DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SERIES - A masterclass in humility, curiosity and courageous leadership

At Cheemia, my purpose is to unleash the human potential to create a healthier world, and I do this by inspiring pharma leaders to shift from just being message bearers to becoming trusted advisers for healthcare professionals.

Over the last three years, we’ve tackled the challenges of digital transformation in healthcare, and through these series I want to spark connections, inspire change and drive meaningful transformation that really improves outcomes for healthcare professionals and ultimately their patients.

I’m really passionate about helping pharma professionals feel confident using technology to improve our engagement, and that’s why I’ve been interviewing inspiring leaders - to learn from them and also to give them a platform so we can all benefit from their insights.

In the latest episode of my Digital Transformation Series on LinkedIn, I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Binns, who until recently served as Head of Digital and Innovation at AstraZeneca. Andrew is now moving on to an exciting new role as Global Marketing Director at Croda Pharma.

Background:

Andrew Binns began his marketing career working for English Premier League football clubs and major tourist boards, including VisitBritain and VisitCalifornia. In these roles, Andrew developed a deep understanding of customer and audience mindsets and behaviours, recognising the power of strategic engagement.

To build on this foundation, he also trained in COM-B, the behaviour change framework, and later became a BJ Fogg–accredited practitioner, refining his expertise in driving meaningful behaviour shifts.

Andrew’s ability to engage audiences in innovative and creative ways really caught the attention of the pharma industry, leading to his recruitment with a kind of clear mission: to disrupt the status quo and drive real change. And that’s exactly what he’s done over the last four years.

During his time with AstraZeneca, he challenged conventional thinking, he tore up the unrealistic omnichannel theories, and replaced them with pragmatic, real-world customer engagement strategies. And the impact has been immediate - significantly increasing HCP engagement.

We have something in common - and that is neither of us have a fear of asking questions. And in fact, both of us believe that there’s no stupid question.

Right, Andrew?

Andrew: Yeah, I think one of the things I learned in pharma very quickly was: if you don’t ask questions, then you’re just going to sit there and not understand things.

Even today, I still learn things. I’m still asking questions constantly because it’s such a complicated, diverse industry that we work in, where you’ve got people who are incredibly intelligent, you’ve got incredibly talented marketeers, wonderful salespeople, brilliant legal minds, and fantastic compliance people - with regulation at the heart of what they do.

So, with that sort of mismatch of different personalities and different people, you’re never ever going to be the cleverest person in the room, and you’re certainly not going to be the person who knows everything.

So, I think I quickly learned to ask questions. Which I guess, as a marketeer, is our job anyway, right? You’ve always got to be curious. You’ve always got to be challenging. You’ve always got to be trying to understand and gain insights. But I can’t think of a better example than this sector - than just being honest and putting your hand up and saying, “Do you know what, can someone explain to me what that means?” And I’ve never been accused – to my face – of being stupid or asking a silly question. So yeah, that’s one of the beautiful things about pharma. We all accept the fact that there’s other people who know things that we don’t know, and there’s no shame in that.

Mehrnaz: No, not at all. And I love that about you, Andrew. I think I was brought up in a different culture, where asking questions and having a debate was encouraged.

And when I moved to the UK, I guess I didn’t know what the normal behaviour is here - I just kept asking questions. And I remember my English wasn’t that great, because it’s my second language. I was training in a nursing school, and I was constantly asking questions.

And my friends would often come to me and say, “You know, we didn’t know that either - we’re so glad you asked,” because they were thinking it but were too embarrassed to ask.

And I think that for me, that curiosity of a child - that they have no fear and just ask questions - is so refreshing. And I think we need more of that in today’s world when we’re going through so much change, right?

Andrew: Yeah, I think one of the scariest things for me in coming into pharma from non-pharma was this impression that I had - that you had to be a scientist. That you had to understand the science behind the products. But of course, there are incredibly talented people whose job it is to know all of that. Whose job it is to communicate the scientific narrative.

And what I love about pharma is they wanted to bring people in who could sell the story well - who could tell the narrative, who were storytellers. And I think that’s where pharma should get a lot of credit. The fact that it’s acknowledging that a more contextualised message to its audience types is what’s needed. No longer can we just dump 100-slide decks on our HCP customers and expect them to: a) understand it, and b) have the propensity to even read it.

I remember one time I was in a meeting with the fantastic colleagues I had in the compliance team, and we were talking about quite a provocative video that we were trying to get signed off. I was slightly terrified about showing them the storyboards. And they said, “You know what? This is so refreshing.” They said, “We’re bored of approving 100-slide decks.”

