Pharma and wellness brands play the same game, but with different rules

The lines separating the wellness industry from the healthcare industry continue to blur. At any given pharmacy, over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, skincare, and the next hot homeopathic remedy share the same aisles – many of them promising the same results. The guardrails that once separated wellness and healthcare into different aisles (and often different stores altogether) are no longer there, putting more onus on consumers to understand which options are most suitable for their needs. Consumers are now primed for abstraction instead of education.

With the increase in wellness brands competing for audience attention, it’s more important than ever that pharma marketers tell their stories clearly and creatively, with a focus on educating consumers.

Why does it feel harder than ever for pharma brands to tell their story?

The wellness brands competing for the same consumer attention as pharma brands can operate without the guardrails of medical legal review that pharma marketers build their strategies around, allowing abstract and unchecked claims to reshape consumer expectations toward quick and concise information. Meanwhile, the guardrails for pharma brands evolve and grow regularly as the HHS and FDA continue to put new regulations on how pharma brands can advertise. This is leaving audiences with more questions than ever, but pharma marketers have a unique opportunity to create campaigns that not only engage, but educate, consumers.

To reach these audiences, marketers need to create effective content. In today’s advertising landscape, short-form video reigns supreme, but audiences continue to demand shorter-form content. Gen Z and millennials make up 41% of wellness spend, and short-form video continues to perform best across social platforms. Now, pharma marketers are competing with an audience’s available attention next to six-second-long videos promising a “natural” GLP-1 alternative or a red light therapy mask meant to halt chronic pain in its tracks. These quick wellness videos that capture consumer attention typically don’t include any important safety information, because they don’t have to include it.

Regulatory responsibility creates a stark imbalance between wellness and pharma brands. The credibility and compliance of pharma brands is being asked to compete with the speed, simplicity, and bold, promise-driven storytelling of wellness brands. This rise in wellness-first narratives has compressed complex medical realities into lifestyle content, changing how audiences evaluate what feels beneficial with what feels credible.

Today, trust is no longer built simply through clinical authority, but through familiarity, repetition, and continued presence in everyday digital spaces. This creates a difficult challenge for pharma brands. Now, it’s not just about being heard, it’s about being understood in an environment optimised for immediacy, rather than nuance.

Choose the best channels to engage consumers

For pharma marketers, the target audience is the most sought after, not just within healthcare and wellness, but across every major consumer category competing for the same limited attention. And it should inform how the approach to every advertising decision.

Social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are increasingly cluttered with ads of all types, but especially ads in the wellness space. This makes it harder for pharma messages to feel contextually relevant in broad, undifferentiated feeds. In recent years, social has become a primary – if not exclusive – channel for wellness marketing, allowing small, up-and-coming, often direct-to-consumer brands to scale quickly, through frequent and abstract, promise-driven creative.

Pharma’s presence on social is powerful and necessary, but relying solely on social buys can dilute the message's relevance and limit opportunities for deeper contextual alignment. By bringing video strategy outside of broad social placements, a brand can be given the advantage of more intentional environments where surrounding content reinforces education, credibility, and relevance.

Channel selection is no longer just a media decision – it’s a messaging decision that shapes how trustworthy and useful a brand feels in the moment of exposure. An audience’s mental availability is shaped as much by environment as it is by message, and choosing the right channel can determine whether a user leans into an ad to learn more or scrolls right past it and forgets the content immediately. Context can act as a form of pre-education, preparing users to be more receptive to information they’re viewing, rather than reflexively dismissing it.

In my experience working with pharma brands, there is a wide range of high-impact video formats beyond social that effectively reach target audiences. While many wellness marketers focus primarily on social, pharma brands are well positioned to compete across broader digital and streaming environments. Expanding beyond social not only increases reach, but also unlocks more intentional audience engagement.

Focus on depth of connection over broad reach

No matter the target, chances are there are tens of thousands of other brands across a swath of industries who are also targeting that exact same user profile at the exact same time. On top of this, wellness brands have the luxury of sexier content and more frequent creative updates without time-consuming and strict medical legal review holding them back. Pharma advertisers benefit from choosing deeper, more meaningful connections over constantly chasing high-scale, blunting tactics.

Broad reach can create awareness, but it rarely creates understanding, especially in categories like pharma, where decisions require immense trust, time, and education. A pharma marketer needs to prioritise strategies that permit not only the ability to connect more deeply with each user, but also to measure every interaction, learn about each user, and forge more honest, informed connections. This will prime users for education, which will make them more likely to move from passive exposure to active consideration.

My team saw this firsthand, when collaborating with a pain management client. Strategies that saw just one additional second of active user attention resulted in 85% higher sales in the long run. When time-spent with target audiences is maximised, sales will benefit, and users will leave feeling more engaged and educated about the offering.

See ads as Chapter 1, not the full story

Compared with the consumer journey for wellness brands, the consumer journey for pharma brands is miles longer. It requires more research and much more thoughtful consideration. It doesn’t offer the quick dopamine rush of an online purchase.

Because of this, no pharma advertisement can ever provide the full picture that patients need to make purchase decisions, so brands need to stop trying to tell the full story. One can’t boil the ocean, but actionable steps can be taken toward building relationships with consumers and educating them about the product.

Education needs to remain the first priority for pharma marketing. It comes before prescriptions are written, before patient-provider conversations take place, and before safe usage even enters the equation. To encourage this education, ads need to spark curiosity, feel personal, and seem relevant enough for consumers to take the next step in the much longer process.

In an already cluttered landscape, the goal here is not to close the story with one simple impression, but to open a door to deeper exploration.

Don’t skimp on creative

Wellness brands have a lot of freedom with creative. Pharma brands, on the other hand, will be hard pressed to get terms like “magic” or “transformative” approved by a medical legal reviewer. But that shouldn’t prevent the creation of interesting and engaging ads.

Without the luxury of abstraction or redacted details, pharma brands must rely on clarity, craft, and intentional storytelling to compete for attention. Creative shouldn’t be seen as a layer added after compliance; it’s a mechanism that makes credibility and education compelling in limited time. A strong creative campaign has the ability to turn necessary disclosure and regulation into signals of trust, rather than barriers to engagement.

In a highly regulated industry like pharma, execution quality often matters more than volume of exposure. Making creative that’s engaging, clear, and educational is table stakes for success.

Pharma marketers work with different standards, requirements, and policies to the wellness sector. If the focus is on education-forward messaging that prioritises clarity over abstraction, the desired target audience will be met exactly where they need to be met – and build lasting, trusting relationships that stand the test of time.

About the author

Caytie Silvera is director of client partnerships, healthcare, at VDX.tv, where she has been for nearly ten years. Silvera leads strategic partnerships for the healthcare team, helping pharmaceutical and over-the-counter brands solve complex marketing challenges through data-driven, full-funnel video strategies across CTV and digital channels. She brings a rigorous, performance focused lens to every campaign and is passionate about helping healthcare brands tell clearer, more compelling stories that drive real-world impact for patients and providers. Silvera holds a BSc in Mathematics from Loyola University Maryland. She is passionate about non-profit work supporting animal welfare and equitable healthcare access for women.