What if the best way to reach older patients is to stop thinking about them primarily as “older patients”? Sanofi’s partnership with USA Pickleball offers an interesting example of affinity-based pharma marketing, where shared interests and communities help shape how health messages reach an audience.
Sanofi and USA Pickleball launched the “Serve Up Protection” campaign to educate older adults about COVID-19 and NUVAXOVID. The campaign aims to reach people on and off the court through educational content, pickleball personalities, and experiences at major events.
For pharmaceutical marketers, the bigger story goes beyond vaccines or pickleball. It raises a useful question: Can marketers create stronger connections by understanding what audiences choose to do, follow, and identify with rather than relying mainly on age?
Table of Contents
- Why pickleball offers a different way to reach older adults
- How affinity-based pharma marketing goes beyond demographics
- Building affinity strategies without creating stereotypes
- What pharma marketers can learn from Sanofi’s approach
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
Why Pickleball Offers a Different Way to Reach Older Adults
Traditional pharmaceutical audience strategies often begin with demographic characteristics. Age, gender, geography, diagnosis, and risk factors can help marketers define who may need a particular health message. However, those attributes reveal only part of a person’s life.
A 68-year-old may be a pickleball player, traveler, gardener, volunteer, caregiver, music fan, or all of those at once. Consequently, age alone says relatively little about where that person spends time or what captures their attention.
Sanofi’s partnership provides a timely illustration. The company has connected COVID-19 vaccination education with an activity that attracts many active older adults. Rather than approaching this audience only through an age-based message, the campaign enters a community where people are already participating, socializing, and paying attention.
Importantly, the connection is not simply “older people play pickleball.” Instead, the campaign links health protection with something members of that community may value: staying active, connected, and able to participate.
That distinction matters for pharma marketers using affinity-based audience strategies. Rather than interrupting people with a message built primarily around their age, brands can participate in environments where an audience already has attention and emotional investment.
The approach may also make healthcare communications feel more relevant. After all, people rarely define themselves solely by a diagnosis or birth year. Their hobbies, communities, relationships, and interests can be equally important parts of their identities.
Affinity-Based Pharma Marketing Goes Beyond Demographics
Affinity marketing is not a replacement for responsible demographic or clinical targeting. Instead, it adds another layer to audience understanding.
Demographics can tell a marketer who might be relevant. Affinities can provide clues about where and how to communicate with them.
For example, a campaign aimed at adults over 65 could theoretically appear across countless media channels. However, identifying communities built around sports, travel, healthy aging, volunteering, or other interests may provide more meaningful contexts for specific messages.
This approach also reflects a broader shift toward audience-centered pharmaceutical marketing. Marketers increasingly need to understand the whole person rather than treating patients as static demographic segments.
Still, relevance needs evidence. A brand should not assume that every person within an age group shares the same interests. Likewise, participation in an affinity group should never become a shortcut for making unsupported assumptions about someone’s health.
That makes first-party insights, contextual signals, research, and campaign measurement especially important. Marketers can test whether a particular community genuinely overlaps with an appropriate audience and whether that environment improves engagement.
Moreover, affinity-driven marketing can broaden pharma’s creative possibilities. Instead of repeatedly emphasizing vulnerability, campaigns can connect health decisions to goals people already value, such as remaining active, spending time with family, traveling, or continuing favorite activities.
Building Affinity Strategies Without Creating New Stereotypes
There is an obvious risk in affinity marketing. A strategy designed to move beyond demographic stereotypes can accidentally create a new set of stereotypes.
Not every older adult plays pickleball. Similarly, not every runner cares about wellness content, and not every caregiver identifies primarily as a caregiver.
Therefore, successful affinity strategies in pharma depend on distinguishing meaningful audience signals from convenient assumptions.
One useful principle is to start with behavior rather than stereotypes. Marketers can examine actual content engagement, community participation, media preferences, event attendance, search behavior, and other privacy-conscious signals that reveal genuine interests.
Next, the creative should respect the culture surrounding that affinity. A pharmaceutical brand entering a sports community, for instance, should understand its language, motivations, personalities, and traditions before developing a campaign.