So imagine how our customers feel! And that really resonated with me. Why do we keep doing what we’ve done time after time after time? How you engage with people outside of pharma has evolved beautifully and brilliantly. So let’s evolve things in pharma in the same way.

Mehrnaz: I like to reflect back to see how we first met. If I remember correctly, I first met you online, either on LinkedIn or various webinars that we attended. But the first time I saw you in person was last year at the PM Society Awards when you won Marketer of the Year.

Andrew: Yeah, I definitely think I remember meeting you at the PM Awards. I think it was a strange evening because to be awarded Marketer of the Year - like, I genuinely think it’s, of all the awards that I’ve been lucky enough to win, that was the one for me. Because you have massive imposter syndrome - I still do - working in pharma.

And to almost have some of the stuff that we were doing validated by, you know, judges and peers who picked you for the work you’re doing, rather than who you are or who you know - that was a really great moment for me.

And then I think we also spoke after a couple of times I presented in Barcelona and at the NEXT conferences as well. Because I suppose, whether it’s a positive or negative - because of my slight newness to pharma, that naivety or the ability to ask questions without fear allowed me to do talks where I could question things like:

•     Why do we have promotional content and medical content with different strategies?

•     Why is digital undervalued and under-reported on?

•     Why is creativity not seen as important as scientific messaging?

So all of those questions, which I think is brilliant that other people are asking now, and pharma is responding to really well - yeah, that’s where me and you connected.

Mehrnaz: I think one thing I really loved when I first saw your post and conversations online was that you were kind of saying, “No, we are selling. Marketing is about selling.”

You know, we shouldn’t be shy about just telling what we’re here to do. And I loved that because I thought - we’re not just here to educate. We are educating, but at the end of the day, we want patients to have access to medicines. Full stop.

And the way to do that is to inform, educate - and you know, just sell. So I loved the fact that you were just calling it as it was.

Andrew: I think one of my absolute heroes is David Ogilvy. And his whole premise around marketing was along the lines of: “We sell, or else.”

And I love that, because that’s how every marketeer should think:

•     What am I doing that’s going to make an impact?

•     What am I doing that’s going to change behaviour?

•     What am I going to do that’s going to shift an attitude?  

You’re totally right, Mehrnaz, around the fact that pharma’s job is to ensure that products get into patients' hands as quickly and as efficiently as we can.

Marketing and sales - especially in pharma - should be the best of friends. And I still find it so strange that they’re not, at times.

Because salespeople shouldn’t be afraid that marketing is trying to replace the incredible work they do. And marketeers shouldn’t be snobby enough to think that the sales team don’t have a place in today’s environment - because absolutely they do.

That personal relationship they have with our customers can never be replicated by the most powerful of digital assets or strategies. But I think - we are living in a more complex ecosystem of engagement.

So it’s incredibly difficult to allocate one particular asset, or event, or moment that has persuaded an HCP to prescribe our drugs.

And I think that’s a big challenge for pharma - how do you report on the success of any marketing or sales activity, if all you want to do is report on prescribing behaviour?

Because, how do you identify when an HCP made that decision to switch from a GSK drug to an AstraZeneca drug?

It’s impossible to do. Because it’s not like they’ve seen a banner advert and thought, “You know what? I really like that banner advert - I’m going to change drugs.” There’s so much decision-making involved that sits completely autonomous to marketing.

And I also think marketing - one of the things we need to accept in pharma - is that I think 80% of prescribing behavior occurs completely independent of anything anyone does.

So let’s focus in on the 20% of people who potentially can be converted over. When they’re either apathetic to our brand, or biased against it, or they’re loyal to another one - they’re the ones that proper marketeers should be going for.

Mehrnaz: Yeah. And I completely agree with you. I think, at the end of the day, our decisions to purchase something are based on our experience with that brand or experience with that company.

And it’s not just one touchpoint - it’s a combination of touchpoints that either delights you, or makes you think, “I’m not going to go there - nowhere near that.”

And I think - marketing, medical, sales - everybody is part of the same team, and we need to work closely together.

Andrew, you know, from football clubs and tourism boards to pharma - can you tell us a little bit more about this unusual journey you took?

Andrew: Yeah - there’s a lot from non-pharma that I think is really relevant in pharma.

I grew up where, certainly digital was very much seen as a tactic. And there was a lot of one-message-for-all marketing going on in non-pharma.

