A Splice of Life Science Marketing

About A Splice of Life Science Marketing

Welcome to the Splice of Life Science Marketing Podcast. With your hosts Matt Wilkinson and Jasmine Gruia-Gray. This is the show for scientists who've stepped out of the lab and into marketing, learning the ropes as they go.

Publisher

Matt Wilkinson and Jasmine Griuia-Gray | Strivenn

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

29 Nov 2025

Latest episode

24 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

42 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   24 Oct 2026

   S2 Ep 37: Own a Corner of Their Mind - Lessons from the Festival of Marketing

   AI can now produce content faster than any marketing team, so content alone is worth less every month. The brands that survive will be the ones buyers actually remember. Who this is for: commercial and marketing leaders at life science tools and diagnostics companies. Matt Wilkinson reports back from the Festival of Marketing, where he joined a Marketing Week roundtable on why AI still needs marketing talent. He and Jasmine Gruia-Gray unpack Sir John Hegarty's case for bold, distinctive branding and look at how brand is formed at every touchpoint. They close on how synthetic customers keep the voice of real buyers alive inside the organisation. Key idea: As AI pushes the value of content toward zero, life science brands win by being bold enough to be remembered and keeping the customer's echo loud in every decision. What you will learn:- Why the sea of beige on life science trade show floors becomes a bigger commercial risk as AI floods every channel- How layered approvals and over-researching sanitise creative work, and what Liquid Death and Camden Town Brewery's Hells did differently- Where your brand is really formed: field service engineers, application specialists, social media responses and what large language models say about you- How a UK bank built customer personas from its own data for copywriters, and what that means for life science teams- Why synthetic customers work best as an echo of real research that the whole team can reach- How Matt doubled undergraduate recruitment with a fireworks lecture, and why distance from the customer erodes that instinct Chapters:[00:20] Back to the Future day[01:03] Inside the Festival of Marketing[02:30] Sir John Hegarty on owning a corner of the mind[04:02] Escaping the sea of beige in life science branding[05:57] Brand as experience and word of mouth[08:25] The human side of branding and AI personalisation[10:34] Synthetic customers at the roundtable[12:00] Keeping the customer echo loud across the team[14:03] Echoes, research and the fireworks lecture[18:05] Wrap-up Keywords: life science marketing, Festival of Marketing, Sir John Hegarty, brand distinctiveness, synthetic customers, voice of customer, AI in marketing, account-based marketing, B2B branding, life science tools marketing, customer experience, brand memorability Watch the full episode, subscribe for new conversations on life science marketing, and visit strivenn.com to see how Strivenn helps commercial teams keep the customer at the centre of AI-enabled marketing.

2. 

   12 Oct 2026

   S2 Ep36 Custom order or line extension? Who makes the call

   A key account asks for a new format of a product you already sell, and the gate review takes twenty minutes because everything about it feels decided. Months later, the launch has answered one account's question and missed the jobs the wider market was hiring the product to do. Who this is for: product managers, product leads and product marketers at life science tools companies who own line extensions and gate decisions. Dr Matt Wilkinson and Dr Jasmine Gruia-Gray start from a bioRxiv study on how researchers choose antibodies, where trust sits in the lab's own track record with a product. Jasmine then explains the two sentences a line extension needs before the gate review, a problem statement and a goal statement. They close on who decides when a custom order graduates into a line extension, and what to do with three weeks until the review. Key idea: The product manager owns the call. A second unrelated request, or the urge to tell customers who haven't asked, turns a custom order into a line extension, and the problem statement has to prove the loss is shared. What you will learn:- How a problem statement separates a custom order from a line extension- The two triggers that force the graduation call, and why the first one lags- Why the customer's current workaround is the best signal of how many labs share the problem- How to test a goal statement with the spec sheet test and the jobs-to-be-done question- A three-week plan for a key account request before the gate review- How to write the problem statement when sales has already promised the deal Chapters:[00:00] Introductions[00:27] What a bioRxiv antibody study says about trust[03:19] The two sentences the gate review skips[05:24] Custom order or line extension[07:38] Writing a goal statement the customer can check[09:58] Stage-Gate and the case for a lighter process[12:36] Who makes the call[14:57] Three weeks to the gate review[17:37] When sales has already promised the deal[19:05] Closing Keywords: line extension, custom order, problem statement, goal statement, product requirements document, Stage-Gate review, key account request, portfolio management, product management, antibody selection, voice of customer, life science marketing podcast Watch the full conversation and subscribe for new episodes of A Splice of Life Science Marketing. Read Jasmine's article, The problem statement your line extension skips, at https://strivenn.com/thinking/line-extension-problem-statement. To work through a line extension decision with us, book a strategy call at https://strivenn.com/contact and find more at https://strivenn.com.

3. 

   3 Oct 2026

   S2 Ep35: The Empty Chair Argues Back

   Shownotes: Jeff Bezos kept an empty chair in early Amazon meetings so everyone remembered the customer who was missing. Most decision rooms in life science still have the absence, and the research that could fill it sits unread on a shared drive. For product managers, marketing leaders and commercial teams at life science tools and diagnostics companies. Jasmine Gruia-Gray challenges Matt Wilkinson on his blog The Empty Chair, opening with research showing that genuine dissent moves a group further than an assigned devil's advocate. They test whether a synthetic buyer is just another assigned critic, why each function remembers a different outlier customer, and why sales cannot simply play the customer. They also draw the line where synthetic buyers stop and real customer conversations take over. The empty chair reminded the room the customer was missing; a synthetic buyer built on your own research now lets it answer back. What you will learn:- Why each function remembers a different outlier customer, and how that steers decisions towards the wrong problem- How organisational gravity wears down the people fighting to bring voice of customer into the room- Why a grounded synthetic buyer agrees or disagrees according to the evidence you give it- Where synthetic customers stop: pressure-test with them, then go back to real buyers before you commit- A first step you can take this week with a decision already on the calendar and research you already hold Chapters:[00:27] The empty chair and the assigned critic[04:17] Why the chair stays empty[06:24] One chair or five: the buying committee[07:21] Why not ask sales to play the customer?[09:36] Will a synthetic customer just agree with you?[11:54] Assigned dissent and the synthetic buyer[12:53] Will synthetic buyers eat the research budget?[14:49] What to do next week[16:03] Speed or trust: a client example Keywords: synthetic customers, synthetic buyer, voice of customer, life science marketing, product marketing, buying committee, confirmation bias, organisational gravity, customer research, AI in marketing, go-to-market strategy, decision making Watch the full conversation, subscribe to A Splice of Life Science Marketing for new episodes, and read The Empty Chair and more at strivenn.com.

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Spotify

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