Perception is the new reality

Sep/21/2007 10:36 Filed in: Pharma Business
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Pharma marketers still have a lot to learn when it comes to understanding that patients have more power than ever over their healthcare choices and decisions. Pharmaceutical companies still rank near the bottom in customer service and favorable industries according to eMarketer. Yet pharma marketers continue to "push" messages to consumer via websites and don't want to listen to what their customers have to say. The pharma model is not only broken it has disintegrated in the era of newly empowered patients and consumers.



A VP at a consulting company recently asked me why Pharma has not embraced Web 2.0 and continues to use websites as "information buckets" with slow streaming video and and video streams of TV commercials. The answer to that is simple; pharma marketers don't get the Web and refuse to acknowledge that the power has shifted from them to consumers and patients. So rather than engage people they continue to push information to consumers. As Rodney Dangerfield said "I don't get no respect".


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The new Cialis site is laughable with actor portrayals of people talking about ED, Viagra.com has the Viva Viagra commercial on the site and Rozerem used Abe Lincoln to talk to people about sleep disorders. This is not Web 2.0 it is repurposing information in video and it is an embarrassment to pharma marketing.


If I hear one more time that "we can't engage people because we are a regulated industry" one more time I am going to sit in a corner with a bottle of Jack Daniels. This is a cop out and now that the FDA can fine people for bad DTC ads marketers will again get deeper inside the cave of risk advertisement. Why should pharma marketers talk to consumers when the model has always been to generate new Rx's ? Who cares if they have opinions on my product or advertising? That is the message that marketers are sending out to patients. Have you ever tried to talk to a big pharma company? You'll get a phone tree with enough branches to make you sick.


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Web 2.0 is about engaging people online and listening to what they have to say about your brand. Lot's of marketers get it, outside of pharma, but I am afraid that the when pharma catches up we'll be on our way to Web 3.0.

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