I need a drink and make it a double !

Jan/25/2008 05:59 Filed in: DTC Environment
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What a week.. If pharma continues to have problems like these the CEO's are going to be turning to the emergency bottles of Jack Daniel's located in their bottom desk draw. To me however the key question is whether pharma can learn from their mistakes and start to acknowledge that in fact the marketing environment has changed and that the "old ways" of doing business maybe coming to an end rather quickly.



Let's face it we all make mistakes. The real problem however is not learning from those mistakes and continuing to do the same thing over and over while expecting different outcomes. While media people talk about the Internet as a way to reach consumers online they are ignoring the fact that the Web has changed consumer behavior forever. People are talking to each other via social media outlets and guess what ; they trust each other a hell of a lot more than marketers messages. This is especially true for pharmaceutical products. Just go to any message board and read what patients are saying to each other about prescription drugs. Yet DTC marketers continue with the same old same old. Merck and SP are running full page ads in the Times and frankly that is laughable and like trying to bail water on the Titanic with a bucket (with holes).


Make no mistake all of DTC advertising is going to suffer because of what happened with Vytorin. Vytorin sales are already stuck in neutral and new Rx's are flat. Physicians are not getting compensated for switching people to generic drugs and what we maybe seeing is the beginning of the end for Vytorin as a blockbuster.


So will pharma marketers and executives learn from this debacle or will they continue as business as usual? My guess is that it will be business as usual with more TV ads, more tainted ROI measurements and more phony awards from industry trade publications. That's too bad because the field is wide open for something new but then it's hard to think when you're on your second double of Jack Daniel's.


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