First there was ED now is pharma trying to convince people they hace UC?

Apr/26/2008 09:11 Filed in: Current DTC
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In my early morning surfing of bookmarked Websites I was surprised to see an online ad for Lialda from Shire. Lialda is Shire's product to treat ulcerative colitis a condition that effects 700,000 people in the US. With such a small target market one would have to wonder what in the hell this ad would be doing on the NY Post Page Six page ? I guess that maybe they used demographic targeting since UC starts in people aged 15-30 and is five times more likely to effect people of Eastern European Jewish decent but this ad could surely do better somewhere else.




The Website for Lialda is done very well. The home page quickly communicates the key brand messages and there is a lot of information for sufferers to read including patient stories. The free 30 day offer also pops out at you and overall the site is clean, functional and well laid out. With such a small target however, I personally would not be running ads on Websites like the NY Post. This requires a more targeted approach and I would definitely be looking a behavioral targeting model for general sites. Shire's ads are also running on Web MD inside the UC section.


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The site is well laid out and the uplifting lifestyle image creates a feeling of patient empowerment




What really impresses me, however, is that Shire has decided to USE the WEB for the launch of this product ! What a great idea. The fact that they are doing ANYTHING on the Web puts them ahead of other pharma companies in a big way. For metrics they can measure how many people clicked on their banners and what pages they went to and how many downloaded the free trial. If they used the correct programming metrics they could even analyze how man people redeemed a coupon for a free Rx from coming to their site from an online ad and what site they came from.


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Yeah there is a credibility issue with patient stories but people ARE going
to read them in deciding if this product is right for them.




I noticed that on the site they have converted ulcerative colitis to UC. That might be pushing it a little...you don't want people going to the doctor and saying "I think my ED might have caused my UC which in turn has lead to HBP". Still it is a great first step now if Shire could find a way to act as aggregators online to bring these people together and have them discuss what works and what doesn't work they would really have a winner.

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