← The Big Impression
The Big Impression
Genentech’s Erica Taylor on how healthcare brands became mainstream post-Covid
00:27:39
Genentech VP, CMO Erica Taylor joins The Current Podcast to share her unique journey from immunology to biotech marketing, and the evolving role of biotech brands in mainstream media.
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- [00:01]
Kat Fesse
I'm Kat Fesse.
- [00:02]
Ilyce Lefring
And I'm Ilyce Lefring.
- [00:03]
Kat Fesse
And welcome to this edition of the current podcast. In honor of International Women's Day and Women's Month, we're spotlighting trailblazing women in marketing at this year's south by Southwest.
- [00:17]
Ilyce Lefring
For this episode, we're excited to be joined by Erica Taylor, Vice president and Chief Marketing Officer at Genentech, a company at the forefront of biotech innovation for over 40 years.
- [00:29]
Kat Fesse
Erica has a unique background, transitioning from a PhD in immunology and product development into the world of marketing, bringing a scientific perspective to how Genentech connects with both healthcare providers and patients.
- [00:41]
Ilyce Lefring
We'll dive into how that background informs her approach to marketing, the game changing campaign she's led, and how the biotech industry is evolving to embrace more creative, emotionally driven storytelling.
- [00:54]
Kat Fesse
Plus, Erica will share her perspective on how women in STEM can break barriers and what the future of health care marketing holds. Let's get started.
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Ilyce Lefring
So, Erica, thanks for being here at south by Southwest.
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Erica Taylor
Thanks for having me.
- [01:06]
Ilyce Lefring
Of course. So you have a unique background for a cmo, growing part of your career on the product development side of biotech. After earning your PhD from Stanford Medical School, what drew you to the marketing side of biotech? And why don't we see more medical students transition into heading up marketing departments?
- [01:26]
Erica Taylor
Yeah, you know, I sometimes think that I have the habit of just showing up in places I'm not supposed to be. And so I certainly did go into my studies in immunology with the idea that I was going to end up in marketing. I would have never have thought that that would be the case. It really sort of became apparent to me that I was very much interested in the intersection of business and science when I was nearing the end of my graduate program. But I wasn't really sure how to do that or how to get there. And so I explored a lot and I often share when I do development conversations with folks in the industry that I've probably not gotten more jobs than I've gotten in my life trying to figure out how to be in these other spaces. But for me, the journey really started in consulting. I was in management consulting for biotech and pharma industry, and that is what led me to Genentech and at my career there. I have had roles in analytics and in sales and it was probably my time in sales that really got me interested in marketing and so was able to sort of land a role in marketing and to do so at a company that innovates on science. I Think they were able to sort of see, okay, she maybe doesn't have a background in marketing, but she understands the science. She understands how to communicate it and what actually moves markets when you're in.
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Ilyce Lefring
The sales field, how has that background informed your approach as a cmo? Why is that scientific, medical knowledge, and maybe even sales knowledge so valuable?
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Erica Taylor
Yeah, I think one of the things that was a bit of an aha for me in my sales role was, I will say, one of the most professionally transformative experiences I had, which is code for saying it was the hardest thing I've ever done. And you learn a lot about what actually motivates people in the decisions that they make. And marketing is really focused on influencing a decision that people make. And you realize, even though I have a background in science and people very much need to understand why they're making the decision they're making, if you're a provider making a prescribing decision or a patient choosing between options for medicines available to you, you need to understand the why of that. But really, there has to be some kind of emotional pull there. And I was really fascinated with that because I sort of come from a very cerebral training of like, well, we've got this data, and here are the patients for which benefit the most. And so therefore, this is the natural conclusion of decision you would make. In fact, it's far more complex than that. And it's that complexity of, you know, human behavior that I got really interested in as I grew in the marketing organization. So I try to bring both the left and right brain, such as it.
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Kat Fesse
Were, to that thinking, as the best marketers do. Is there. We ask everyone this question. I want to go a little bit deeper. Is there a specific, specific moment that changed the game for you as a marketer? Tell us your most defining career moment or pivot to date and what the obstacles were there.
