Uncovering the Einstein Divide in

Healthcare Marketing

AI is reshaping healthcare marketing at a breakneck pace. Every week, new tools emerge promising to automate tasks, accelerate workflows, and optimize campaigns. Yet amid this wave of transformation, an important question is emerging: are we thinking like Edison—or like Einstein?

Signals of Change

This episode of The No Normal Show opens with a cultural flashpoint: Cracker Barrel’s rebrand. A simple logo change sparked a firestorm online, underscoring how consumer perception is deeply tied to brand identity. The takeaway for healthcare leaders? In today’s “Two-Cent Nation”—a phrase we use to describe a culture where everyone feels compelled to weigh in on everything, whether they’re an expert or not—every shift, big or small, can ignite outsized reactions. Preparation, messaging, and agility matter more than ever.

From there, our discussion turns to Kaiser Permanente, where employees rallied for AI-related job protections. This is not unique to healthcare—Hollywood, manufacturing, and countless industries are navigating the same tension. While organizations emphasize AI as a tool to augment rather than replace jobs, fear and uncertainty persist. For healthcare marketers, this is a reminder: AI adoption isn’t only about efficiency. It’s also about building trust with your teams and communities.

The Einstein Divide

At the heart of the conversation was a new BPD framework: The Einstein Divide, BPD’s latest blog. Here’s how we break it down:

• Edison thinking focuses on iteration. It’s about making the factory faster—automating CRM systems, accelerating creative production, improving performance marketing.
• Einstein thinking dares to imagine the impossible. Instead of asking how to shave 25% off campaign timelines, it asks whether the campaign itself should exist in the future. It imagines healthcare marketing without segments, personas, or approvals—and explores what a truly one-to-one, always-on, AI-powered system might look like.

This shift requires moving from scarcity to abundance thinking. As Desireé Duncan notes, most teams wake up anxious to “get through the list.” True transformation demands carving out space for imagination—for asking “what if” instead of only “what now.”

Beyond Automation, Toward Imagination

What might Einstein-level imagination look like in practice?

• Always-on marketing that adapts in real time to consumer behavior, capacity, and competition—without the need for campaigns as we know them.
• Personalized patient experiences where post-diagnosis education is tailored through AI-generated videos, podcasts, and interactive guides unique to each individual.
• Self-correcting communication systems where performance, not approval layers, determines success.

In other words, automation is table stakes. Imagination is the differentiator.

Healthcare marketers stand at a crossroads. Playing the Edison role will deliver incremental gains. But those who embrace the Einstein side—who are willing to question every assumption, from segments to campaign cycles—will be the ones to truly ignite greatness for their organizations and communities.

Read The Einstein Divide here

Read the transcript here