The PharmaBrands Podcast
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The PharmaBrands Podcast
Neill Brown, President of IPG Health on Impact, Experimentation and Creativity.
In this episode we have a spirited conversation with Neill Brown, President of IPG Health. Drawing on his globe-spanning career Neill shares his thoughts and insights on timely topics such as: how AI can help us focus on the ‘good stuff’, what drives the most impact in 2025 and how we can inject more creativity into the way we work.
Our host is Neil Follett, Co-Founder of PharmaBrands and our Producer is Darryl Webster with Chess Originals.
Neil, thanks for joining us today. My pleasure. We did it. Yes, we did it. This is a full circle moment for me. I hosted another podcast and I actually had a guest on who shared my last name, and this is the first time I'm having a guest on that shares my first name. So I feel like-.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two Neals in a pod. I have to apologize upfront to the listeners who were expecting a different Neil. I believe Neil Patrick Harris was originally scheduled to appear today. But he was a bit busy. He was busy, so you've got me instead. But pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:It's a pleasure to have you. So why don't we situate ourselves a little bit in your career? So you've been an agency guy forever, but also kind of like an agency guy who's been around the world a bit. So talk to me about your background and then we're going to get to kind of the world of today and tomorrow. Sounds great.
Speaker 2:So yeah, about 20-plus years with IPG. I started out in Toronto working on consumer brands at an agency called Low Roche, then I moved over into healthcare, joining McCann Health. When I discovered that that category and division was really my passion, I actually joined our Tokyo office at the time, and actually Japan again. I know that came up in a previous podcast you did with Angela Thompson.
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go. First time guest, but frequent listener. There you go, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I worked there. I transferred then to our Singapore office for a few years, which was our AsiaPAC regional hub, and then spent some time setting up our first clients in Dubai for the MENA region Middle East, north Africa. Then I was transferred over to our London office for a few years Worked on EMEA Europe, middle East and Africa, and then over to our New York office for a few years and took on a global role leading a portfolio of oncology products.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, today I'm back in Toronto, country president, and I just love combining that kind of global and local perspective. It's really what our IPG health network is all about. On the side, I volunteer on the board of Melanoma Canada. I've been doing that for the past four or five years, four or five years. And I also volunteer on the board of the Canadian Healthcare Communications Providers, the CHCP, which gives the industry and PAB some agency representation on that board. And yeah, that's sort of my whirlwind tour, I guess, of the international stops 20 plus years IPG, five international homes, a couple of board posts, a wife, a kid Excited to be here I don't know yeah.
Speaker 1:Show's over everybody. Thank you for listening, okay, so I'm not going to let you do that international whirlwind tour without digging in on some of that stuff a little bit. So I'm going to go backwards to the. I was at La Roche. Then I found my sort of calling in the healthcare space and started in Japan in healthcare. So let's unpack that a little bit. How did you get introduced to health as a category and what was it about that in those early days where you went yeah, this is the thing I'm going to go do, yeah fair question Because I did start in consumer stuff, so automotive telecom, I liked working on consumer brands.
Speaker 2:It was, you know, fast paced, creative. You got to do TV commercials. You get to point to your friends at something on a billboard, on a telecom client. I was assigned the Johnson Johnson AccuView business, so contact lenses.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And what was interesting there was the balance of targeting consumers as well as eye care professionals. And the eye care professional piece always had a bit of an academic challenge to it right, because science is the currency, and I really enjoyed that. I came to really value that marketing is kind of an intellectual, academic challenge as well as a creative one. So I was really pulled in by that thought of not just what people choose but why they choose things. I'm sort of a generalist at heart, so I thought it'd be interesting to move over into that sector and get some experience there. I didn't think I would spend 20 plus years subsequently in that category.
Speaker 1:Never do right. Like you're never like. Oh, this is going to be for sure, my next two decades. And what was it like moving to Tokyo and learning that market? I mean, I didn't start my career in healthcare. I was at a digital agency for years and I got a job as a general manager of an agency that had a bunch of healthcare clients and, honestly, at the time I didn't think a ton about it. It ended up being my 20 plus year run as well, but I remember the first year like I had a notebook and the entire back of my notebook was just filled with acronyms that I heard people drop casually in meetings. Which I had a notebook and the entire back of my notebook was just filled with acronyms that I heard people drop casually in meetings, which I then had to cross-reference, and I, you know, almost had my own little kind of cheat sheet. I couldn't imagine doing that while also learning, you know, an entirely new market like Japan. What was that like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good question. It wasn't entirely new to me because I actually finished up business school in Asia. So I went on exchange to the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the late 90s and finished up my degree there. I'd met a bunch of people in the industry during that time in Hong Kong and China, and so that was actually the reason why I ended up in the Japan office for McCann Health is because some of the folks I knew had moved to Japan.
