Where do I go for information?

Dec/05/2007 06:27 Filed in: DTC Environment
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All too often marketers fail to put themselves in consumers shoes. Over the past few weeks for example there have been a number of stories in the media about prescription drugs including flu and diabetes products. It seems that when patients start new medications a story pops up about potential side effects which could be lethal in some cases. Pharma has done absolutely nothing to communicate to these people except spew the usual public relations garbage and recent research clearly indicates that patients are getting more and more confused.


While the top use for information on the Web continues to be for health the sheer quantity of all this information is overwhelming. When patients have questions about health topics they will usually turn to a number of resources including consumer generated media like BLOGs and message boards. But when patients finally get into to see their physicians they often don't have the time to query their physicians on different products and health conditions. Physicians are also becoming increasingly annoyed by patients who use the Internet to "self-diagnose" themselves.


When word was all over the Web about the Byetta pancreatitis possible side effect Lilly did nothing to get patients the information they need to help them best make a decision. Transparency is apparently not in Lilly's dictionary of marketing to patients. Avandia did try and address the issues it was facing when stories in medical journals questioned to possible link to CV events but they ignored consumer media and influencers in both the medical and patient segments. The result was a landslide that could not be stopped and in all likelihood has resulted in the demise of Avandia as a blockbuster.


DTC marketing is broken my friends. It is broken because marketers fail to acknowledge patients power in health choices and because pharma is still talking down to consumers rather than with consumers. DTC marketers goals are to get new patients on board and once that is done the hell with them. We don't need to provide customer service and if there is a negative story let's hide it in the warnings or label page.


Transparent marketing is becoming more and more mainstream to marketers who get it. Once again pharma is at the back of the line when it comes to new marketing methods that are becoming the norm.

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