CoLab is a bespoke marketing transformation partnership, designed and implemented for Pfizer globally through the collective power of Publicis Groupe and IPG. CoLab ventures beyond traditional agency boundaries, leveraging data, creativity, technology, media, content and production to craft meaningful and personalized experiences for Pfizer’s customers around the world.

Behind the scenes of Pfizer’s marketing transformation, Roberto Leonelli, CEO Italy, Publicis Groupe and Alessio Carli, President, IPG Health Italy share their visions for change.

What factors are enabling a successful marketing transformation in the pharmaceutical industry?

Roberto Leonelli: Data, AI, media, content, measurement and optimization are key factors to build personalized relations and impact meaningfully on people’s life and health. In this transformative environment, CoLab acts as an integrated global engine to drive data and centralized platforms.

Thanks to our partnership with Adobe and its end-to-end solutions, we aim to increase collaboration, faster content creation and foster integration across disciplines for marketing and medical teams. The goal is to strengthen Pfizer’s increasing role as a key and direct support for healthcare professionals to better care and treat patients.

What is unique about the Pfizer-CoLab partnership?

Alessio Carli:  Within CoLab, we strongly believe that one of the most important elements in every relationship, the true driver of every collaboration, is the ability to listen and evolve by embracing openness to innovation. In our partnership with Pfizer, we understand their ambitions to lean into creativity to elevate their brand beyond their category by combining the best global creative talent from our consumer and specialist healthcare teams to become one of the world’s leading marketers.

And we understand they want to do this in a way that’s informed by the most contemporary skills in data, media and technology. We’ve earned the chance to create work that is meaningful, transformative and that will help improve the quality of life for countless people across the planet.

What are the key principles and ways of working for CoLab?

Roberto Leonelli: CoLab is a truly collaborative endeavor, one that embodies the more open innovation models that are necessary to succeed in the platform world. Rather than having siloed people working on different projects with multiple suppliers, multidisciplinary integrated teams use a mix of technology, data and agile methods to support Pfizer’s evolution.

Practicing a culture of honest conversations and shared feedback is creating a strong partnership both with Pfizer Italy and among the CoLab market teams across Publicis Groupe and IPG. Ultimately, this is about connecting business impact with improvements in the lives of patients, through a radical marketing transformation that involves all the stakeholders.