Speaker 2:So a great opportunity came up and again I didn't really know much about the culture and it is a wonderful and very, very distinct place. China sorry Japan is really different and you know it definitely takes you a while, not just to learn language but to learn the business norms, to learn the culture and really to be able to, you know, make the relationships and add value there in a way that's meaningful is something that takes a while and you know. But it's also a reason why I think a lot of you know country heads, and even on the client side, on the pharma side, you see a lot of you know country heads and and even on the client side, on the on the pharma side, you see a lot of people cycle through Japan and that's where I think you know you've had some guests on previously who've who've done just that, but yeah, so that was the opportunity that opened up. I I, you know wanted to go back international as well as get into a new sector, and that was the perfect opportunity to do both.
Speaker 1:Do you look back at those years of travel and needing to learn markets and build relationships in very different environments? Are there lessons that you learned then that you still find yourself applying? Is there a bit of a straight line to the way you do business now very different level of maturity decades later that you sort business now you know very different level of maturity decades later that you sort of go oh yeah, this is a Dubai thing.
Speaker 2:I guess so, and, and you know, it's just learning about cultures and and and people listening first before speaking, which is kind of what makes this podcast a little odd for me. I'm the one doing the talking and actually I have a few questions for you, neil, that I'd love to ask you at the end because I do love listening.
Speaker 1:No, no, we don't know that. No, honestly.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, little bits and pieces from every place. The thing that you remember is the people and the relationships, and luckily I'm still in touch with a lot of those folks, both professionally and in my personal life. I made friends along the way. I got married along the way. My wife's from Singapore, so I have family in the region and we go back often. There's a big part of my heart that's over there and in business, I think, in a country like Canada, which is probably one of the most diverse in the world, it definitely is a benefit to embrace that diversity of perspectives and not necessarily impose one's way of working onto others, but to adapt as best you can to the culture and the place where you are. So, yeah, a little piece of me from each place. And you know, if I could live another life, I'd do it all again for sure, each place.
Speaker 1:And you know if I could live another life, I'd do it all again for sure. Let's leap forward, then, and kind of situate ourselves in 2025. So every year there's, you know, it's the year of X, right? So there's, you know, the year of mobile or the year of digital. I think in pharma, we've had like 15 years of the year of digital. What does it feel like for you this year? For you, this is the year of what?
Speaker 2:In a word, it's impact. We're focused on what makes an impact for the brands that we build, the clients that we serve and the people that work for us. And you know there's a lot of change, obviously, in the industry, there's a lot of change domestically here in Canada, globally, and business there's a lot of change domestically here in Canada, globally. In business, we also obviously are facing a whole sort of upheaval and reinvention through AI, which we're excited about. But in embracing that change, we also have to keep our eye on the prize and make sure that we're not distracted by all of this change happening at once and that we continue to deliver results. The question that we're asking ourselves these days is when it comes to AI because I know it can be quite scary for people to think about what's going to impact their roles personally and professionally.
Speaker 2:We are sort of looking at the idea of for now, like, what if AI allows us to focus more on good stuff? You know, because not everybody has gotten into this industry to. You know, do some of the tedious work, the kind of the admin work, things, that kind of clog up our days and our calendars? There's huge efficiencies to be gained through using AI tools and, frankly, allowing us to think more deeply and not just kind of reacting, slowing down a little bit, creating a little bit more space for bold strategies and creativity. So that's what is kind of exciting about the idea of focusing more on good stuff. So a lot of things that we're starting to tinker with in our agency and in our network are very much in line with that is, efficiencies, but so that we can focus more on the good stuff and the stuff that clients want to pay us for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love the notion of AI enabling you to slow down a little bit, because I think that sometimes AI is positioned as this like velocity accelerant, so that you know it used to take us five days and now it takes us seven seconds. But if you asked anybody like I've never met a creative who didn't want more time right, like I don't know about in your agency, but every creative I've ever talked to always wants more time to do stuff. And if you can take away some of the low value activities and replace those with thinking time or the slowing down while not impacting a client timeline or cost, like that's actually a really powerful way to leverage AI.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know, in terms of efficiencies, the power of those types of AI tools isn't just enabling us to do more, it's about making space to ensure that what we're doing matters. You know to think and to challenge and to connect, which is what humans do so well you know, so just helping in crafting ideas that actually reach people and resonate. Very excited about that.
