TV in Pharma Marketing: The Missing Piece in Omnichannel Strategy

The global pharmaceutical market is projected to reach $1.86 trillion in 2025, up from $1.75 trillion in 2024, reflecting a CAGR of 6.7%, according to The Business Research Company. As the market expands, so does the competition, making it essential for pharma brands to use every tool available to earn attention and drive results.

That’s why today’s marketing strategies go far beyond isolated campaigns. Pharma marketers now can email nurturing programs, invest in targeted ads on Google and Meta, launch dedicated landing pages, buy radio placements, and deploy digital and offline messaging. These are the core elements of a modern omnichannel strategy.

And in 2025, omnichannel is a necessity. Audiences are deeply fragmented. They multitask, multiscreen, and consume information from several sources at once. If your message doesn’t reach them in a coordinated, connected way across channels, it gets drowned out. Being present on one or two platforms isn’t enough.

So, where does TV fit in, and why could it be the smartest addition to your omnichannel strategy? Here’s what pharma advertisers need to know.

Why Omnichannel Matters for Pharma

Pharma advertisers face a lot of persistent challenges that make traditional, siloed marketing increasingly ineffective. An omnichannel marketing approach for pharma helps address each of these pain points by connecting strategies, channels, and data within a unified ecosystem approach that enhances precision, compliance, and performance.

Omnichannel marketing in pharmaceutical industry is a holistic and customer-centric approach that integrates multiple marketing and sales channels to provide a seamless and consistent experience for stakeholders. This approach helps advertisers create a halo effect and maximize audience reach. A TV ad is a good chance to increase touchpoints with existing audiences and reach new audiences that can’t be reached on other channels.

Here is the list of the most common challenges that pharma marketers may face and some ideas on how an omnichannel marketing approach can help.

1. Regulatory & Compliance Complexity

Pharma marketing must comply with strict FDA, FTC, and Sunshine Act guidelines, making message control critical.

How omnichannel helps:

• Centralized oversight ensures consistent, compliant messaging across platforms.
• Controlled content distribution minimizes risk by pushing approved assets to every channel simultaneously.
• Audit trails track message delivery and approvals, simplifying documentation for regulators.

2. Fragmented Privacy Landscape

State-specific privacy laws and the loss of cookies complicate targeting and tracking.

How omnichannel helps:

• HIPAA-compliant targeting and contextual strategies protect consumer data.
• Consent management embedded across platforms ensures state-level compliance.
• Minimized data leakage by containing execution within a unified, secure framework.

3. Digital Transformation & Attribution Gaps

Legacy systems, siloed data, and inconsistent measurement undermine campaign efficiency.

How omnichannel helps:

• Provides unified performance measurement across TV, digital, and search.
• Enables cross-channel attribution by tying top-of-funnel exposure to outcomes.
• Supports test-and-learn pilots with real-time optimization and feedback loops.

4. Standing Out in a Crowded Market

Highly competitive categories, long approval timelines, and multiple stakeholders make differentiation difficult.

How omnichannel helps:

• Creates message depth by sequencing campaigns across channels.
• Delivers tailored content to patients, HCPs, and payers where they are most active.
• Controls frequency and repetition to reduce ad fatigue and increase relevance.

5. Uncertainty Around DTC Advertising

Potential restrictions on direct-to-consumer advertising put pressure on traditional tactics.

How omnichannel helps:

• Allows flexible budget reallocation between branded and non-branded channels.
• Supports non-linear storytelling that adapts to changing regulations.
• Maintains influence via CTV, digital video, and native platforms, even without DTC broadcast.

TV Is a Core Channel in an Omnichannel Strategy

TV (both linear and CTV) remains one of the most trusted sources of information (US adults will spend an average of 2 hours and 29 minutes per day watching traditional TV in 2025, more than any other media activity, per our May 2025 forecast.)

Linear TV advertising remains a good option for pharma marketers, as the main linear audience is individuals aged 50 and over. Despite downtrends, it still attracts viewers. For example, 127.7 million viewers tuned in for Super Bowl LIX on February 9, 2025. According to The Gauge report, overall broadcast viewing was up 5.1% in January 2025, benefiting from increases in drama series (+15%) and news (+18%).