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Erica Taylor
Yeah, I could probably name a few. I get the most depth in moments and insights when I actually get to interact with patients and with providers and sort of understand deeply their experiences. And One of the AHAs that I got actually both in my sales and then later in my marketing role is that, you know, yes, Genentech, you guys have been trailblazing and biotech, and you have been innovating, but the data is so complex. Even though I am trained in this field, with the. The. The patient loads that I see every day, I don't have time, and you guys don't make it simple for us. And so the aha there is like, okay, then marketing campaigns have to re really focus on taking very complex science, which I feel fortunate to understand, but boil it down to something that's very simple, that's very memorable. And the same for patients. Right. Very often when I'm in conversations with providers, I have the patient in mind when I'm thinking about how I would medicine explained to me and that is how I explain it to the provider, thinking, you know, maybe if a couple of my phrasing or words sort of land well, then that's what gets repeated to the patient so that they understand the choices that they have before them.
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Kat Fesse
Love that. And as a biotech company now over 40 years old, how would you say your approach to campaign strategy differs from typical health care campaigns?
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Erica Taylor
Yeah, well, for one, yeah, the patient for sure in mind. And one of the things that I'm very happy to spearhead as the chief marketing officer is really thinking about how do we make that more and more personal. It's not the patient, it is the patient that may be a single parent that lives 45 minutes from their local healthcare system. How do I speak to that patient just as much as I speak to the patient that has a high powered career and really doesn't have the time to focus on themselves and needs something to be quick and convenient. And so really the opportunity before us is to figure out how to become more nuanced, relevant and personalized when we tell the stories of our medicines. What I love about Genentech and our ability to do that is we've always been focused on two things, patience and science. And as long as we keep those two centered in everything that we do, I think we're able to kind of meet that mark. Maybe the other thing I'll add, you know, because the idea of speaking in personalized ways is not new, it's not rocket science, it's not even the more complex things that we do. But the technology and the capabilities that exist maybe outside of healthcare are now being applied in our space. And so very excited about what things like generative AI can do for us and really being able to personalize our stories around our medicines and our development. But at scale, we market over 40 medicines. And so it's great to do this in one or two places, but imagine doing that across the full breadth of our portfolio.
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Kat Fesse
Yeah. And I imagine that 40, 40 medications or medicines times however many profiles, the many faces of patients.
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Erica Taylor
Exactly.
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Kat Fesse
Yeah. You really need some automation. Absolutely.
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Erica Taylor
The scale of the problem possible. And unless I'm getting sort of, you know, a complete blank check to build all the resources that I need. We've got to find ways to be more efficient with that.
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Ilyce Lefring
So that has really got me thinking because as much as the customer is number one and everything, but you also have to speak to the provider and they're the ones who are going to be really, you know, selling your medicine to the patient themselves. How do you solve, I guess, for your need to resonate with both the customer provider and then who would you consider highest priority in those campaigns?
- [07:34]
Erica Taylor
Now, it's a really, really great question. One of the things that I love about the healthcare space is that your decision maker and your end user are almost never the same person. Right. And that's totally unique. It's uncommon, but you could imagine parents buying baby formula are also decision makers, but generally not end users. Unless you were like me and got desperate and ran out of half and half and put baby formula in coffee works great.
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Kat Fesse
Extra nutrients.
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Erica Taylor
Exactly. Yeah. Life hacks. So it's not a unique. It's not totally unique, but you have to kind of speak to two audiences. So because of the breadth of our portfolio, we really do think about this disease state by disease states. So there are some disease states where really the provider is the driving decision maker. Examples of this can be if you're having a stroke and you're in the hospital, you're probably not deciding between which medications are right. For now, you're really driven by the provider's decision maker. You can think about that in some of our later line cancer portfolios. When you're in your past, your first two lines of treatment, you're really going to be relying on your provider to understand what are the next. So in those cases, we tend to focus more on the provider and the prescribing decision maker. There are other parts of our portfolio where it's really very much patient driven. We have a medicine that treats food allergy and that really then tends to involve, in some cases, adolescents, their parents. And so we really need to elevate their voices when we're thinking about how we make sure they have the right information. So it really can span the gamut and it's about taking a specific view of that particular disease state and how decision making is made.