So, your example was where I first started seeing the power of segmentation and understanding the audiences.

So for VisitBritain, we would send out marketing messages across Europe and across America trying to drive people to this amazing place that we live in. And, it was only when we started trying to understand what motivates a French person to come to the United Kingdom is vastly different to what motivates someone from Japan. So why aren’t we sending different marketing messages to these different people?

And I know it sounds obvious now to do that, but we’d be sending messages to people on our database from France around coming to Britain for our wonderful cuisine - which is laughable to send to the French. And they found it laughable.

Whilst the Japanese - they loved coming for things like The Beatles story, they loved coming to experience the Lake District, they love the golf you can play in Kent.

So there was so much more that we could look at when it came to really starting to understand our audience types.

And the same with football - where we would engage with a 14-year-old boy in the same way that we'd engage a 35-year-old man. The failure with that is - they have vastly different journeys that they're on with that football club.

So there was a big drop-off - with 14-year-olds - because they started becoming quite independent of the parents who were taking them to football.

So from eight to thirteen, children were dragged along to the football and they were happy because they followed their father - especially boys. When they were 14, they’d start discovering girls, drinking, hanging out with their mates - so they didn't want to go to the football with their dad.

So we had to market to them differently. So instead of using the mascot - Stamford the Lion for Chelsea or Gunnersaurus for Arsenal - which would be incredibly patronising to a 14-year-old boy, we started using who they would be looking up to: the John Terrys and Frank Lampards of the world.

And so, using the players to encourage these people to stay loyal. And the biggest aspiration for any marketeer in football is what we call cradle to grave - which is where you're constantly engaging, in a relevant way, with a supporter from when they're young, to when they become a member, to when they buy a season ticket, to when they start owning businesses - so we want to push hospitality to them. And then we want them to buy a box. And then we want them to buy tickets for their family.

There was a real customer journey laid out.

So, when pharma came knocking - and by the way, I was absolutely opposed to joining pharma because I just simply didn't think I'd be good enough to work in such a specialised industry - and they said, “We want to start utilising all of the aspects of non-pharma that you’ve been doing in football and tourism into pharma,” that was hugely exciting for me.

And every job I've had in pharma - whether it was agency side or AstraZeneca side - I’ve been so fortunate to have a boss who totally backed me and said: “Take risks. Fail. Push the boundaries. Challenge what we're doing. And do it in a way that brings everyone on the journey.”

I felt very fortunate to work in pharma. And very quickly, I realised I was surrounded by incredibly talented people. And all I did was try and bring my nuggets of insights or knowledge in supporting them in what they were doing.

I never ever positioned myself as a disruptor. I positioned myself as someone who could work with a company that wanted to disrupt the way that they were engaging.

But disruption for the better. Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it if you’re not improving what you’re doing?

Mehrnaz: Yeah - I think there’s so many nuggets there. First of all, I just want to say - I love how you are raw and real. You're so humble - openly sharing your own feeling of imposter syndrome coming into pharma.

But also what you shared about the cradle to grave, and trying to get into the head of a 14-year-old: what will motivate them to go to football versus hanging around with girls or drinking with their friends - that’s so fascinating. And thank you for sharing that.

How did you facilitate marketing and sales to become best friends in AZ, or work toward that relationship in pharma?”

Andrew: When I joined AstraZeneca, omnichannel was being positioned as the greatest thing since sliced bread. And it was being delivered by massive consultancies, charging us millions of pounds, and it was unimplementable.

It was unusable, intimidating, pointless - a waste of money, I thought. And the sales team hated it, because it was being positioned as almost a replacement for them. The marketeers hated it because it was impossible to use. And the digital team hated it because they knew it didn’t make any sense.

So, the first thing that we did was work with the sales team to, first of all, reassure them that our role in the omnichannel team - or the customer engagement team - was to support the great work they were doing, not replace it.

And I was really surprised to hear them say that we were the first people to speak to them in that way. And I guess that was the first time I realised we could make a real difference.

Because I was so surprised that other people - whether due to insecurity or a desire to make themselves look better - were trying to position omnichannel as a replacement for the sales team. And that it was the answer to everything. But it wasn't. And I don’t think it is.

So yeah - we worked with the sales guys to show them how we could populate the top of the sales funnel. Warm up the leads for them. Encourage their customers to become more loyal to AstraZeneca. Prompt them into understanding what their customers were doing on our websites. Whether they were opening our emails.

