Ahead of the marcus evans PharmaMarketing Summit 2022, Chetak Buaria discusses the opportunities that AI brings to pharma marketers, and what it takes to engage pharma customers.

1. Interview with: Chetak Buaria, Vice
President – Global Commercial
Operations for the Healthcare
business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt,
Germany
“Artificial intelligence (AI) provides an
opportunity for pharma marketing to
deliver a personalized customer
engagement experience,” says Chetak
Buaria, Vice President – Global
Commercial Operations, Healthcare
Business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt,
Germany. However, marketers should
not strive for a standalone digital
strategy. “There is no digital strategy,
only brand strategy that is relevant in
the digital world. This is key,” he notes.
Buaria is taking part in a panel
discussion at the marcus evans
PharmaMarketing Summit 2022.
Why do pharma marketers need to
go from Business Intelligence (BI)
to AI?
For intelligent, personalized engage-
ment with customers. The traditional
model of engagement was solely driven
by the sales force but in the past few
years the need to be more customer-
centric has accelerated. Not only from a
content, design and planning perspec-
tive, but even the responsibility of
delivering customer engagement. The
omni-channel experience is at the heart
of this. It also opens up an opportunity
to leverage data science because having
multiple channels means having many
data points, and more insights into
customer preferences. In the future,
intelligent marketing will be driven by
data science. Adapting your offering to
customer preferences is at the heart of
every marketing strategy. It starts from
leveraging data science for dynamic,
real-time segmentation and profiling.
We live in a dynamic environment,
where preferences of customers are
constantly evolving, and we need to
make sure that our offerings and
campaigns are adapted based on real-
time insights.
What potential does AI really hold
for pharma marketing? What other
marketing issues can it solve?
What else can it accelerate?
From my perspective, it provides an
opportunity to deliver a personalized
engagement experience. Our customers,
healthcare practitioners, are used to
personalized experiences in their private
life when they consume services like
Amazon or Netflix. We know they tailor
their content in a very personalized
manner, and that is engaging, and one
of the reasons why they are so popular.
When it comes to pharmaceutical
marketing, we have not gone that far
yet. There are certain constraints, but
even without those constraints, we can
do a better job. Customer centricity first
starts from understanding your
customer and his/her preferences, and
then taking it back into the organization
to ensure that all functions and
resources are aligned to deliver the best
possible experience.
AI also enables you to provide
experiences on demand. Let customers
decide the channel and time of
engagement - you are available 24/7.
We have also started to leverage AI to
improve and automate marketing
operations around content development,
review and approval. AI opens up a
whole new world of intelligent engage-
ment. Technology can bring all the data
together at one place, then AI can
provide smart recommendations for the
next best action, your next best
message for each customer.
What do you consider a well-
thought-out digital strategy?
There is no digital strategy, only brand
strategy that is relevant in the digital
world. This is key. Pharma marketers
should not even be striving for a
standalone digital strategy, as it only
creates confusion in the organization.
What is really challenging pharma
marketers today?
Customers are consuming content on
multiple channels, so how do you plan
your content to be adapted to such a
diverse channel environment? Certain
content designed for face-to-face
delivery cannot simply be extended to
email marketing or your website. How
do you plan for this when your
resources are not multiplying at the
same rate as channels are multiplying?
How do you even measure the
effectiveness of a channel?
What digital avenues have worked
well for your organization?
The whole digitalization journey has
been a learning curve. Along the way, I
have come across nice ideas and best
practices, followed by challenges either
in terms of scalability or they work in
certain geographies and not others.
Sustainability is the second aspect. Can
you really sustain it and drive meaning-
ful ROI as an outcome? It takes time to
move a customer on the adoption
journey.
Chetak Buaria is an employee of Merck KGaA,
Darmstadt, Germany. The opinions and views
expressed here are his personal and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions or views of
Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany or any
subsidiary thereof.
There is
no digital
strategy,
only brand
strategy that
is relevant in
the digital
world
Achieving Personalized Customer
Engagement in Pharma Marketing

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interests, relevant market developments, and practical and progressive ideas and
strategies adopted by successful pioneers.
www.sept22.pharmamarketingsummit.com
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