- [09:10]
Ilyce Lefring
Amazing. Now, the biotech category is not known for being exactly sexy when it comes to creative marketing. It's, you know, fogged down with like side effects and similar storylines usually. How are you guys moving the needle in terms of creating those powerful, maybe storytelling campaigns?
- [09:30]
Erica Taylor
Yeah, I mean, we are a regulated industry and, you know, I'll say first I'll state first, it's actually really important that we give that information. Right. Any medicine that anyone is going to take, you have to weigh the benefits and the risks, and it is on us to communicate that fairly. And so I very much stand behind that as a scientist. Like, we really have to do that. But that can also make it really hard to know, like, you know, what's what when we're trying to do this. So for me, I always try to root in the emotion and what I tell my teams all the time at the end of everything we do is someone who is sick and scared, and how do we really tap into that? What do they need in that moment of diagnosis? What do they need in that moment when they're a week out from treatment and they're not really sure if what they're experiencing is normal? Really kind of capturing those moments along the patient's journey and similarly for the provider's journey. Right. If I were to be oversimplified, providers seeing 15, 20 patients a day, how do we find ways to make their challenging lives as easy as possible, as simple as possible? And so we kind of think of that almost in two tracks. Some of the best creative that I see really speak to that emotion. We did a campaign in our ophthalmology franchise last year called A Beautiful Sight, which really chronicles a parent watching their child go through the education and then that parent one day becoming a patient. And it's just. It's really a motive. We actually don't talk a ton about the medicine itself, but more the experience of what it's like when you're struggling with your eyesight. And it's gotten a lot of traction just by speaking to that lived experience.
- [11:03]
Kat Fesse
We're gonna shift the conversation and zoom out a little bit.
- [11:05]
Erica Taylor
Okay.
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Kat Fesse
Though biotech is not new by any means, the category was catapulted into the spotlight in mainstream media during the height of COVID 19. Something you know very intimately, a thing or two.
- [11:16]
Erica Taylor
Yeah.
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Kat Fesse
Kilian, at the time, you saw this firsthand with your previous role. And tell us a little bit about that experience. What do you think has changed for the industry as a whole since then?
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Erica Taylor
Oh, wow. Oh, so many things. I had so many reactions, kind of experiencing, as we all did, the sort of the COVID 19 crisis. The first among them is that science really became front and center. And as a scientist, I get excited, like, finally we're getting the credit we deserve. But so much about it was, you know, what I understand is science. Science is slow and painstaking. It's a step forward, it's a step to the right, it's a step back, it's two steps forward. That is how science happens. The lay public for the most part just sees it at the end and so you get to tell this story, but that's not actually how it went down. Right. Think about your vaccines for things like polio. We weren't following the day to day of that. We just had it and we go, great, that's wonderful science. So when looking through sort of the vaccine development for Covid, like we're kind of watching day by day, is it six feet? What kind of mass? Like, how do I do this? And so we kind of got, I think people lost trust in science. And that really was heartbreaking because that's actually how it is. And for me, it's the resilience of the people that continue to pursue. When you get up and the thing you thought was going to work didn't work today, and you get up tomorrow and go do it right. And we were able to break through in that way. So that's the one thing on the science side, on the marketing side, you know, we now know names of biotech companies. No one generally does. You know that I get my branded medication, I get this branded. That branded medication. Now you know the names of the companies that produced the vaccines. You would go in and say, I want the Moderna one or the Pfizer one. Right. That has never really happened before in our industry. And we've had to go from being a sort of what I'll call a house of brands. Right. You know, the branded medication to really thinking about, well, what is the worth in branding the house. Right. The Genentex of the world. We're actively thinking about how we do that, especially as we come to our 50th anniversary as a company next year. So I know there's a lot of activity in thinking how do we strategically do this that is authentic to who we are as an organization and elevates all of the work that we do, all of the scientists that pursue day in and day out, all of the patients that we've been able to help improve the lives of. Yeah.
- [13:40]
Kat Fesse
So in a world that we've been talking about has changed so much since COVID Absolutely. People also expect more from companies than ever before. How do you align your corporate positioning with gen and tech, with your creative output?