We were seen then as partners to sales, rather than the big bad wolves.

And I’m still really proud that some of my best friends at AstraZeneca are the sales guys. They allowed me to go out with them. I found it fascinating, as someone who didn’t grow up as a rep, to spend time with the field force.

We went on a brilliant day in Manchester where we met five different customers.

Two just simply weren’t interested in speaking to us. One was absolutely thrilled with AstraZeneca and everything we were doing in respiratory - was a huge loyalist. One was really open and honest with me and just said:

“Don’t waste your time sending me emails. Don’t waste your time sending me videos. I wake up at 8 in the morning, I want to spend time with my kids. So don’t believe this stuff about doctors waking up and going straight to the BMJ website - because they don’t.

They work their asses off the entire day. They've got no spare time whatsoever to read our fancy emails. And when they finish work, the last thing they want to do is read about AstraZeneca’s safety and efficacy data. So - text us. Send us information on WhatsApp.”

Now - compliance might have had a few things to say about that. The fact of the matter is - we’re delivering content to the doctors in the way they want it.

That really opened my eyes into how we needed to be empathetic to these people. You know - why waste £250,000 on emails when our customers are literally saying, “We're not going to read them”?

Mehrnaz: You know, Andrew, I always think the best marketeers are the ones who get out in the field and put their toe in the water to find out what is real. Because customers are not shy - they’re going to tell us what they like and what they don’t like, and what annoys them.

And I think for me, marketing is like being a weather forecaster. If you’re sitting in the studio and forecasting weather, you’re not going to get it right. You need to open the window and stick your head out.

So I think marketeers who are really good are spending time in the field and just getting real feedback - not the filtered feedback - like what’s really happening.

You need to make that a habit - to keep going out and getting the raw and real feedback. Because everything's evolving. The HCPs’ preferences are evolving. The pressure on them is huge - in some countries more than others, in terms of the time they’ve got to spend with patients.

Andrew : Totally agree. Some of the best campaigns, that I delivered at AstraZeneca came from the insights we got by speaking to HCPs.

If any of my non-pharma customers could see how little we speak to our actual target audience, I think that’s something we should all be working on. Speak to these doctors. Understand what they want to get from us.

But the way we give it to them - that’s where I think we really need to look. Not trying to tell the entire story on an email.

Let’s grab their attention. Prompt their interest. Stimulate their desire.

Mehrnaz: How would you compare the digital maturity of pharma compared to FMCG or the companies you worked with? And any ideas what would be the biggest challenge to overcome to close the gap?

Andrew: Brilliant question. I would say - digital experiences is where we need to really improve things in pharma.

Because I think we’re quite lazy. We create these websites, chuck a load of content on there and hope that the doctors will visit it.

Where we can learn from non-pharma is by taking inspiration from sites that personalise the experience based on their knowledge of the customer.

I was massively inspired when I went to see the Director of Customer Engagement at Netflix, who basically said: “There’s not a single human being on Earth who has the same Netflix experience as another.”

Now - it’s quite an ambitious aim for pharma. But what I think we should do is try to give content that our HCPs want.

And I think the elephant in the room is that HCPs want medical content, not promotional content. So we should start addressing that fact.

The second thing is - we in pharma have the absolute Rolls-Royce of technology. Whether it's Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, or Sitefinity - these are enterprise CMSs that are perfect for personalisation.

And yet - we don't use them.

We use our websites... we may as well build them on WordPress. Because we don't use all the functionality that we could.

But we should, because our CRM systems are the strongest in the world. We understand the prescribing behaviours of our doctors. We understand where they are. We understand what guidelines exist in those areas. We understand what influences are prominent in that region.

So, we could produce an incredible digital experience for our doctors. One that makes them see our websites as a cornerstone of great content.

So I think, digitally, we can really start learning how to engage with our customers in a personalised way that non-pharma does brilliantly.

And I don’t think it’s a big stretch. The content exists, the data on our customers exists, the technology exists - and certainly some of the amazing people I’ve met at congresses, we’ve got the talent that can deliver all of this.

It’s just about a desire to really say: let’s change things around. Maybe we need more people pushing why digital should be a brilliant way of delivering individual, personalized experiences.

I think sometimes less is more - but make that “less” content really relevant to what they want. And blend it with interaction - human interaction.

Sometimes, it’s easier to tell a simple story that directly addresses their pain point rather than chucking the kitchen sink at them and hoping something will stick.

