March 11, 2025
Health brands are shifting away from provider-driven models and embracing consumer expectations. AI-powered personalization, direct-to-consumer strategies, and data-driven engagement are transforming how people interact with their health.
Stephanie Trunzo | Chief Executive Officer
Let’s take a look at a typical marketing moment in context. A healthcare provider system launches a new digital campaign for its state-of-the-art wellness center, complete with a physical fitness facility. It cost quite a bit to build so the marketing team knows its efforts must attract members.
You and your neighbor each receive a personalized email from the provider about new cardio classes being offered. While the subject lines are different and your first names are included, both emails have the same stock photo of people on treadmills and elliptical machines. You both comment on how you were eager to look and then hit delete before finishing the email.
On the surface, it seems like the same content should appeal to each of you: you’re roughly in the same demographic, live in the same neighborhood, and both self-report being into fitness. You also each have a history of engaging with the provider's online health resources.
But, the reality is you’re in your 40s with a history of joint issues looking for physical therapy and specialized training. Your neighbor is mid-50s, an early retiree, wanting social activities and yoga classes. The provider delivers a one-size-fits-all solution, equating fitness with exercise machines no matter who the recipient actually is or what they care about.
Broad brushstrokes put you into the same audience; however, your nuances and differences define what resonates as meaning for you.
Just like the message, we have to also think about the nuance of channels. While in the past, a provider may have mailed a physical postcard to your home address, even this modern digital example is still fundamentally flawed. What we used to consider magic–our name in the greeting–we now recognize as inauthentic noise. The “good enough” personalization we’re used to is no longer good enough.
Yesterday’s demographic boxes and predefined audience segmentations are now lazy, built around averages and assumptions that cannot accurately reflect any single human. They don’t capture the beautiful, messy reality of human life, or our distinct preferences and motivations.
Traditional segmentation boxes people into a predetermined journey. But, hyper-personalization hands them the map, empowering them with information that reflects their unique identity. Persona-based marketing assumes consumers all follow the same path in a linear fashion—that we make decisions in siloed, episodic ways.
Today’s personalization must go beyond “good enough.” A name in the subject line or a recycled stock photo isn’t a relationship. True personalization is a conversation—seeing the whole human, understanding their unique context, and building trust one interaction at a time. That’s the shift we need to go from one-to-many to one-to-one at scale.
In the age of AI and limitless data, personalization must evolve from static personas to adaptive, one-to-one experiences. This means marketing to one person with one specific message tailored to their preference.
We call this infinite individualism, and it’s only possible when you operate like an AIgency with AI built into your foundation. The beauty of infinite individualism is capitalizing on our data-rich world to truly understand a person’s entire journey; and enabling brands to create as much content as they desire.
It’s not simply that your neighbor wants yoga classes and you want physical therapy. Those two facts about each of you represent only a part of who you are. The core of infinite individualism is recognizing and honoring that we are whole and complex. We’ll dive deeper into this concept of “whole human marketing” later in this series.
People are not infinitely fractured and only defined by the one attribute that may make a brand, product, or service appealing. For example, I’m Stephanie, and I care about yoga mats. I also make buying decisions as the CEO of a company, search for chronic disease information as a caregiver, and shop for groceries as a mom. I’m not four, five, or more different Stephanies. I am one, whole, complex person who plays many roles throughout my day.
If you’re the company trying to sell me a yoga mat, you can’t ignore the other facets of my life. Understanding what makes me wholly me, helps you deliver the right message in the right channel and the right context. Doing this infinitely for every individual is the real magic.
To make the shift to hyper-personalization, we need to make sense of and connect all the data we have available. We must plan our data structures effectively to ensure interoperability and that personalization travels with the individual.
Healthcare alone generates a staggering amount of data – more than 2.3 zettabytes a year, over a tenth of global data creation. With the rise of wearables, connected devices, and AI, that number is only growing.
Imagine combining clinical records with attitudinal signals (how someone perceives their own health) and behavioral cues (how they actually engage). This blend gives us a more precise and complete view of a single person at a given moment. And, it reveals why they do what they do.
When we get to this level of granularity, results change. We’re not talking just open or click rates. Brands earn retention, loyalty, and trust. In health, the payoff is greater: empowering people with better information, which ultimately drives better health outcomes.
AI is the lens that helps marketing teams see consumers as whole people, adapting with them in real time. Through feedback loops, AI learns from each interaction and can predict consumer preferences and behaviors. More importantly, it also responds to how that consumer wants to feel, be treated, and be seen.
By rapidly processing, analyzing, and comparing large volumes of data, AI enables brands to deliver dynamic content from product recommendations to tailored offers; from customer service interactions to loyalty programs.
AI enables a company to scale one-to-one experiences for millions of consumers, supporting infinite individualism anywhere a person engages with a brand. But scale without purpose can backfire. That’s why infinite individualism also demands a new kind of discipline.
While personalization is one of the most powerful tactics marketing can use, without a purpose, it’s just noise. With a purpose, it becomes trust at scale.
At the highest level, our job is to truly empower consumers and honor them as whole beings. This requires a paradigm shift, breaking free from the tired B2B or B2C mindsets and expanding to an infinite growth mindset.
To be sure, deep personalization like this requires strict data privacy, transparency, and cybersecurity. Security must be just as foundational as the AI, built into the technology platforms from the start and intuitive enough to prevent workarounds.
Now, let’s revisit the opening and imagine that same healthcare provider through the lens of infinite individualism. Instead of a generic treadmill photo, you receive a message about strength classes tailored to protect your joints, plus an invitation to connect with a physical therapist who understands your recovery goals. Your neighbor gets a morning yoga series and a calendar of social wellness events that reflect what matters most to them.
This isn’t just two versions of the same ad. No, it’s two unique experiences, each reflecting the whole human on the other end. That is the promise of infinite individualism: moving from surface-level personalization to meaningful connection, from “good enough” to truly human-centered.
Infinite individualism is where the science of data meets the soul of human connection. The brands that embrace this shift will win loyalty and redefine what it means to connect in an AI-driven world. And frankly, I'm impatient to make it happen.