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Erica Taylor
Yeah, I think we, to me, this is about relevance and authenticity. I think, you know, there's so much content in your life in and out of health Care to consume. And I think, you know, people are far more discerning of what feels authentic to them, what feels true, what feels pandered to. Right. Today is International Women's Day. There's lots of celebrations around Women's Day. Not everyone has been consistent about really centering women and thinking about, you know, what are the things that, you know, women could benefit from and could use. Right. And so I think. And, you know, the women walking around here today, they know the difference. Right? And so I think for us, the onus is being true to who we are, being authentic, really, and as relevant as we. As we can. And I think about that just sort of from the broader genentech, but also, how do we think about this product by product? What is the authentic experience? How and where do we show up really matters? One of the things that I tell my teams all the time, I'm like, you know, we'd say the word patient. They are people, which sounds obvious, but you can easily lose sight of the fact that, you know, the fact that someone is a patient is probably in the bottom five of the top 100 things they like about their life. Right. So, you know, you want to be there when needed and the hell out of their lives when not. Right. And so how do we kind of, like, thread that line appropriately?
- [15:14]
Kat Fesse
Right.
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Ilyce Lefring
Yeah, it's hard.
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Erica Taylor
It's hard. It's hard.
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Ilyce Lefring
You could argue it's harder than your average, you know, CPG brand, for instance.
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Erica Taylor
Absolutely. Absolutely. So keeps it interesting, that's for sure. Yeah.
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Ilyce Lefring
Now, I know we kind of talked about this a little bit, but I wanted to zoom out here a little bit because of this trend. It seems like it's a trend anyway. And I'm curious what you think, but during the super bowl, there were stronger examples of creative lead pharma and biotech ads competing against, you know, the typical ads you would see during the super bowl usually. What do you think about this? Is that where we're moving as an industry?
- [15:51]
Erica Taylor
I think it's interesting as a sort of. I feel like I'm a student of commercials. Like, I personally love football, so I consume, like, every second of the super bowl, both for the game and then the ads that that show. I think it's interesting, and I think it's a space worth exploring as an industry. And, you know, I think we've seen, you know, there's a Pfizer ad that was released this year. I think they did one last year as well. I think we're still trying to figure out how to land The Mark and Super bowl is an interesting venue to do that. Most people don't want to see a drug commercial.
- [16:23]
Ilyce Lefring
Right.
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Erica Taylor
They're eating nachos, they're watching a game, they're maybe cheering on a team, they're waiting for the halftime show, whatever. Yeah, but like, how do you land in a space, you know, that's, that is supposed to be celebratory and light with something that's relevant and important? I think it's worth exploring.
- [16:38]
Kat Fesse
Yeah.
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Erica Taylor
Personally I'm sort of like, let's see where, where there might be a relevant kind of meeting of the moment and it might be specific to just that year.
- [16:47]
Kat Fesse
Right, right.
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Erica Taylor
Or just this particular thing that we have in our portfolio that's innovative that we want to make sure people know about. Yeah, I don't know that I'd paint a brush and do it everywhere for all things personally, 100% that might, you know, I'm sure there's, there's probably other, you know, marketers on this listening here that'll say no, you should be pushing. And I'm, I'm curious, like, like sort of very curious about where this could go and interested to see.
- [17:10]
Ilyce Lefring
Since we're at south by Southwest and this is International Women's Day, I'd love to get your take on some of these female focused questions.
- [17:17]
Erica Taylor
Sure.
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Ilyce Lefring
So first of all, what inspired you to pursue, pursue a career in marketing and how has your journey been as a woman in the industry? I know with your strong STEM background especially, do you feel like there's still a much needed boost in how women pursue stem?
