Align. Target. Measure: A New Model for Pharma Media Series—Part 2

Rethinking Media Through the Lens of Behavior

If Blog 1 was about the gap between targeting and measurement, Blog 2 is about closing it. The solution? A universal framework that applies to every media campaign in pharma—regardless of channel, audience, or tactic.

The framework is simple: every campaign either aims to acquire a new behavior or reinforce an existing one. That’s it.

Acquisition vs. Adherence

We already use these terms for patients:

• Patient acquisition: Getting someone to try a brand for the first time.

• Patient adherence: Helping a patient who has already been prescribed a brand to stay on it.

But what about HCPs? The same framework applies:

• HCP acquisition: Getting a provider to prescribe a brand for the first time.

• HCP adherence: Reinforcing prescribing behavior among HCPs who already write the brand.

The Four Quadrants of Media Behavior

Once you reframe media goals through this lens, you get a matrix:

It’s simple. It’s scalable. And it immediately clarifies what you're trying to do—and how you should measure success.

Behavior as the Unifying Signal

The power of this framework is that it puts behavior at the center of everything.

• Targeting? Build it based on prior behaviors.

• Creative? Speak to where the patient or HCP is in their decision journey.

• Measurement? Don’t just look at reach or clicks—look at changes in actual behavior.

And here’s where it gets really interesting: when both HCP and patient campaigns use behavior as their north star, they start to align.

• You target patients of HCPs who have prescribed before.

• You target HCPs whose patients are already showing intent.

Everything starts working in sync.

This sets the stage for Part 3, where we talk about the one channel that sits at the intersection of HCP and patient behavior—and why it deserves to be treated very, very differently.