unique things they’re doing with AI. How is Deerfield Group leveraging AI today? So I think there’s a couple key areas where we’re leveraging AI today.

[09:30]
One of the things I think most people are doing right now and how they’re leveraging AI is to really keep up with demand. So when you when you think about all the the pressures we’ve talked about and the timing pressures and the cost pressures, we need to be able to adapt and move faster. And AI right now is a great tool to get information at your fingertips quicker, to be able to formulate ideas and communication platforms quicker. But at the end of the day, it’s still not doing the work, right?

[09:56]
You need the specialists in the room that are informed that are knowledgeable that have the experience to direct those AI tools in the right the right way to get the biggest impact from them.

[10:05]
I think the other way that we’re we’re leveraging AI, and this has been probably moving a little bit slower than we’d like, and that’s that’s only because because Pharma is is moving into AI a little bit cautiously, which is building more automation in all our tools, which is building more insights engines in some of the tools, making it easier for HCPs and patients to query information, to question, to gain access to information.

[10:30]
So there’s there’s a number of platforms that that we built for clients across the board that helped to do this, but one of the things we’ve run into is a little bit of resistance from regulators. They’re still trying to understand it. They’re still trying to understand the impact of it, the security and and data privacy behind it. So one of the things we’ve actually done internally at Deerfield to help with that is we’ve created a lot of what we’ll call closed off AI platforms.

[10:56]
So when we leverage large language models internally at Deerfield, they’re not open to the public. So when we are actually formulating things for our clients and on behalf of our clients, we are ensuring that the data privacy needs are met and that nothing is getting out into the public domain. But that’s also another challenge that I think the pharma clients are concerned with as it relates to leveraging AI in a customer-facing way, which we’d certainly like to do more.

[11:21]
Yeah, that that distillation of really complex issues news that, may have lots of disparate pieces of information, whether it’s peer-reviewed publications or market research. All of that distillation, it just goes so much quicker and faster with the use of these closed system AI tools like Don was mentioning. But at the end of the day, we are we say around the office at Deerfield that we are powered by human intelligence, not artificial intelligence.

[11:50]
So, Correct certainly we realize and understand the value that our teams, our experts are are bringing to analyze this information and really make sure that we’re delivering the best work for our clients. Yeah, I would say that’s one theme that I think I’ve heard across the board commonly stated is that AI is not going to replace the need for humans and that kind of expertise.

[12:11]
And that being said, how do you see AI changing the way that marketers plan and carry out campaigns in the next year, two years? It’s a good question. I think that right now a lot of marketers have been relying on us to leverage AI. And in some ways, we’ve brought that to them and and created educational sessions where we’ve walked them through different ideas and different applications of AI in the marketplace.

[12:36]
But again, I think one of the values we bring to the table is making sure that we’re knowledgeable and that we’re kind of keeping up with everything that’s happening. So we deploy a lot of training internally. We do a lot of internal meetings and sessions. One of them is called Inform and Inspire, where we’re constantly bringing new things to the table.

[12:55]
people and teaching people different perspectives and how to leverage AI to be more effective or more efficient on a day-to-day basis so that when clients come to them and ask them questions around AI or how they can leverage AI, our team is ready to go and have that discussion. As far as how marketers are going to use it moving forward again, I think it comes back to efficiencies.

[13:15]
I think it’s it’s about what Amanda said and and being able to distill a large amount of information and content and and and distill it and synthesize it into a nice short consumable package so that people can make decisions quicker and adapt quicker and get out into the market quicker. I also think it’s going to make the communities lives a lot easier um by being able to find things more specifically and more tailored to their needs.

[13:42]
So as we launch more of these platforms that are AI-based, patients and HCPs are going to have the ability and the flexibility to kind of get all the information they need out of it in a very quick quick digestible format. Interesting, yeah. So I guess a lot has is still yet to be seen moving ahead. So in terms of another really important aspect of all of this is culture.

[14:07]
So what kind of team structure and culture have you built at Deerfield Group to support both your clients and your internal employees? I think at Deerfield, we’ve mentioned this before, it’s a truly integrated model.

[14:22]
So over the years, the agency actually evolved from, you know, being fully focused on tactical marketing and then over the years through different acquisitions and uh integration of teams, we’ve been able to bring together communications and public relations into the mix, which really supports our clients across scientific R&D communications, product communications.

[14:48]
Overall, and then, of course, Dom and uh his group at Embedded really brought additional strength strategies to the team. So, as we think about how we’re bringing these teams together, it is very much under the the one Deerfield Group moniker, and we’re working together every day. So, our teams aren’t siloed.

[15:08]
They’re very much structured in ways where we’re bringing the right expert to the table, but at the same time able to be flexible and nimble enough to to go out and find, the expert and the agency that we need and call them into that moment in time.

[15:23]
I think part of it two is that we’ve created a culture of learning and development at at Deerfield and we have a very specific entity called the learning lab which we have a team built around it and they are very much focused on creating content that helps to educate the agency overall, whether it’s trends and and issues that we’re seeing, whether it’s ways of working, whether it’s new technologies, and what’s happening in AI, we are very much ingrained in that that learning culture and giving our teams those resources and the time to be able to learn and grow and develop.

[16:00]
So it’s really our jobs to to to kindle that curiosity that all of our staff members have and really the the learning lab helps us do that. I would also say that one of the great things that uh or loved about joining Deerfield is the tightness of the group. Uh very much a family kind of culture. We check the egos at the door. Everybody is there to provide a solution, to solve a problem, to contribute. Everybody feels the freedom to be able to do that.

