JTBD Isn’t a Framework, It’s a Power Tool (If You Use It Right)

Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) frameworks are deceptively simple. They ask: What is the customer really trying to accomplish, and why? For pharma, med-tech, and healthcare brands, answering this should guide everything from brand planning to omnichannel execution.

Yet too often, teams operate on surface-level assumptions about patient and HCP needs, relying on static personas and stale insights disconnected from what people actually experience.

This is where Axonal.AI fits in.

From Theory to Action

JTBD frameworks are only as useful as the data and analysis that inform them. Traditionally, uncovering the “jobs” patients or HCPs are hiring a treatment or behavior to perform requires months of qualitative interviews and manual synthesis. Even when done well, these insights can be outdated by the time they reach planning decks.

Axonal.AI changes that dynamic.

Our specialized research agents parse unstructured qualitative data and structured analysis workflows to identify, validate, and prioritize JTBD insights with speed and precision. Imagine taking thousands of VoP transcripts, social discussions, and HCP roundtable notes and having the system extract recurring pain points, contexts, and desired outcomes.

Axonal doesn’t replace human judgment, it amplifies it, helping you get to clarity faster on what people are trying to solve for and why current solutions fall short.

Structured Mapping, Grounded in Evidence

A challenge with JTBD exercises is that they can feel disconnected from quantifiable evidence, which is critical in pharma. Axonal transforms unstructured insights into structured JTBD maps you can use directly in strategy sessions and brand planning.

A typical Axonal JTBD map includes:

• Job: Desired outcome
• Context: Triggering situation
• Barriers: Obstacles to progress
• Current solutions: Workarounds people use now
• Opportunities: Where interventions can add value

Instead of anecdotal recaps, teams get clear, evidence-backed articulation of the “jobs” patients and HCPs are trying to accomplish, complete with supporting excerpts and citations.

What JTBD Looks Like in Pharma

For pharma brand teams, JTBD might surface as:

• A rare disease patient’s need to “get a diagnosis that feels credible to my experience”
• A specialist’s job of “reassuring patients starting on a complex biologic that they won’t be left on their own”
• A primary care physician’s need to “triage new treatment options efficiently without derailing their 15-minute visit”

For these teams, Axonal helps validate these jobs across diverse data, from qualitative research and field feedback to medical information inquiries and digital behavior, and prioritize them based on strategic fit, urgency, and measurable impact.

For pharma agencies, JTBD shows up differently but no less powerfully:

• Understanding the “job” a client marketer is trying to do with a new omnichannel strategy (e.g., “prove ROI on digital investments to retain budget next year”)
• Supporting HCP engagement strategies that align with the day-to-day “jobs” of field teams or MSLs
• Pitching work that solves the real business problem behind an RFP, not just checking boxes

Axonal becomes a force multiplier for agency strategy and planning teams, helping them generate sharper insights, stronger POVs, and faster strategic narratives grounded in the voice of patients, HCPs, and the brand’s commercial context.

Driving Alignment Across Teams

Commercial teams often say they “meet patient needs” or “help HCPs improve adherence,” but these statements remain vague without a shared understanding of what those needs actually are.

With Axonal, strategy, insights, creative, and field teams can anchor their work in a shared, evidence-based understanding of customer needs and barriers.

If the “job” is for patients to regain a sense of control over their condition, messaging, support resources, and channel strategies can align around that, while medical teams ensure educational content resonates with those motivations.

Prioritization That Ties to Impact

JTBD frameworks often surface multiple customer jobs, but not all are equally actionable. Axonal’s scenario testing and planner capabilities help teams evaluate which jobs:

• Align with brand positioning
• Are feasible within market dynamics
• Can drive measurable outcomes

This means you don’t just uncover needs...you can prioritize them, develop metrics, and design strategies with a clear link to impact.

Expanding Strategic Capacity

Axonal.AI doesn’t replace the deep strategic thinking of agency and brand teams. It expands your capacity, reduces manual burden, and ensures your JTBD frameworks are grounded in up-to-date, context-rich evidence.

Teams using Axonal arrive at sharper strategies faster, develop more resonant creative briefs, and build omnichannel plans that align with what patients and HCPs truly need, not just what the brand hopes to push.

JTBD is About People, Not Just Products

At its core, JTBD is about seeing healthcare customers as people navigating challenges, not just treatment recipients. Axonal.AI helps operationalize this philosophy, giving you the tools to systematically uncover, validate, and act on the real jobs your customers are trying to get done.

In a world where pharma differentiation depends on delivering value beyond the molecule, mastering JTBD can be the difference between good strategy and great impact.

Axonal.AI is here to make that mastery operational and scalable.

💬 Curious how others are embedding JTBD into their brand or agency work. What’s working for you—and what still feels out of reach?