October 2024 Biopharma Beats Bulletin: Jameson Fleming, MM&M

đź“° Spotlight on Jameson Fleming, Editor-in-Chief, MM&M

Background

-Name: Jameson Fleming

-Home Base: Clinton, NJ (Close to many of the major pharmaceutical brands in New Jersey, available for local house calls).

-Role: Jameson joined MM+M as Editor in Chief in September.

-Expertise: A master networker and an expert in audience-driven journalism, Jameson comes to MM+M after spending eight years at Adweek, where he held several roles including Executive Editor and Managing Editor, Marketing and Agencies. Before Adweek, he held digital media roles at Syracuse Media Group and CBSSports.com. While he’s new to the biopharma and science sectors, Jameson is adept at focusing on trends, marketing, and digital transformation, promising to bring a fresh, insightful perspective to the healthcare marketing and media landscape.

Beat Overview

-Publication: First published in 1966 as Medical Marketing + Media, MM+M is the media brand of record for pharmaceutical marketing and commercialization. It covers a mix of online breaking news and analysis combined with monthly print features — timely, objective, original editorial content for an executive audience of leaders and thinkers who work in pharma, medical device, diagnostics, and greater healthcare marketing. MM+M is known for its exclusive lists honoring healthcare innovators such as 40 Under 40 and Women of Distinction, as well as for live conferences and events, including the MM+M Awards. Jameson aims to make sure biopharma marketers feel seen by MM+M through coverage and analysis that reflect a deep understanding of their issues and what makes them successful.

-Coverage Areas: Healthcare marketing, pharmaceutical trends, and healthcare equity. Jameson recognizes the trend of the biopharma marketer and communicator roles blending together, as it’s similar to how he saw those roles evolve during his time covering the advertising industry. His editorial approach focuses on evolving the narrative around pharma, marketing strategies, AI in healthcare, and other industry shifts like GLP1 treatments. Currently, MM+M’s coverage mix is about 75% news, 25% deep dive explainers. The goal is to bring that number up to 50-50, so that communicators are getting what they need to know about the industry but also why it’s happening.

–Angles of Interest: How trends affect healthcare marketing, agency-pharma relationships, compensation models, DEI/health equity in marketing, and AI’s impact on the industry. Jameson aims to employ a service journalism approach to cover trends in the industry. “At the end of the day, you need to trust us that we’re tackling an issue or trend and that we’re there to understand it.” Right now, Jameson is focusing on a digital-first strategy. “Print isn’t going away, but digital was why I was brought in to give us a more digital focus. You’ll see changes on the website – more insightful content that normally just sits in the magazine.” Jameson wants to give the audience a daily piece of content that creates a habit for marketers to come back to the site every day.

–Future of the MM+M newsroom: Jameson recently announced a new vision for the MM+M newsroom, including the promotions of Jack O’Brien to Managing Editor and Lecia Bushak to Editor, Pharma. The publication is in the process of hiring a new reporter to cover industry news (link to job description). Here’s who on the team to pitch for what:

Pitching Tips

-Focus on Clear Communication: Keep pitches simple, with plain language free of jargon. Make it easy to understand why a story matters.

–Pitch Trend Stories Rather Than Just News: Jameson encourages stories that discuss broader industry trends instead of singular news events.

–Campaign Strategy: If you’re pitching a new campaign, focus on the broader strategy (e.g., why certain elements like celebrity endorsements were chosen).

–New Hires, Not Promotions: Jameson advises that leadership change pitches should focus on new hires over promotions, unless the promotion reflects a shift in strategy.

–Sourcing: It’s really who can speak the most intelligently about the work. The inclination may be to reflexively offer the CMO even if they don’t have knowledge on a niche topic. In that situation, pitching your agency person with the background would be better, or at least having them on the interview call with the CMO.

–Ideas for Profiles and Features: Jameson and his team aim to produce profiles and features that explore people’s motivations behind their career track and how they landed where they are now.

–What We Can Help Jameson With: Access and relationship building. His goal is to meet as many people in the industry as possible as quickly as possible. He aims to book a meeting a day over the next three months with brands and agencies to build relationships and get a feel for what the MM+M audience needs. He’s also focused on leveraging MM+M’s incredible content studio to build more newsletter sponsorship opportunities modeled after Morning Brew’s success.

Pet Peeves

-Bias and Lack of Diversity: Ensure sources represent diverse voices. Jameson advocates for inclusivity in sourcing and is looking to expand DEI coverage.

–Pitching Multiple MM+M Team Members in Separate Emails: Try to narrow the pitch to one member of the team according to their beat, but if you send it to more than one team member, send one email to everyone together so that they can see who at MM+M received it.

–Non-Strategic Outreach Outside Working Hours: Plan outreach strategically to go out during working hours (8 a.m.-5 p.m. ET). For example, sending a text at 6:30 a.m. to complain about an award is not productive or strategic.

Events and Conferences

–MM+M Media Summit on November 6, 2024 (Next Wednesday) in NY: In-house biopharma communicators/marketers are invited to attend for free. Click here to redeem your ticket – please only use this link if you work in-house. “I’d love to meet folks in person,” says Jameson.

-JPM 2025: Jameson is a “maybe.” Follow up with him in December.

–Transform 2025 on March 4, 2025 in NY: Jameson will be able to invite in-house biopharma communicators/marketers to attend as his guests; contact him for more details.

–Cannes Festival of Creativity 2025: Jameson is planning to attend.

Key Quotes

“At the end of the day, we’re not saving lives, but if we can tell stories that help you do your job better, you may actually improve or save someone’s life.”

“PR and comms should be viewed as an asset, rather than a barrier or a foe.”

“MM+M is here to celebrate and explain the pharma industry. I want to talk about being braver as marketers. The creatives in these agencies are brilliant. I want to encourage them to be even more creative, braver and the pharma brands need to be braver with them.”

Lightning Round

-Favorite Work Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

–Preferred Format for Content: Digital-first with a transition toward more insightful daily content rather than just news.

–Top Priorities for MM+M: Elevating digital content, expanding coverage of AI and GLP1 revolution, and advocating for creativity in healthcare marketing.

–Most Excited About: Building strong relationships with biopharmas to reflect their evolving challenges and innovations.

–Biggest Frustration: Pitches that don’t clearly communicate why the story matters, or pitches filled with jargon.

###