Pharma’s new way to overcome doubt with reputation branding.

The Philadelphia Eagles weren’t the only winners in the Super Bowl this year. The less obvious winners? Pharmaceutical companies airing TV commercials to a record-breaking number of 126 million viewers ended up at the top of consumer and critics’ assessments. 

Pfizer’s ad telling the story of a young boy dressed as a prize fighter leaving the hospital after ringing the cancer bell underlined its commitment to “fighting for 8 cancer breakthroughs by 2030” and scored the highest likeability score across all Super Bowl spots in ad tracker iSpot’s creative assessment. 

Pfizer’s ad was “wholesome, and it was the message they needed to be sharing after the turmoil Big Pharma and the health care industry faced in 2024,” said Jim Stengel, the former chief marketing officer of the world’s largest advertiser, Procter & Gamble, and now expert consultant, in a LinkedIn post.

Meanwhile, Novartis turned the tables on media and pop culture obsessions with women’s breasts in its commercial, making the point despite all that kind of attention, there’s much less attention paid to breast health. Actors Hailee Steinfeld and Wanda Sykes, also a breast cancer survivor, encourage women to get screened. AdAge awarded the first-time Super Bowl advertiser 4.5 stars, putting it in the marketing industry publication’s top 10 of the best ads from Super Bowl LIX.

A third pharma-related ad from Hims & Hers called “Sick of the System” about the obesity epidemic in America and the “broken” health care system didn’t get unilateral positive reviews, but it was noticed, garnering lots of opinions and some controversy. Still, many agreed its message “struck a chord” with viewers, as reported by industry publication Adweek.

Super Bowl success exemplary of new pharmaceutical marketing and brand strategies

The Super Bowl was a rare win for the pharma industry, which is more typically criticized for unimaginative advertising with long voiceover lists of scary side effects. But it’s also evidence of the industry’s move to broader corporate pharmaceutical marketing strategies to build trust and positive perceptions with consumers, patients, health care providers, and other stakeholders.

The pharmaceutical industry is moving from product-centric marketing to customer-centric strategies to create more direct relationships and improve experiences for brand-conscious and skeptical audiences who are more aware than ever of the pharma industry and its controversies. 

But now, pharma companies are doing much more than one-time Super Bowl ads to shape public perception and build trust with consumers. Through corporate brand marketing, companies like Eli Lilly, Pfizer, GSK, Amgen, Bayer, and others are sharing healthcare messages that promote empathy, raise awareness, and provide meaningful patient support.

The strategy shift from product-based advertising to reputation-oriented branding by pharmaceutical companies highlights the growing importance of branding in the pharmaceutical industry efforts. Developing a strong brand strategy for pharmaceutical advertising has become essential as the industry continues grappling with public perception challenges. While the Covid-19 pandemic temporarily boosted the pharmaceutical sector’s reputation thanks to rapid innovations and a commitment to vaccines and treatments, more recent perception ratings reveal a decline. According to the latest Harris Poll, the pharmaceutical industry’s positive perception in the U.S. stood at 43% at the end of 2025, down from 45% the previous year, and significantly below its peak of 62% positive in early 2021.

Raising health and disease awareness can be a winning strategy for pharma companies’ reputations, according to an October study from IPG Mediabrands and DeepIntent. More than half of patients (55%) surveyed said pharma ads helped them learn about new health conditions, with 54% saying ads helped them better manage an existing health condition. Physicians also agreed with the positive gain from pharma ads with 91% agreeing the ads help patients understand their condition and encourage more proactive health management. The survey included more than 1,100 patients and 1,000 physicians.

Mainstream sporting events provide a big stage for big messaging

Big-stage events like the Super Bowl and the Olympics are helping to fuel the positive gains, as are mainstream sporting events in general. Pharmaceutical companies spent more than $370 million during the NFL season this year, along with $46 million during the Major League Baseball season. Overall, pharma ad spending on national TV sports more than doubled in 2024, according to TV ad tracker iSpot.tv.

The sports spending last year included spending on the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, which also tends to be the domain of consumer-focused brands and companies. Two big pharma companies—Eli Lilly and Sanofi—leveraged the inherent connection between sports and health to advance corporate and brand messages during the 19 days of the event this past summer. 

Leading up to the Games in Paris, Lilly, a Team USA sponsor, launched its “Get Better” campaign about its mission as “a medicine company” not only focused on making medicines but also on changing perceptions and improving access. The videos and short films address topics like Alzheimer’s disease, misinformation and stigma in obesity care and treating it as a chronic disease, the importance of cancer screening, and health care gaps in dermatology for people with skin of color. 

In July, on the opening day of the Olympics, Lilly released an anthemic “One Body” short film showing different kinds of human bodies, including athletes, with the ending kicker voiceover saying, “Since you only get one body, let’s fight like hell for it.” The ad was created by long-time Nike ad agency Wieden+Kennedy.

Social media plays key role in omnichannel reputation management

Along with the big mainstream audience events like the Super Bowl and the Olympics, pharmaceutical companies are also advancing social media strategies on channels, including Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, to deliver disease awareness and corporate campaigns to broaden reach, showcase brand values, employee pride, and philanthropic efforts.

Pharma companies have long used social listening to understand what consumers and physicians say about them, but they’re now also using the channels to deliver messages and collaborate with communities and people. Pharma marketers are building out influencer strategies—partnering with real patient and physician content creators to increase trust with skeptical consumers who trust friend and family health recommendations over companies’ marketing suggestions.

Younger generations like millennials and Generation Z, who spend more time online than other age groups, are also more open to engaging with pharma, according to a recent Burson study. More than half (55%) of the Gen Z people surveyed are willing to listen to pharma as a potentially trusted source for health education and information, it found.

Reputation matters, but how can marketing build it?

But how can pharma marketers do that? We’ll continue this discussion next month with a deeper dive into the hows and whys around corporate strategies that can do that. Clear communications and empathetic storytelling for example, are key to connecting with people and patients looking for empathy and integrity from health companies. Follow along for the Part 2 post. 

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