Speaker 1:And what are your clients? To the extent that you're comfortable, I mean obviously like name names, tell me what brand manager. But in general, what are clients saying? Maybe both about AI and about impact, and I ask that purposely because I think there's a really broad spectrum, right? I've talked to people who said our legal department forbids us to use AI. Our legal department forbids our agency to use AI. I've talked to other people who are like we are barreling forward to stand up. You know an internal agency that's AI based. I talked to some clients who say I get amazing impact from my agency, and I've talked to other ones who are really questioning the impact of some of what they're putting out in market. So it feels like it's likely not a one solution fits all kind of situation. How are your clients responding to a focus around impact and maybe more mindfully leveraging AI opportunities?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting that last piece you just added there, because if it's just about velocity and cost containment, then frankly, we'll be cranking up more campaigns like more content, creating more noise, it's faster, it's cheaper, but it's kind of emptier and that's where it does come back to impact is is it working? And if you view things through that lens, then you know. I think the more nuanced conversation with clients is ultimately about ROI and you know again some tasks. You know you're storyboarding things or you're comping up what something's going to look like. I mean, the efficiencies tools are so obvious there. It's more in the kind of final product that we just have to ensure that we're still doing the best thing that's possible, not just something that was kind of cool in the moment, you know, and will soon be replaced by something that's more cool three weeks from now or three months from now.
Speaker 2:So it's a kind of cautious optimism, I think, is where the clients are at. You're right that some of them do have restrictions on the use of AI materials in final campaigns and a lot of that stems from legal protections and usage rights and things like that. But the industry is working through many of those hurdles and enabling protections in some places that can get over those hurdles. But I think if we step through it together and acknowledge that we need to experiment, we need to test and learn, then we can avoid this sort of like are we all in or are we all out? Mentality, yeah, and again, just make sure that the impact is there before we kind of scale something up to the full extent.
Speaker 1:Well, and the interesting thing is is like sometimes the thing that is most impactful to do in a moment is actually nothing. Sometimes it's actually about taking a beat and not giving into this ability to create even more potentially mediocre faster. I want more emails from pharma, said no HCP, ever right. So how do you be more mindful about? It is a challenge too, because you know there's a there's a gravitational pull towards look how quickly we can do stuff. It's really interesting.
Speaker 1:So you talk about test and learn and again, without maybe mentioning brands, if you're not comfortable what are you guys doing sort of right now? Or what have you done recently that feels like it was a bit brave for the client to say, to say yes to. I always like those stories of the clients who go yeah, you know what let's for the client to say yes to. I always like those stories of the clients who go, yeah, you know what, let's try this. And it doesn't need to be brave empirically, it could just be for the client. Do you have some thoughts around some things that you guys are doing with clients that feel like you're kind of pushing everybody a bit out of their comfort zone?
Speaker 2:Sure, I mean we've been able to accelerate and probably broaden the potential of the ideation process with AI tools and show things to clients, kind of in the conceptual stage, that look a lot more real and polished than they would otherwise be if we didn't right. So, being able to kind of get that vision across more clearly and I think you know, if you look back, you know 10 years or whenever it was we're comping up with pencils and drawings and linears and things like that there was always a bit of a leap of faith or a suspension of disbelief. Now we can actually show what things could look like and that's very exciting. So one example again, without any names, but we've got something really fantastic that we're working on in a patient support capacity that just simply would have been unachievable and beyond budget if we didn't have some AI assistance with it. And the clients loved it. And we again found a way to make sure that the final product is going to have all of the intellectual property rights that they need to have in order to be able to go forward with it.
Speaker 2:But the idea wouldn't have been as achievable if we didn't have, you know, some elements of AI in terms of showcasing the concept. So you know there's yeah, there's lots of things that you know we can go forward with. That, you know, even just would have taken time and money to show far in excess of what some of the AI applications can help you with. But at the same time is like is it a great idea, is it right for the brand, is it right for the audience? And that's where we have to be in the loop, as they say, human in the loop, to ensure that we're not just doing something that's cool and that's wild and I've never seen it before, but it's going to have the impact on healthcare professionals or patients or consumers in the way that it's intended.