Context is equally important. Health messaging should feel useful within the environment rather than appearing as a product promotion placed beside an unrelated activity.
In Sanofi’s case, the connection is relatively clear. The “Serve Up Protection” campaign frames COVID-19 prevention around helping people remain active and connected. Meanwhile, NUVAXOVID is approved in the United States for eligible populations under its current FDA indication. Marketers and readers should consult the FDA’s current NUVAXOVID information for the latest indication and regulatory details.
Finally, marketers must measure more than impressions. Engagement, message recall, qualified actions, sentiment, and other meaningful outcomes can show whether an affinity actually creates greater relevance.
What Pharma Marketers Can Learn From Sanofi’s Approach
The Sanofi and USA Pickleball partnership offers several lessons even for marketers working outside vaccines.
First, audience segmentation does not have to end with demographic data. Age may identify a medically relevant population, but interests and communities can help reveal more natural ways to engage it.
Second, partnerships can provide credibility and access that advertising alone may struggle to create. An established sports organization already has relationships with players, clubs, events, and fans. Therefore, a pharmaceutical brand can communicate within an existing community rather than trying to build one from scratch.
Third, the context can help reframe the health conversation. Instead of focusing only on risks associated with aging, marketers can connect healthcare decisions with activities and experiences people want to preserve.
That approach may be particularly useful in categories where audiences tune out repetitive risk messaging. A lifestyle connection can provide another entry point without minimizing the underlying medical issue.
However, pharmaceutical marketers still need rigorous safeguards. Regulatory requirements, privacy standards, appropriate targeting, fair balance, and accurate claims remain essential regardless of how culturally relevant a campaign becomes.
The larger opportunity is personalization without reduction. A strong affinity-based strategy recognizes that a 65-year-old consumer is more than an age bracket. The same principle applies to patients living with diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, or other conditions.
When marketers understand audiences as people first, they gain more meaningful ways to decide where, when, and how health information should appear.
Conclusion
Sanofi’s pickleball partnership is more than an unusual sports sponsorship. It demonstrates how pharmaceutical marketers can connect a clinically relevant audience with a community built around something people voluntarily enjoy.
Demographic targeting will continue to play an important role in healthcare advertising. However, an affinity-based approach to pharma marketing can add valuable context by connecting health messages with activities, identities, and communities that matter to people.
The key is avoiding the temptation to replace one stereotype with another. Marketers should validate affinities with data, understand the communities they enter, and measure whether those connections actually improve relevance.
Pickleball may be today’s example. Tomorrow it could be travel, gaming, music, volunteering, fitness, or another community entirely. The larger lesson remains the same: sometimes the smartest way to reach a patient is to understand who they are when they are not thinking about being a patient.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is affinity-based pharma marketing?
This approach uses shared interests, activities, communities, or cultural connections to help pharmaceutical brands reach relevant audiences in meaningful contexts. It can complement demographic and clinical audience strategies rather than replace them.
Why can pickleball be relevant to pharmaceutical marketing?
Pickleball provides access to an active community that includes many older adults. For a campaign focused on an age-relevant health issue, the sport can create a lifestyle context for health education rather than relying only on conventional demographic advertising.
Can affinity targeting replace demographic targeting?
Generally, no. Demographic and clinical characteristics remain important for identifying relevant healthcare audiences. Affinity and interest-based insights can add context that helps marketers determine where and how to engage those audiences.
How can pharma marketers avoid stereotypes in affinity campaigns?
Marketers should rely on validated audience insights rather than assumptions. They should also understand the communities they enter, use privacy-conscious data practices, test creative approaches, and measure whether the affinity genuinely improves engagement.
What should pharma marketers measure in affinity-based campaigns?
Impressions alone provide an incomplete picture. Depending on the campaign objective, marketers can examine engagement, message recall, qualified actions, sentiment, contextual performance, and other indicators that show whether the audience connection created meaningful relevance.
This content is not medical advice. For any health issues, always consult a healthcare professional. In an emergency, call 911 or your local emergency services.
