By: Holly Dunn, Managing Partner, Performance, Havas Media Network
Meet Sara Teagan. She has a hard time falling asleep. It’s 12 AM, she’s scrolling through her social feed and a creator appears on her feed comparing melatonin versus magnesium. A few swipes later, a wellness creator shares their GLP-1 journey. By morning, Sara is searching commerce sites for “natural sleep supplements,” all before her coffee finishes brewing.
Her doctor's office? Never involved. Traditional DTC and HCP marketing? Lost in a sea of creator content, algorithms, and AI recommendations.
Welcome to the new rules of wellness, where the patient journey no longer follows the marketing funnel. The new rules lie in the acute context and connection to the consumer, its essentially a barrage of carefully crafted journeys or parallel universes with an endless amount of instances and poof, you’re in and out in an instant.
The Convergence Nobody Planned For
With discussion on shifts in traditional DTC advertising regulations, particularly around pharma, marketers are rethinking how they connect with consumers across an increasingly complex ecosystem, shifting their once effective single-channel campaigns to omnichannel strategies to meet patients wherever they are.
The lines between pharma advertising, wellness content, beauty routines, and nutritional guidance have collided. Consumers expect holistic health experiences across CTV, social media, programmatic, and point-of-care channels.
When someone searches “anxiety management”, they encounter prescription ads, meditation apps, supplements, therapy, and testimonials. They are researching health information on social platforms, comparing options through commerce channels, consulting via telehealth appointments, and making purchase decisions influenced by a dozen touchpoints. Consumers simply want solutions.
Brands must now consider how their CTV campaigns integrate with retail media strategies, how their programmatic targeting aligns with point-of-care messaging, and how this threads a line across regulatory compliance. This convergence creates opportunity to increase presence and trust across all points of care.
Brands that can orchestrate meaningful presence and guidance across this journey are the ones building lasting patient relationships.
When Doctors Become Content Creators
Perhaps no trend is reshaping health marketing more dramatically than the rise of health creators. Late night TV viewing has been replaced by doom scrolling on your phone. “Tok docs” and wellness influencers have emerged as trusted authorities, often wielding influence over health decisions, driving treatment conversations and reshaping health narratives across platforms more than traditional advertising ever could. When these voices speak, audiences listen and act.
The challenge is that incorporating creator partnerships into regulated pharmaceutical marketing involves legal complexities that most brands aren’t equipped to handle. How do you leverage authentic creator voices while maintaining FDA compliance? How do you scale creator partnerships across channels without diluting the authenticity that made them effective in the first place?
The answer lies in treating creators as strategic media partners, not just paid spokespeople. This means investing in long-term relationships that respect the creator's voice while providing creators with accurate compliant information they can translate for their audiences.
The Trust Deficit is Growing
While consumers may tune in to these wellness influencers, consumers are increasingly skeptical of pharmaceutical marketing. They've been burned by misleading claims, exhausted by aggressive advertising, and confused by contradictory health information.
According to the 2025 Havas Meaningful Brand Survey, research shows 69% struggle to distinguish truth from disinformation in media, 66% worry about personal data usage, and 75% prefer to interact with a human rather than AI or digital interfaces, suggesting pharma must rebuild trust through transparent, human-centered communication.
Building trust across connected media requires more than compliance with advertising regulations. It provides transparency about how products work, the limitations, the side effects, and a willingness to meet consumers where they are with information they actually need.
This is where approaches like Havas Media Network’s Health Equity Marketplace helps brands do just that by reaching patients and healthcare providers in underserved communities, including those in health deserts with limited access to care, coverage, or local pharmacies. By connecting with these communities and sharing vital health information, including co-pay assistance and patient support programs, brands demonstrate they care about more than just the most profitable customers. This not only fulfills critical ethical responsibility but also helps build trust in a crowded market.
The Playbook for What's Next
So how do brands navigate this complexity?
- Diversify your channel mix and avoid over-reliance on any single platform. Build integrated campaigns across CTV, programmatic, social, and point-of-care that can flex with market shifts.
- Focus on Authentic Connection & Education: Take a holistic approach to healthcare media that connects brands, patients, and providers through trusted channels and data-driven solutions. Strategies include leveraging curated media networks, verified HCP partnerships, and platforms like the Health Equity Marketplace to ensure authentic engagement and reach across diverse audiences.
- Leverage First-Party Data Responsibly: Use intent signals and behavioral data for privacy-safe targeting, as retail media networks and online pharmacies enable personalization based on real purchases, not assumptions.
- Invest in Creator Partnerships: Identify health creators whose values align with your brand and foster authentic relationships that strengthen trust, reach, and humanize your brand.
Ready to rewrite your wellness marketing playbook? Market changes are catalysts for building more resilient, patient-centric marketing strategies. Connect with Holly Dunn to explore Havas Media Network’s capabilities.