Trust the Process: Kate Rafferty’s Push for Media Methodology

When Amgen put its $400 million media business up for grabs early last year, it sparked an atypical frenzy in the pharma space. The pitch process was said to be uncommonly long and involved, with voluminous demands for materials and capabilities presentations. By the time the smoke cleared in October, IPG Mediabrands had emerged from the consolidation derby, besting incumbents Omnicom and WPP.

Kate Rafferty, director, digital partnerships at IPG Mediabrands, remembers feeling galvanized by the opportunity – and slightly awed by the scale of it. In 2024 Amgen spent $171.6 million on ads for plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis drug Otezla alone, nearly $50 million more than it did in 2023. The brand also connected creatively with a series of spots in which people with psoriasis imagined themselves suddenly thrust into the spotlight.

In other words, plenty of people were going to be paying close attention to Mediabrands’ stewardship of the prized and well-heeled client. “Of course it increased the pressure a little bit. Otezla is a big, well-known brand that’s shooting for broad awareness, not a small oncology brand that may be targeting HCPs,” Rafferty says. “But we were ready for it.”

For Rafferty, it wasn’t just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. From the moment she arrived in pharma media more than nine years ago, Rafferty has been a stickler about process. Part of this is attributable to the regulated nature of the pharma landscape, but Rafferty has come to appreciate the need for templates and streamlined negotiations and operational discipline.

“The goal is to use the same process for Otezla as we do for a brand that has a $50,000 plan,” she says.

Cool, calm and collected

By investing time and resources in infrastructure, Rafferty and her team have been able to ensure a degree of consistency across client engagements. To hear IPG Mediabrands group director, partnerships, Brian Pankauskas tell it, this set the stage for a winning Amgen integration.

“January 2025, when we transitioned the Amgen business, was a very hectic and chaotic time,” he recalls. “Kate conveyed a cool, calm and collected presence, tackling project after project in an efficient manner and influencing a steady mentality for the team. I was struck by how she could immediately pick up any project or deliverable and, even with minimal to no context, was able to tackle it and move it forward with ease… Frankly, she saved us in the eyes of the client.”

Initiative group director, HCP media planning and strategy Liz Mansell, who describes Rafferty as “our agency expert on HCP partnerships,” recalls an instance that involved migrating a large volume of information to a client’s “very specific data management platform.” Mansell believes that, were it not for Rafferty’s participation, the project could have gone sideways.

“It required a lot of setup and conversations,” she recalls. “Kate’s ability to navigate through that with grace, while working with cross-functional teams to get it in place, was on another level.”

This attentiveness to detail manifested itself early in Rafferty’s professional life. She grew up in Philadelphia and stayed nearby for college, graduating with a degree in marketing from Temple University’s Fox School of Business. During her time there, she worked in the school’s athletic department, helping coordinate on-field and on-court promotional activities. For a brief spell, she considered pursuing a career in sports marketing.

“I was at the games. I did the t-shirt tosses,” she says (before you ask: Yes, she got to wield one of the t-shirt cannons). After a little while, though, the work lost its appeal. “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t want to wake up at 6 a.m. every Saturday morning in the fall to go to work.’”

Rafferty hadn’t considered a career in health marketing or media until she started attending university-sponsored career events. When CMI Media Group presented to the group, she was intrigued.

“At first, I thought that pharma might not be the most exciting business, but I knew what I’d be doing would help people in the long run. That was what clinched it,” she says.

Becoming a true believer

It didn’t take long before Rafferty’s opinion of pharma media to shift. She credits CMI with setting her up to succeed, via a mix of industry-specific and workplace training. “A lot of it was things you wouldn’t know unless you specifically studied them in college, like FDA regulations and the approval process and timing for new drugs. But it was also smaller stuff, like how important it is to get on the phone with somebody instead of just firing off an email,” she explains.

Rafferty started at CMI as an associate media planner and, half a decade later, rose to the rank of media supervisor. About 18 months into the pandemic, the opportunity to join IPG Mediabrands presented itself. “CMI was amazing, but with everything going on I needed something to change,” she recalls.

Upon arriving at Mediabrands, Rafferty found herself in a partnerships-oriented role, one that emphasized back-end connection work over face time with clients. It proved a natural fit: “I like making sure everything’s speaking to each other… It gave me the chance to own some of the existing processes and build other ones.”

She was equally enticed by the prospect of learning from Mediabrands colleagues who held similar positions outside the pharma space. “It’s so cool to be around the people who are doing media for Nike,” she continues with a laugh. “You learn so much. I had no idea Applebee’s was one of our clients until I heard the song in one of our town halls.”

Rafferty adds, of course, that the learning goes both ways. “People outside pharma sometimes don’t understand how tight our processes have to be due to all the FDA regulations. They’re amazed that we’re able to do what we do with all the safeguards in place.”

In other words, Rafferty is in it for the long haul. “I started out literally not knowing anything about the pharma industry, and here I am,” she says, adding that she hopes to add bigger-picture strategy engagements to her plate before too long.

“I love the day-to-day, but it would be exciting to execute larger programs across a company like Amgen – not just one brand strategy and media plan, but several of them across the whole enterprise.”

That’s a role in which Pankauskas believes Rafferty would thrive. “I see Kate becoming a key opinion leader in the space, leading panels and offering thought-provoking insights on the evolution of the pharma and HCP marketing space,” he says. “She will absolutely continue to grow as a leader and go-getter, either within the agency or as a marketing lead for any pharma company lucky enough to have her.”

This profile is part of the solli Elevate series, celebrating the Next Generation of Pharma Media Leaders. View all profiles here.