Seven years ago, I was prepping a presentation about best-practices in B2B marketing for the upcoming Healthcare Marketing & Physician Strategies Summit (HMPS) when my co-presenter, Ryan O’Neil, shared a cartoon with me. At the time, it was clever — a perfect visual to get an audience laughing while we unpacked the growing expectation of audience segmentation and personalized marketing communications.

Funny how a cartoon can come back to you years later with a whole new meaning as I prepare for this year’s HMPS conference. 

Back then, cookies management wasn’t even a thing. No pop-ups. No privacy panic. Just a growing wave of B2B marketers starting to think differently about how they communicated, personalized, and delivered value.

Fast forward seven years and this cartoon is even more relevant today—especially for healthcare marketers (I admire illustrator Mark Parisi’s foresight). Those B2B expectations for more personalized communication have crept into every aspect of our digital lives—including how we find care, choose a provider, and navigate our health journeys online.

Personalization isn’t just a marketing best practice. It’s a consumer expectation.

But in healthcare, the output is tangled in complexity – because when you personalize using IP addresses, geo-location, or browsing behavior, you’re not just serving up smarter content. You’re crossing into the realm of Protected Health Information (PHI).

And that brings a whole new meaning to the cartoon’s nostalgic analogy. In 2018 the story was that Cookie Monster is angry the gift doesn’t match his preferences. My 2025 rendition is that it’s clear that Cookie Monster is not someone who “accepts all cookies” when browsing online.

The irony that Cookie Monster would deny cookies! But, in healthcare, it’s very understandable. That single click could unlock a deeply personal – and deeply regulated – digital experience. But if the systems behind that experience aren’t compliant, secure, or transparent?

Patients lost trust, organizations lose credibility, and marketers lose ground.

That’s why healthcare marketers should print this cartoon out and tape it to the wall as a daily reminder of a few key truths:

• It’s about personalization – and how we need to redefine it in a regulated, relationship-driven industry.
• It’s about cookies – and how we manage them with empathy and intention.
• And it’s about how B2B trends shape healthcare – sometimes years later. That talk Ryan and I gave? The advice we shared is even more urgent for healthcare marketers today.

So What Do We Do With This?

We need to stop treating personalization like it’s all-or-nothing. There’s a spectrum – from passive behavioral triggers to deep, logged-in customization. And there isn’t a right way to personalize in healthcare. Only a right way to approach it:

✅ Start with empathy
✅ Design for trust
✅ Align with compliance (not fight against it)
✅ Offer meaningful choices at the right moments

At White Rhino, we talk a lot about patient empowerment in the digital age. And the humble cookie banner? That’s one of the earliest moments where empowerment either starts – or stalls.