Marketing was always the plan for Ariel Rabinowitz, who felt a pull to an agency job in New York City upon graduating from Syracuse University with a dual degree in marketing and advertising.
“My analytical mind was drawn to marketing, because you get both the creativeness of working in a field that has production, illustration, shoots, and then you also have the nitty gritty of strategic placements media as well as the whole technology field,” she said.
The pharma marketing world is one she “just kind of landed in,” but one that proved to be a good fit. Her first New York agency was McCann Health New York, where she worked on marketing for Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen biotech unit for two years. She then took up a job as a global hematology and oncology biosimilars marketing coordinator for Pfizer. A break from the marketing world to briefly teach at a charter school in the Bronx gave her “renewed focus” and important learnings in health literacy when she returned to the agency side as a senior account executive at Publicis Health, where she’s been for two years now and currently works as an account supervisor.
In a Q&A for Fierce Pharma Marketing’s “Rising Stars” series, Rabinowitz talks through her motivation to help reduce barriers to care, the lessons she’s learned from experienced mentors and the value of social media for pharma marketers.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
FPMK: What inspired you to pursue a career in pharma marketing, and what keeps you motivated in your current role?
I landed a role supporting pharma, which turned out to be an unexpected bonus for me, just beginning to understand the meaningful impact I could have on patients and caregivers facing the many challenges in healthcare today. I know across disease states that I worked on, whether it's autoimmune disease, it's cancer, and more nuanced—everyone has a history, a healthcare history, and either their own or supporting family. So it's really meaningful work.
I also took a break from the pharma world to teach at a charter middle school in the South Bronx. Doing that, I saw firsthand how literacy, access, and trust determine whether people can act on information and how much it takes to meet people where they are. It was a short break to really find myself and understand what really drove me. I came back agency side with renewed focus on improving health literacy and removing friction for patients. I really find it exciting to see patients take a more active role in conversations with their healthcare providers. It places a significant responsibility on our industry to deliver education and reach patients through channels that are convenient and accessible. And just contributing to that mission and helping reduce barriers is to care is what keeps me motivated every day.
FPMK: What has been the most rewarding or challenging project that you've worked on so far?
This past spring, I led a three-scene photo shoot to reimagine a brand's creative work around patients living boldly and unapologetically despite their disease. The brand I work on is small and scrappy, so we needed an image library and rollout plan that would still feel fresh years from now on a limited budget, and we needed to also refresh the product administration imagery since common and clear visuals directly support patient safety. So, as with any project of this scale, not everything went to plan, and the pressure to exceed client expectations was high. I worked with the client, including new members of their team, to keep us aligned on strategic objectives while balancing ambition with practical constraints. Taking leadership of the account's full creative portfolio through such a critical effort gave me new appreciation for everyone I work with, especially the client. And delivering a successful project also strengthened the trust we share with that client. It wasn't always easy, but it was well worth it. It’s just incredibly rewarding to do that so early in my career, as well as really rise to the challenge.
FPMK: What advice would you give to people who worked in pharma marketing for decades?
I have two pieces of advice, and the first one is really to make time to actively mentor newer members of the team. The industry is changing quickly, but the experience, instincts, and institutional knowledge that veterans have built over the years are incredibly valuable and can't be learned from a training module or a textbook. Some of the best lessons I've learned come from experienced colleagues who took the time to explain not just what decisions were made, but why, and creating more opportunities for coaching, knowledge sharing, and mentorship helps develop the next generation like myself who really make our industry successful and meaningful in terms of the performance and the actual results we drive. It's one of the most meaningful ways that I've found I can give to newer members of the team, but also that I get in return from even more experienced leaders.
The second piece of advice is I'd encourage experienced pharma marketers to view social media as a window into the patient experience. HCP engagement remains critical, but patients are playing such a larger role in their healthcare decisions and increasingly seek information outside of the physician's office. And social platforms really reveal their questions, concerns, misconceptions, and emotional needs in ways that we couldn't easily observe before. So, I feel like while I'm on social media so much, it's become such an integral part of the healthcare ecosystem, and so just not being afraid of it and really leaning into it as kind of a real-world evidence platform is a really great opportunity.
FPMK: What do you like to do when you're not working?
I live in New York City, so I love taking advantage of it with my friends and my boyfriend. I'm a fan of the city's big art scene, whether that means spending an afternoon exploring a museum or discovering a new gallery or a new exhibit I haven't seen before. I also really enjoy the city's parks, particularly Prospect and Central Parks, with my dog Benji—he's a small, 20-pound dog, a little bit of a mutt—but living in such a fast-paced environment, it's nice to have those pockets of green space to just get outside and recharge as a great way to balance both my energy of city life and work.