[16:29]
So it really helps to enhance the work product, really helps to enhance just the overall culture and climate within the organization. People are always diving in, rolling up their sleeves, helping people out, even if it’s not an assignment that they’re focused on. We’ve had when we’ve had big assignments internally, the whole agency is rallied behind it and brought forth that culture to kind of share with our clients. Our clients actually love coming into our office as a result of that.

[16:58]
They love the vibe, they love the feeling they get, all the energy they get from the people kind of collaborating and working together. And then on the professional development side how are you kind of approaching that and fostering that at your agency? Our business is a lot about curiosity. It’s about excitement and energy and passion. And in healthcare and life sciences, it’s easy for us to do that because we can see what the impact our work has on people every day on human health.

[17:26]
And that’s really what we’re looking to cultivate is that passion, but also pairing that with the right skill sets to help do really great things for clients, whether it’s trends or you know, what’s new or to Dom’s point, we’re we’re bringing the outside in a lot of times through our inform and inspire programs, which are all agency meetings where we’re bringing in patient advocates to speak to us, experts from the fields to come give our staff a little bit of a glimpse of something different in a different perspective.

[17:57]
But also to we have very tailored learning and development plans for staff members at all levels. So we’re very much interested in fostering that development with our earlier career professionals, but also with our senior team as well to give everybody the ability to grow and learn. One thing I’ll add to that too and and provide an example is we really encourage our people to kind of live the experience, right?

[18:25]
So when they’re diving in in a particular disease state, we really want them to understand what the HCP is going through, what the patient’s going through. And we recently worked on an assignment in the rare disease space. And as part of that learning and development, getting into that therapeutic category, we actually brought a family in and sat with them all day. The mom, the dad, the son and who was experiencing the condition and and it was a great day.

[18:49]
And we got a lot of great insights and really got a good feeling and and understanding of what these patients go through on a regular basis. And it really helps to unite the team around kind of a common passion and a common goal of really getting out there and doing everything they can for that patient. So really inspires them and motivates them to go above and beyond each and every day. And we talked a little bit about AI, which obviously has been probably the biggest trend the industry has seen in the last year or two.

[19:20]
But I’m curious what other trends that you’re currently seeing in healthcare marketing and communications and if there are any emerging trends in the future that you’re kind of excited to dive into. On the communications side, certainly there have been challenges from lots of different areas where whether it’s regulatory challenges, market challenges.

[19:42]
I think for our clients though, it is about very much how do you cultivate your voice in a consistent way that drives clarity for your key stakeholders. So, you know, making sure that you’re not communicating too much, that we’re not communicating too little, sort of finding that goldilocks of, you know, what is the voice and what is the tone that really um helps people clearly understand what the company or or the product stands for.

[20:11]
And I think that as the news world evolves, that will be increasingly important for us to understand how that works overall and ultimately um how we translate that over to counseling our clients. Just to add to that quickly is really staying ahead of where those trends and how people are consuming content is going because for example, there was a world when we were spending all our time on Google.

[20:37]
And then we shifted as as video learning became more popular over to YouTube. And now we’re leveraging a lot of, you know, large language models to really get access to information and really understand that consumption behavior, how it differs across the world or how it differs across patient populations, age groups, things like that, really helps us to inform how we’re going to approach an assignment.

[21:04]
And at the end of the day, the best way to connect, educate, and inform is to be relevant, right? So understanding those trends, communicating to them in a way that is relevant to them through a channel that that they’re leveraging is is very important to us. So, it’s about them and it’s about how they like to receive information and we need to understand that to make sure that we’re making the biggest impact that we can.

[21:30]
And looking ahead to the future for Deerfield Group, what’s next for your agency as the healthcare landscape continues to shift? We’ve always been focused on making sure that we are providing the right resources and capabilities to service our clients’ needs. So, at the end of the day today, any anytime, we would never just add a capability or a service just to say we have it.

[21:55]
We are very thoughtful and methodical about what we bring in, about the talent that we hire, about the expanded capabilities that we bring, and it’s about solving problems. It really comes back to what Amanda said at the beginning of this call. What are the problems that our clients facing today? How can we grow and build different offerings to support those problems? And then be able to involve them in a way that that becomes incredibly efficient and effective in their in their day-to-day lives.

[22:22]
So again, one of the things we say when when we’re walking through our overview and our differentiation for us, it’s not about awards, it’s about the brand. It’s about what’s going to be most effective in the market for that brand and for that client because at the end of the day, it ultimately impacts the patient and it ultimately impacts their ability to get on the right therapy and to get back immersed in their lives.

[22:46]
And I do think that for our team, it is about listening. to our clients and understanding what their true needs are. And sometimes what a client says that they need may be different than what we hear or what they actually need. So it’s it’s our job as counselors who see lots of different types of companies and organizations and and strategies to be able to bring forward the best ideas, the best people.

[23:14]
And, you know, that’s what we’re really interested in and it goes back to that problem solving piece. But also being true partner to our clients and a lot of clients will say, “Well, you’re an extension of our team.” We really want to be part of the team with our clients to be able to drive forward the best thinking, the best work, and ultimately reach patients.

[23:36]
Yeah, I think that listening aspect, you know, being able to identify challenges that maybe their clients themselves don’t even realize they have is, you know, really valuable insight there. Amanda and Dominic, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your perspective into what makes Deerfield Group unique in the industry. Thank you. Great.