Speaker 1:So how do you as the president of the agency there's a lot of stuff in there, right? I assume you've got a financial focus, you've got an operational focus. You are likely the engine that in a lot of ways, drives the culture or keeps momentum going. You've got to be prognosticating a little bit and looking 12 months down the road, working with colleagues in the greater sort of IPG world. How do you, just as a person, how do you navigate all of that change? And then, what is your leadership style in terms of how do you engage with IPG to help get everybody set up, for you know what success looks like today and tomorrow. It's a big job that's really multidimensional. Thanks, I don't mean to stress you out, by the way.
Speaker 1:It just reminded you all the stuff you're not doing right by talking, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You said a lot of things, too that I guess, thanks, if I do all that stuff, I hope I do it adequately well. Honestly, I'm surrounded by great people, amazing people. In our agency agencies here in Canada, in our network, we have just a phenomenal connected group of folks who share everything they're working on and best practices. I think, if your implicit question is like, how are we kind of navigating the unknown together, one thing that we tried to do this year in our agency is create a safe space for experimenting. We're calling it Try it. That's our theme for 2025. And it's all about experimentation, permission to tinker, just applying creativity wherever it lives. And it's not just creativity in the traditional sense of campaign development. It's actually creativity in how we work and so across all departments. So we're sort of encouraging experiments in operations and production, client services, even finance, though in fairness, we don't want things to get too creative in finance.
Speaker 1:I was going to say the word creative and accounting typically don't go well together.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I know where you're going. But it's all about sort of, you know, allowing people to apply creativity in their work. Because even if you're in a job that's not the creative department, if you have the ability to change a process or to apply a new tool, that gives you skin in the game. Right, it gives you the ability to work smarter and again focus more on the good stuff and less of some of the kind of the tedious stuff that takes our time away from it. You know, because I don't think really any of us got into this industry, you know, with the intention of writing up contact reports or updating timelines or things like that.
Speaker 2:But so if there's a smarter, faster, better way to do that, as well as, of course, you know, inspire and communicate great creative ideas, then then you know we're all. We're all for it. So we actually have a, a weekly session where people come back and they share some of the experiments they've been doing. You know, new applications they've been working with or new ideas they're trying to get off the ground, and you know some of them are are are wins, some of them aren't, but that's, that's the point. It's not really about perfection, it's just about gaining some momentum. So that's our kind of you know 2025 thing is try it and, you know, feel free to tinker.
Speaker 1:Is there anything that you can share that you know, even small? That's been an aha that you guys have realized out of the triad process that you've then implemented.
Speaker 2:Guys have realized out of the triad process that you've then implemented, there's a couple of things that are nascent right now that we're looking to kind of launch in the next couple of months. That will be tools that accelerate and improve the quality of, and consistency of, how we do parts of our job. But to label it or to share the name of it will disclose what it is.
Speaker 1:And why don't you want to do that on a podcast to the whole industry? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Just working. You know, obviously we have, and you were talking there about essentially the paradigm of like the case-based method. I want to see somebody else who's done it before. I feel comfortable, you knowlighting it for my brand or my company, and it has been a really tricky paradigm to shake or to change over the last while and a lot of business development. They're always citing precedences and cases of the past. Again, they're AI tools and allow you to not just imagine you know visually what a a case might look like in the future, but actually to model even some of the results that it could have. And that's where I think the the, the dynamics around how we talk about cases and how we use those to forecast what may happen in the future is getting excited. But it's all. It's kind of early days there too, for you know how much I want to share that with the rest of the world.
Speaker 1:So yeah, fair, fair enough. Fair enough, so maybe we can zoom out from Canada for a second. I mean, ipg Health is part of a larger network. Do you, or how do you, interface with the larger IPG ecosystem? Are you able to draw resources, talents, insights? What does that look like for you being a region within a much larger organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great. Region within a larger, much larger organization. Yeah, it's great. Earnestly, I can say that we're a very connected network and you know, in many cases we know each other on a personal level. So you know whether or not it's the country heads that have shared histories because we've been together at, you know, various global meetings or there are councils, strategic councils and creative councils set up that connect our people right around the world and they share all their latest work and best practices and thinking. And you know, no surprise, many of our clients are connected. So our agency teams who work on those brands and those clients have their own, you know teams, chats and email threads and discussions around key activities. But you know there's also, I think, the thing that binds us together the kind of the North Star, if you will is just the pursuit of impactful work. We're absolutely thrilled to have been selected again, I think, the third time Network of the Year at the Clio Health Awards that was just announced yesterday. Congratulations Coming up. Thank you, con is obviously coming up very shortly.
