The trend: We attended the recent Fierce Pharma Week conference and its “From Linear to Connected TV” panel discussion with healthcare and pharma ad agency executives.

Here are our key takeaways for marketers working through the connected TV (CTV) evolution:

As pharma marketers and ad agencies begin to shift ad dollars from traditional linear to digital CTV, media buying is moving from programs and broad demo buys to data-driven audience targeting. Advertisers are following consumers who’ve moved away from linear TV’s fixed schedule watching, which is creating widespread audience fragmentation. Jill Kregel, IPG Mediabrands’ head of partnerships, health, pointed out that scale is no longer about “everyone all at once” but about more distributed, engaged audiences.

Healthcare and pharma marketers need to use linear and CTV advertising synergistically. Molly Bennett, Publicis Health Media VP, investment lead, agreed with other speakers that linear and CTV work best in tandem, noting brands are most effective when they use linear for broad national reach and layer on CTV for personalization and engagement.

CTV is giving healthcare and pharma marketers the ability to measure performance and outcome-based metrics like ad impressions or completion rates, although there are still limitations, the panelists agreed.

The data: Linear TV ad spending is declining in healthcare and pharma, while digital and CTV is rising.

• We forecast linear TV spending will drop to $5.56 billion this year, an 11% decline YoY, while digital ad spending will increase to $24.77 billion, up 13.3% YoY.
• We include CTV in our digital nonmobile spending, which we forecast will reach $10.63 billion in 2025. That's a 12.6% increase YoY, accounting for more than one-third (33.6%) of healthcare and pharma’s total media ad spending.

The final word: Healthcare and pharma marketers have long relied on the broad reach and frequency of linear TV, but need to recognize the growing power of CTV.

Marketers shouldn’t think of CTV as a replacement, but as a performance layer on top of linear’s scale and reach. CTV can better reach smaller and more engaged patient and caregiver audiences, while linear continues as a strategic lever for awareness and credibility at scale.