At a large holding Co and I transferred to an agency that mostly does HCP facing pharma work. Almost a year in, and I'm wondering if I've severely pigeonholed myself - projects are not very creative, and 50% of my time is spent navigating our client's bureaucratic internal processes. Has anyone had a positive experience and career progression in pharma advertising? Money is good, not great.

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Welcome to pharma marketing. Rarely creative as there is nothing new under the sun. Clients are hesitant to change their risk posture and prefer us-too marketing vs being bold. You might get a client interesting in being edgy but their MLR team will beat you down.

As an account person your job is to navigate clients and translate their needs to the agency setting AND navigate your own internal team dysfunction (project management, creative, strategy, medical) and the internal agency process.

If you want creative work, you might consider exploring CPG because it isn’t pharma. Pharma isn’t for everyone but I prefer it to selling cookies and tacos.

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What are your long-term career goals? Do you want to be a creative director? A managing director? A client partner? The type of work you do in pharma advertising can affect your ability to achieve your career goals.

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