Linear TV is still a critical driver of brand awareness, complementing digital and streaming strategies to create a cohesive brand experience. While many pharma marketers have shifted investment toward digital and CTV, data consistently shows that linear TV serves as a foundational channel that amplifies the effectiveness of other media. 30 and 60-second TV ads command undivided attention, establishing brand recognition that enhances subsequent interactions across digital, social, and display advertising. Advancements in HIPAA-compliant targeting enable marketers to reach relevant patient audiences on linear TV with greater accuracy, using anonymized data on conditions, medications, and procedural history. Integrating linear TV into an integrated pharma marketing strategy helps pharma brands improve audience engagement, reinforce messaging across multiple channels, and drive more effective outcomes throughout the marketing funnel.

And what’s more important, linear TV has transformed. It’s data-driven now. This means traditional campaigns can be run, ruled, and optimized the way you do it with CTV or even digital. As a result, better targeting, real-time insights, and outcomes that you can prove.

Connected TV advertising enables granular audience targeting while complementing the broad reach of linear TV. With audience fragmentation on the rise, CTV enables pharma marketers to reach specific patient segments, ensuring messages connect with those most likely to benefit. Unlike linear TV’s broad reach, CTV’s data-driven approach allows for precise targeting, making it effective for both direct-to-consumer (DTC) and healthcare provider (HCP) campaigns. Since some streaming platforms remain ad-free, pharma brands need a strategy that integrates both CTV and linear TV for a seamless customer experience.

Both linear and connected TV can help create a seamless, data-driven advertising strategy. While marketers often segment budgets between linear, local, and streaming TV, audiences perceive it all as a single TV experience. The most effective strategy for building an audience across both channels involves treating linear and CTV as one holistic ecosystem, ensuring optimal reach and frequency while minimizing wasted impressions. By leveraging cross-channel technology, marketers can deduplicate reach, avoid over-saturation, and strategically allocate investments across both platforms. This connected channels strategy not only enhances brand awareness but also drives measurable performance by maximizing unique audience engagement and response rates, delivering customer-centric engagement throughout the omnichannel journey.

Case Study: How TV Boosted Conversions for a Medical Brand

Here is the case study that shows why this is important to include TV advertising in an omnichannel marketing strategy.

A national medical device company wanted to determine the true impact their national linear TV campaign had on driving new customers. While they observed an increase in web traffic during the campaign, they struggled to distinguish whether these conversions were directly attributable to TV or influenced by other marketing channels.

The brand leveraged TV+® Incremental Lift Studies for Linear TV to statistically assess the lift in conversions driven by their linear campaign with a test and control methodology designed to highlight what TV drove, not what TV touched!

Campaign results:

• 130% increase in website entrances
• 360% increase in overall traffic
• 439% increase in incremental conversions

Conclusion. Why include TV Ads in an Omnichannel Pharma Marketing Strategy?

• Precision and Targeted Messaging. Pharma brands can achieve greater accuracy in directing their messaging to specific patient populations through audience-based targeting. Simulmedia’s TV+ platform provides data-driven Pharmaceutical TV advertising services with targeting beyond typical age and gender. Brands can gain insights and reach customers with higher accuracy, whether they are 55+ golf players in Florida or 18+ diabetic glucose monitor users.
• Data-Driven Ad Buying. Pharmaceutical brands are heavily embracing data-driven ad buying to increase brand impact.
• Enhanced Engagement and Opt-ins. Omnichannel marketing, including TV, helps pharmaceutical companies engage with audiences by providing highly relevant content and added value, motivating them to opt in for communication on digital channels.
• Unified Communication and Brand Awareness. TV contributes to a unified image and clear brand message by aligning messaging across different channels. This consistency reinforces brand awareness.
• Increased Touchpoints. Omnichannel marketing, with TV as a component, increases the number and variety of touchpoints with the target audience through digital channels and diverse formats.
• Virtual Care and Medicine. Pharma companies are recognizing the importance of virtual communication and integration across channels, with a focus on new modes of engagement, which include TV.