Andrew: Yeah. Maybe having a mindset of “What can we do for you today?” is more relevant than “Here’s everything we could ever give you ever - and good luck finding what you want.”

I think that more bite-sized approach... you know, a doctor might be after data one day, then impact on a patient the next, then a patient story the day after, and then the value proposition.

But if we can give them that information quickly, efficiently and not make them read through piles of stuff they don’t want to read just to get to what they want - that would be a great start.

Andrew: There’s a real arrogance in pharma of:“If we build it, they’ll come.”

The number of castles in deserts I’ve seen created... where we spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on an asset, under the false impression that because pharma has built it, doctors will come to it.

But doctors are getting their information from lots of other resources. And it’s so much easier to join a conversation and add value to it - rather than being arrogant enough to start your own conversation from scratch.

Too often, I see pharma shouting at an empty room.

Mehrnaz: Yeah. I remember I read a book a few years ago - it was called Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug. And it said that in digital, you have to make the information so intuitive that people just get it immediately - rather than having to click, click, click to get to it.

Andrew: Totally. We should be taking cues from companies like Amazon and Netflix. Imagine if we delivered that kind of ease.

Mehrnaz: What was the most effective, satisfying programme or solution you delivered at AZ?

Andrew: One of the best projects I ever worked on allowed me to really follow a path using creativity.

When I first joined AstraZeneca, it was just as COVID was coming to an end and there was massive vaccine fatigue.

Now, one of our biggest brands is obviously flu, right? We need the British public to be getting their flu vaccines.

But there was a big drop-off in certain areas around the UK - certainly where I’m from, Liverpool,  Scousers will not accept a message from Boris Johnson. Also in Manchester. Also in parts of North London.

So, a lot of the messaging around “get your flu vaccine” just wasn’t landing.

So, we created a completely non-pharma advert that was basically a girl sneezing on a load of kids in a cinema - just to show the impact that flu could then have on people.

Compliance were hugely involved in that decision - they helped me get it pushed through.

And the result? It increased the number of vaccines in those areas from 12.9% in one area up to 19% in another.

It proved that creative, attention-grabbing, provocative marketing campaigns do work in pharma.

I was then tasked with: “Alright - you’ve done it for the public. How can you do something similar for healthcare professionals?”

And it really turned the mindset inside AstraZeneca. Marketeers began thinking: “We can do exciting work here. We can do work that people are proud of. We can do work that makes people laugh or cry.”

We worked with some of the best agencies in the world to deliver that work. And I’m so proud of the awards those campaigns won.

AstraZeneca winning a Cannes Lion? That would’ve been unheard of before.

But now everybody wants to do those kinds of campaigns - not because they’re “cool,” but because they saw the impact they can have.

So, that was a really satisfying moment for me - because it was a real change moment for AstraZeneca.

They saw the power of creativity. Which works incredibly well in our lives - how we’re nudged, how we’re prompted, how we’re persuaded by advertisers.

Mehrnaz: That’s a brilliant example. And I really loved about it was how you worked with compliance.

You wanted to do something disruptive and you brought compliance in at the beginning of the discussion.

They were enablers, rather than the “computer says no” people. They worked with you to figure out how they could say yes.

That’s really innovative. You brought the key stakeholders into the game early, rather than developing the concept and showing it to them at the end.

Andrew: Yeah and I’ll just say this: the compliance and legal teams are, I think, the most undervalued and under-respected group of people in pharma.

They don’t want to say no.

Of course, if you go to them two days before a campaign goes live, and it’s the first time they’re seeing it, then of course they’ll say no.

But I involved them in the storyboarding. They even came on the video shoot.

Their opinions were valued, valid and now they’re just as core to the creative process as my team, as the brand teams. And they’re just as proud of the work we delivered as anyone else.

Mehrnaz: Definitely. And the other thing I loved about your video ad - you showed what’s not visible. That moment where someone sneezed and all the debris was landing on people’s bodies and faces in slow motion... it was disgusting!

But that’s the point - it made you feel something. It drove emotion, and that emotion drives action.

And for me, good marketing is when you make someone feel something that they can’t ignore. It causes them to change behavior.

And that was just really well executed. So good on you for doing that as a team.

What’s your feeling about the essential nature of big data in omnichannel strategy and the ‘creepy factor’ of companies knowing too much about their customers?

Andrew: Yeah - it’s a great question.

And I’d probably say: I think it’s only creepy when people use it in an intrusive or inappropriate way.