Speaker 1:Are you going? That's a tough business trip to have to go on.
Speaker 2:I was lucky enough to go two years ago to judge the health and wellness category.
Speaker 2:Oh, amazing it was a fantastic experience. It will probably last me for a few years, so I'd love to go back, but I think at the same time, the next time we get to go, I'm going to send other people Because, again, it's one of those things that you bump into colleagues, you get inspired by the work, you get a lot from that experience and I just want to rotate the team that gets to experience that. So we do have some work from Canada in Cannes this year. We're hopeful, fingers crossed that it gets the recognition it deserves. It deserves. And it's a really interesting time to be submitting at CON2 because obviously they're tackling all of the same industry change that we're feeling here in our agency. So I look forward to see what comes out ahead. And, yeah, it's always a great experience, but this year I'm staying home.
Speaker 1:So we've covered your early days, your globetrotting years, talking about the sort of focus on impact, that kind of try it mentality that you guys have going on right now in the agency. Why don't we sort of end by asking you to do the impossible, which is to look into a bit of a crystal ball and maybe talk a little bit about where you see things going? It feels maybe it's always felt like we're in the middle of some sort of shift in this industry, but it feels like there's a shift going on. What is keeping you up at night when you think about kind of the future? And then what's getting you up in the morning and getting you excited when you think about the future?
Speaker 2:Great question. That's a huge question. I like to lob a big one out at the end. Yeah, I'll try to break it down.
Speaker 2:So you know, in terms of like what's kind of in my head as a challenge that we face as pharma marketers and again, just trying to think of the audience here, you know, one thing that we all have to contend with, frankly, is the Canadian healthcare system and the undue stress that it's under system and the undue stress that it's under the unprecedented change that is thrust upon all of the healthcare professional workers. The burnout, the challenge in terms of accessing care, I think for Canadians in many regards is kind of the number one issue. So here we are, you know, talking about products and building brands and that term, access, which is often used quite narrowly right, it's typically understood as sort of reimbursement or formulary inclusion or market entry. I see that it needs to be broadened a little bit more in terms of being able to, you know, access care and navigate the follow-ups and not falling into gaps. You know, and I can use an example which is, you know, in dermatology, for instance and as I was saying, I volunteer with the board on Melanoma Canada the number one challenge there isn't necessarily you know, the quality of the therapies. It's that Canadians are forced to wait to see a dermatologist for, I think it's up to you know, on average 25 weeks. Sometimes, you know, in some places Northern Ontario I know it's as high as 34 weeks. So people are waiting, you know, upwards of a year for a referred visit to a dermatologist to get a suspicious mole or lesion checked out. And so just understanding that kind of access from the patient's perspective is a key challenge. I think one thing we should be asking ourselves is like, have we really understood and mapped out that patient journey and understood where the gaps are?
Speaker 2:There's an exciting program that we've launched at Melanoma Canada called the Mole Mobile. It's now in its third year, so it's a traveling skin cancer screening unit. It's staffed by dermatologists and they provide onsite screening and life-saving advice and info to Canadians who may fall through the cracks, and it's been. It's almost like, unfortunately incredibly in demand Some cases. We're hearing people driving several hours to get to where it goes, and it does tour across Quebec, bc, alberta, ontario.
Speaker 2:This year we're actually adding a second vehicle and so it's busy all summer months touring around and going to different places, adding a second vehicle and you know so it's busy all all summer months, you know, touring around and going to different places, but it's, it's. It's interesting when you think about that whole patient journey and you go where. Where are people really getting stuck? Sometimes it's not on brand choice, you know. Sometimes it's on access to therapy. So just making sure that we don't, you know, think about what the that access in the terms of what the system covers, but actually what the system delivers. It feels like a really Canadian problem and I think, as marketers and you know in the farm industry, we have a meaningful role to play there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I had sort of asked like sort of what's exciting and what's keeping you up at night. It feels like the access was the part that was kind of keeping you up at night. Yeah, is there something that you're sort of most excited about, and either that can be like industry-wide or just with your team, or what's kind of getting you out of bed in the morning to tackle?
