A stranger in a strange land

May/23/2008 07:08 Filed in: Agency Side
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My good friend John Mack went to an agency award dinner last month in New York and he correctly states that "he was a stranger in a strange land". However the one quote from his BLOG that struck me was "obviously, pharma spending on physician marketing is alive and well and probably growing while spending on DTC advertising is decreasing". This is a primary example of just how clueless pharma is of the changes taking place in today's marketplace.




While new organizations like MSNBC and CNN have been running stories on empowered patients the drug industry continues to push marketing to physicians who both do not have the time to listen and question the source and credibility of the information. DTC is decreasing? This clearly shows that DTC managers continue to struggle to show the value of DTC to senior managers who often do not have a marketing background and question the cost of DTC without knowing its value.


What alarmed me even more was the chart below from Med Ad News as part of Mr Macks story. Internet DTC advertising down 6.5%. In an era of decreasing dollars to spend on DTC the Web should be increasing not decreasing. However, let's get one thing clear; agencies jobs is to get more business whether a campaign succeeds or not. The best example of this is the AB campaign for Rozerem which was just plain horrible yet they are "the agency to be feared?"


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This is a further indication that pharma does not believe patients are empowered when it
comes to their healthcare choices.

Of course DTC managers micromanagement of agencies has to accept a lot of blame. Pharma often ignores agency recommendations on branding and advertising choosing instead to use agencies as task masters than creative partners. This could change as more pharma companies trim marketing people and utilize agencies for strategic as well as tactical implementation of programs.


Professional advertising does have a place but the new breed of HCP's is not as gullible to drug company messages. Sales people continue to be a huge cost to overhead yet their effectiveness continues to diminish as they spend less and less time with physicians. Pharma's response to this? Simple..let people go but keep salespeople calling on doctors with canned pitches and as sample delivery people. Yes there are a lot of salespeople who have great relationships with physicians but today a relationship does not necessarily translate into a new Rx when the message lacks credibility.

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