6 Indian Pharma Marketing Trends of 2020

The pharma and healthcare industries have gone through a period of rapid change and digital transformation over the last couple of years. 2019 saw exponential growth in Digital trends where multiple Indian pharma companies switched their print deliverables to digital Ipad deliverables, hence digital solutions came out to be a winner with social media being the most effective and AR and VR along with Chatbots paving the way for the future.


Let’s delve into the 6 marketing trends of 2020 in the Indian Pharma Industry.

1) Educating Patients about the medicines & disease on Digital Mediums

Creating targeted value-driven content that is relevant to the patients is the way forward in 2020. Presenting the patients with solutions that inculcate trust and belief in the brand is the way to establish the brand as a Thought Leader in the industry. Gone are the days where traditionally famous LBLs are handed to the patients by the doctors for detailed insights of healthcare, nowadays insights are easily shared digitally via a wide array of blogs, videos, articles, and apps curated by the pharma companies. For Eg; Cipla’s Berok Zindagi is a campaign that has positioned its asthma inhaler as a tool to arm people with all the knowledge they need to tackle the stigma surrounding inhalation therapy head-on and adopt inhalers, without hesitation. The campaign boasted a mix of emotive dialogues along with real-life testimonials from A-listers in a video, a strong social media challenge, and informative blogs.

2) Augmented & Virtual Reality

VR and AR innovation turn a coordinated piece of our regular day to day existence, pharmaceutical organizations can utilize this incredible innovation between their businesses and customers, accomplices, patients or purchasers. These technologies can give added information via product demonstrations and virtual clinics. The way to master AR and VR is through immersive apps.

3) AI-powered chatbots and messaging apps

The best way to engage with your customers and patients across the globe is by using messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. Chatbots are human-like online robots that can answer questions that previously required human interaction. As well as providing a 24/7 channel for customers, these bots can provide a huge cost saving without the need for physical resources. This beautiful automation has made sparkling meaningful conversations a lot easier.


By utilizing self-sufficient AI chatbots to improve association proficiency, lead key assignments and answer customer, patient or client inquiries, pharma brands remain to build efficiency while upgrading their general client experience (CX) contributions, which is a big differentiator in 2020. It is a fact that chatbots are incredibly versatile and create trust in the people.

Pharma company Lupin launched a chatbot named ‘ANYA’ in 2018 designed to provide medically verified information for health-related queries. The disease awareness bot aims to answer patient queries related to illnesses.

4) Digital Doctor Influencers in 2020

Pharma sector may blossom with more Doctor personas who will establish themselves as leaders using just the power of social media. Physicians are spending most of their day on computers, tablets, and mobile phones. They no longer limit themselves to medical journals and printed publications. Today’s tech-savvy physicians make full use of social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to connect with their patients (audience) & spread knowledge.


Dr. Pravin Chaudary, a senior consultant surgeon from Delhi that creates content around surgery for a huge number of students thus marking himself as a leader in medical education.

5) App it up

While the rest of the world has been using apps for over a decade now. These apps have just become prominent in the Indian Pharma industry. The main key to app development in this industry is that it needs to be useful for the target audience and this is the key to digital marketing as well.


Cipla Gx is an app built for Pharma Retailers and stockists , the app covers their entire product range under Cipla Generics Division. It can be used offline and doesn’t require the internet. Pfizer Goactive is an app designed for orthopedics and gynecologists where they can gain access to relevant and up to date practices in their field. Together in HF is an initiative by Novartis that has a chatroom for Heart patients and caregiver, the objective is to build a community for the betterment of its users.

6) Evolving Digital Visual Aids

Visual Aids have been a part of the pharma industry for a long time. They have evolved over time and now with the help of brilliant digital campaigns, new innovative visuals have come into play. For example, while the medical representative is showing the VA there is an engagement activity for the doctor via a game or a storyline that unveils the brand message and the medical information towards the conclusion. There are many integrations that have become very popular and are prominently used by many brand managers such as social media , competitive portal development, AR immersive experience . What these integrations help do is give instant gratification to the Doctors, and motivates the MR to do more visits successfully. Marketing now has turned its tables by brands helping their users create an identity of themselves, (rather what they believe in) via our VAs. So essentially it is not just creating a VA with the brand message but curating an experience for the doctor which is facilitated in every MR visit.




2020 for the Pharma industry is the age of innovative new Digital strategies. Innovative methods along with futuristic technology will be in the long play. We at WebShakers, for one, welcome these trends. We provide Chatbots, AR and VR , Digital Visual Aids, Creative Visual Aids, Apps and strong content creation to the Pharma and Healthcare Industry.