- [17:35]
Erica Taylor
Well, I'm particularly passionate about STEM fields and you know, as a, as a self proclaimed and bonafide nerd, I think the way, the more in which ways in which we can celebrate that, the better. I think, you know, it's interesting we've seen increasing percentages of women pursuing STEM careers, which I applaud. It's not evenly painted. Like, I think more in medicine and healthcare related fields. You know, I think there's still more gains to be had in, you know, feels like engineering and computer science. And one of the, you know, the things that are very critical if we want to truly unlock things like artificial intelligence, I think there's more, there's more to do there. But I feel very much the, I feel like I'm coming behind women that have gone before and have really blazed trails and I feel the same responsibility to make sure that whatever trail someone believes I've blazed or not is easier for whoever comes behind me. And I Feel a deep obligation in that I spend a good amount of my time mentoring and developing everyone, not just women, but folks that are interested in, as I call it, being in places you're not supposed to be. I think it just makes for a very interesting. An interesting career path and journey. And I don't know what I'll do sort of in the future. I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I'm having a great time now, and. And so I look to mentors to kind of help.
- [18:58]
Kat Fesse
See?
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Erica Taylor
Oh, okay. That's how you did that.
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Kat Fesse
You know, can we better support women in leadership roles? You mentioned mentorship. What are some other ways you're. You're leaning into that?
- [19:06]
Erica Taylor
Yeah, I think it can come up in both direct ways, like mentorship. I think those programs benefit everyone, and we, you know, both. I learned from them. Right. And, you know, I learn a lot about, you know, some of the challenges that people face in their careers now. I think there's subtle ways. One of, I think the most powerful things that we can do is as leaders, show up honestly and authentically and. And not be afraid of showing moments of vulnerability. And I think it humanizes you. I had an experience last year where my husband got very, very ill and needed to have a pretty major surgery. He's doing great now, but sort of living through that and thinking about how do I do the job I've been asked to do, but show up authentically with my team and let them know, hey, I've got kind of a lot going on at home right now. And so I'm, you know, and I don't even know that I navigated that line well, but more recently, actually got up on stage in front of my full organization and kind of shared the story. And I did it in the context of marketing and what it meant to have healthcare providers sort of give me kind of exactly what I need in the moment to kind of help support him.
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Kat Fesse
What a full circle moment it was.
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Erica Taylor
And, you know, it was a somewhat of a spontaneous decision, but I think as certainly women leaders. As leaders, you know, your podcasters don't know this, but I'm a woman of color. So it's a lot of things that are not typical about where I show up in spaces. And the more that I can make it okay that I'm still human, I'm still me, and I go through life the same way you do. You never know what people are walking around with. Kind of, you know, position. I think that helps invite others to say okay, maybe I didn't get a PhD. Maybe I don't have these things, but I'm as human as she is, and maybe I can make it there too. Right. I think there's value in that. Even though I was literally shaking in my boots to tell that story and fighting to keep my composure, but be as authentic as I could.
- [21:13]
Kat Fesse
That's the most human response ever. Yeah. So inspiring. What advice would you give to the next generation of marketing leaders, including, you know, we talked about not just young women, but everyone looking to grow into that leadership role.
- [21:30]
Erica Taylor
Yeah. I usually give. And there's a couple schools of thought on this. So this is sort of Erica's school of thought on this. Right. I think that you have to strike this balance between having depth of knowledge but getting breadth of experience. And it's a really hard one to thread. Right. Especially if you're doing something you love, you just want to do more and more and more and more. Right. And there may be great growth paths to be had in that. But a lot of the sort of advice that I give to folks is like, every time you think about pursuing another role, right, I'm going to apply for this role. It's a promotion. It's a lateral. Think two moves ahead. Does it unlock more options for you? Right. And be very aware, like my more senior leaders, I'm like, you have to understand you're at a point in your seniority where making lateral moves gets harder. And so you want to make them, you know, in your earlier points in your career when you can, because, one, there's just more of those roles. Right. I'm a vice president. There's not a lot of us at Genentech. And so if I want to move laterally, like, I have fewer options, I have to be that much more thoughtful about it. But I feel like I come at this