Speaker 2:The thing that I'm most excited about is my people. I feel like we've got the best agency in the country and I'm tremendously proud of every single one of them as individuals. But, um, that's, that's the only fuel in my step, like when I started out my career, I was, I was really driven by, um, you know, the work and and and getting to see stuff as I, you know, as I said earlier about oh, I helped to produce that, look at it, look at on the billboard on TV. It was all about that sort of the, the, the visible outputs and getting acknowledgement for that. Then it was sort of more about okay, there's, there's some real purpose in this healthcare category and that excites me, it feels meaningful. And now, layered onto that, has really just been about the validation I get from seeing people reach their potential, people, seeing people stretch themselves, come up with, you know, incredible solutions to academic and intellectual and regulatory challenges that I could have, you know, never imagined. Like everything changes so much that, yeah, just seeing people kind of come into their own and find their voice in a presentation and try something they've never done before and push us, you know, creatively as an agency is wonderful, so, and I think you have to.
Speaker 2:In pharma, right, not all of our stuff is visible to the public. I mean, some of it is right. We get a chance to do some help seeking campaigns and you can point to something at a hockey game or something. But you know, a lot, of, a lot of the stuff we we produce is sort of behind the curtain, if you will. It's it's, it's shielded from a lot of award shows. At least the Canadian work is because of the, the, the restrictions we have, and so you have to have this kind of deeper sense of pride in the work, know that it's effective and be proud of the people that produced it. So yeah, it's just for me it's all people, and that's kind of the thing that gets me out of bed.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I appreciate the time today. I know I listed all those things earlier in the conversation that you need to do and all of those you put aside to come and talk with us today, so I really appreciate it and I appreciate your insights and it sounds like a really, really exciting time for you and the team and I can't wait to hear more.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Neil, I don't get to ask you any questions. Can I ask you a question? You can ask me one. You've asked so many smart questions. You can ask me one about brand building and industry shifts and the future of pharma. What's kind of the question?
Speaker 1:you wish people were asking about things going forward. I think the thing that I would like to maybe hear more of or see more of is linked in a straight line back to kind of why I co-founded this business the Pharma Brands business is I think that there is so much more that we can learn from each other by having, I think, more candid, more meaningful and more daring conversations with each other. I think there's a lot of leaders, a lot of brands, that really genuinely want to do good right, like, one of the things that I love about having spent 20 plus years in this industry is that I've never come across a client who feels like they have a sort of a nefarious motive. Right, people in this industry really genuinely, I think, want to help HCPs make the right decisions so that patients get the right outcomes. Like, I really truly believe that. I think that one of the things that holds you know, brands, people, agencies, departments back is that there's a sort of a myopic view that is really kind of narrow, and I think there's an anxiety sometimes that if we share or we talk about it, we're revealing the caramel secret somehow, like nobody my competitors don't know what my positioning is. Everybody knows what everybody's positioning is Like. It's you know a good rep is going to get or have a relationship with an HCP and say, hey, can you show me what the other brands are doing? And I think there's also maybe there's some anxiety around. I don't want to show that maybe I'm not doing everything perfectly, but like nobody's doing everything perfectly. And I think about you know the world.
Speaker 1:When I own the agency, we had a lot of healthcare clients and we had a lot of non-healthcare clients and you'd step out of the healthcare world and you know this, you know better than anybody. It was a cacophony. Like you've got multiple award shows and you've got you know campaign and strategy and marketing magazine and the CMA and podcasts. And you know you don't go to a conference outside of healthcare without somebody on stage showing the work and talking about the struggle and like that's what you do.
Speaker 1:And then you come back into healthcare and it's just, it's just crickets in a lot of ways. And there's a cohort of people who are really, really active. Like we've got amazing. All of our events are sold out. I think we literally have like one ticket left for Age of AI, which will be over by the time this airs and we have a really amazing engaged group of people. That is a fraction of the overall industry, and so it's not that there's a specific question. I wish I heard more. I wish I heard more broadly the kind of conversations that would sort of float all the boats.
Speaker 2:I thank you for creating these forums for that. You know, candid exchange. I think that is what our industry needs in Canada because we do face some challenges. You know, in and above what other markets face in health care. It is hard to have that real candid discourse and to show your wares for different reasons. But yeah, you're spot on and I think what you're doing is a noble crusade.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that Some days it feels more like a crusade and other days it feels a bit more noble. But I appreciate that very much and thank you for having me on your podcast today. Two Neils on a pod, we're done. There you go. Thanks again, Neil. I really appreciate it. It was a real pleasure.