So for example - does anyone think the way that Amazon upsells us when we visit their website is creepy? Like when you go on and it says: “We know you bought those Versace sunglasses - these Tommy Hilfiger jeans would go well with that.”

Does anyone think that’s creepy?

Or is it just incredibly helpful?

Same with Sainsbury’s - they welcome you back, give you your points, show your favourite purchases.

Or Netflix - when they recommend The West Wing because you watched The Handmaid’s Tale.

These are all brilliant ways of using data to create a personalised experience. And I don’t think anyone finds that creepy - because it’s relevant. It adds value.

Where it does feel creepy is when pharma makes it about pharma.

Like, imagine if I were a doctor and I got an email that said: “Thanks very much for visiting the AstraZeneca website. You looked at pages 7, 9, and 12 - and then you disappeared.”

What’s the point of that? Why just tell someone you’ve been watching them?

Why not use the fact that we’re fortunate enough to have this data to create value for them?

Give them what they actually want. And they’ll be happy to sign up. They’ll give us their email address. They’ll engage. Because we’ll have earned their trust.

Mehrnaz: I love the way you explained it. What are the most exciting marketing trends you’re seeing this year?

Andrew: So I’ll be honest - I know people expect me to say AI or personalisation, but one of the most exciting trends I’m seeing is actually webinars.

There are some fantastic platforms out there now - we used SpotMe at AstraZeneca.

Webinars are no longer just those boring one-hour Zoom presentations dumped online. They’ve become multi-touchpoint journeys.

And the beauty of it? You can engage with customers:

•     Before the webinar (with teasers or segmented content),

•     During (with polls, reactions, breakout sessions),

•     And after (with follow-ups, custom journeys, even linking to CRM for field team engagement).

You can create micro-omnichannel journeys just around a single webinar. And it works.

Doctors want on-demand access, they want control over when they engage and they want content that’s tailored to them.

Mehrnaz: Yeah. And I completely agree with you - I think the best speakers are often the ones who don’t speak at all, but facilitate conversation. And that’s where the magic is.

Andrew: Totally. And one more trend I’ll add: Peer-to-peer content is, hands down, the most effective content pharma can produce. There’s nothing I can ever create in pharma that’s stronger than a doctor talking about our products in a positive way.

So working with digital opinion leaders, key opinion leaders, and real-world users - that's where the power lies. Let them talk. And then get out of the way.

Mehrnaz: You know, Andrew - this has been such a cool session. You’ve been an amazing guest, because you’ve done a great job engaging the audience and bringing them into the conversation.

I just want to kind of wrap up by asking your opinion about something. I know you were one of the first people to read The Omni Advantage.

I was just curious to know - this is your chance to give your honest, raw feedback. Was there anything that resonated with you? Anything you disagreed with?

Andrew: This isn’t a criticism of your first five chapters - but I think it’s very easy for people in pharma to highlight what’s wrong. “Omnichannel doesn’t work.” “Our content is boring.” “Medical and commercial aren’t aligned.”

Cool - we get it. Anyone can say that.

What I loved about your book is that you laid it bare and then offered solutions.

You said: “Here’s what we can try. Here’s what we have tried. Here’s what worked.” And that’s rare.

Because honestly - pharma is full of really smart people. We’re paid well. We’re in the most important industry in the world. And we should have the courage to try things. To fail sometimes. But to try with intent to improve patient care.

I think the industry is moving into a place where people want to change. Where they’re looking for playbooks. Your book offers that.

Mehrnaz: Thank you. That really means a lot. And thank you again - for your honesty, your energy, your experience - and for being such a brilliant guest. Let’s keep asking questions. Let’s keep trying. Let’s keep caring.

Conclusion:

This conversation with Andrew Binns was more than just a deep dive into marketing strategy - it was a masterclass in humility, curiosity and courageous leadership. From football terraces to pharma boardrooms to patients’ beds, Andrew has carried with him a relentless focus on understanding people and challenging assumptions. Our discussion reminded us that true transformation doesn't come from buzzwords or flashy technology, but from empathy, collaboration and the willingness to ask the hard questions.

Whether it’s reshaping omnichannel engagement, building stronger partnerships between sales and marketing in pharma, or embracing creativity without fear, Andrew’s insights offer a clear roadmap for how pharma can evolve with purpose. I hope this blog has inspired you to think boldly, act with intention and most of all - stay curious.

If you would like to purchase a copy of The Omni Advantage, it is available as a paperback or audiobook.