with the space of a more breadth of experience. But you still got to know the job, Right. So you kind of have to navigate this sort of, as I call it, the difference between scuba and snorkel. Right. Like, if you can scuba dive and go deep, understand that that has ramifications for your career development. If you only snorkel, also ramifications for your career development. And then the other piece of advice I give folks is try not to plan more than a couple of years ahead, because 10 years from now, you're going to do a job that doesn't exist today. So you're probably like, I'm Genentech's first cmo, so I couldn't have wanted this job. It didn't exist until three years ago. Right. Plan for a couple years at a time, and if you're weighing a couple of options that are otherwise equal to you, go with the team you'd rather have more fun with. Go with the team you want to come hang out in Austin, Texas with. Right. And you're never gonna go wrong working on teams that you enjoy with each other. We have a really great and strong culture at Genentech, and I'm always like, you know, if you see a leader you want to go work with, find a way to get on that person team, you know, so those are. Those are usually sort of the. The kinds of advice I give to everyone and then maybe the other. And this is more. I'm of a certain age and wouldn't know it. Podcasters of a certain age worry a lot less, you know, and someone gave me this advice, like you. You. You know, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna get that job? Blah, blah, blah. You gotta work a long time, most, if you're lucky, right? And many people do, and so worry a lot less about what's going to happen in a decade. You know, worry a lot less about that person that's your peer that just got that promotion, and they're going to go farther than you. It's. Everyone's career path is their own, and everything happens kind of exactly as it should. And so I just, I try really hard to sort of, you know, especially for folks that, you know, I get the. Sort of fresh from business school, and they're like, I've got to be CEO in five years. And I'm like, I don't know, it's gonna be, you know, let's worry a little less about the timing and worry much more about the kinds of experiences you get to have along the way, what you get to learn and who you get to meet.
- [24:37]
Kat Fesse
Well, Erica, thank you so much, and thanks for the vulnerability and sharing the. Those tidbits and stories. I so appreciate this time. I know we're both leaving. Really inspired.
- [24:47]
Erica Taylor
Thank you. I'm so happy to do this. I appreciate the invite. I hope it's helpful for your listeners.
- [24:51]
Ilyce Lefring
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm sure it will be great. Thank you so much.
- [24:55]
Erica Taylor
Thanks.
- [24:56]
Kat Fesse
Wow. I am blown away. I am walking away from that conversation with Erica Taylor. So inspired. I don't know about you.
- [25:02]
Ilyce Lefring
Oh, my gosh. Yes. I love how vulnerable she was about, like, talking about her husband and not only to, I mean, us, but to her whole company. And, you know, it Takes a very brave and smart woman to be able to be open like that.
- [25:17]
Kat Fesse
Yeah. And also, what a full circle moment. I mean, to be the CMO of a company that is marketing, I think she said 40 different medications, and then to be on the receiving end of that and navigating as your own family is going through the fear and intensity of recovering from. From an ailment. Yeah.
- [25:41]
Ilyce Lefring
As you said, everybody has their own stuff they're going through.
- [25:43]
Kat Fesse
Yeah. Yeah, that was really inspiring. I also just loved how she went into the tension that she faces as a marketer, which I can't think of any other category that has the same predicament of wanting to stay relevant and be top of mind for the inpatient or the provider, but also not wanting to be there all the time and to be able to dip in and out when needed, because ultimately her end goal, she was saying, was to keep people healthy. And so I think that's a really refreshing take, especially hearing it from a biotech company like Genentech that they're, you know, you. You could hear horror stories about companies wanting being incentivized to keep people sick. And I just loved that as a marketer, she's thinking through it from a place of just being authentic to getting people healthy completely.
- [26:37]
Ilyce Lefring
And, you know, she also mentioned, in a world like post Covid, everybody now has their eyes on those companies, which is huge, because pre Covid, nobody knew, like, yeah, who. What shots you were getting from whom. And now it's like, what shot did you get? The Pfizer or the Moderna?
- [26:56]
Kat Fesse
Yeah. And there was even some, like, kind of ranking around them at one point.
- [27:01]
Ilyce Lefring
Yeah.
- [27:02]
Kat Fesse
So, yeah, that's really interesting how biotech and pharma are now getting into the brand marketing side of the house. And I liked her answer that she's trepidatious about how and when to deploy that. So overall, just super inspiring conversation. I'm walking away, just beaming, talking to all these amazing women.
- [27:22]
Ilyce Lefring
It's wonderful.
- [27:26]
Kat Fesse
And that's it for this edition of the current podcast. Be sure to tune in this whole month as we release all the recordings from south by Southwest. See you next time.