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Imagine if you will an open house event where top chefs from your city prepare great meals for you to sample. There's just one catch...all these meals are heart healthy and have low cholesterol and the event is sponsored by Lipitor. Then there could be a weekend park or beach cleanup sponsored by Boniva because a little exercise can help maintain strong and healthy bones. These are the kind of grassroots efforts that some marketers are doing to enhance their brands. What is the pharmaceutical industry doing? Hosting a golf tournament because God knows men with ED play golf (or one of the executives wants to play a round with Tiger Woods).
There are marketers who continually innovate (Apple, Starbucks, BMW) and then there are pharmaceutical marketers who only look at barriers not opportunities. The pharma industry has been hiring consumer marketing people for DTC roles the problem is that old marketing methods are s dead as analog technology. Until the budgets get tighter and tighter marketers may continue to have that google eyed look of a kid in a candy-store with a $20 bill.
Many in the pharmaceutical industry have questioned the viability of this approach and whether it is actually effective in driving consumers to research a condition. A recent study from Manhattan Research demonstrates the impact of these advertisements on the health information seeking behavior of consumers exposed to these advertisements. The rankings are based on the comprehensive online consumer research study with 4,965 U.S. adults titled ePharma Consumer(R) v6.0: The Future of Integrated DTC Marketing.
Top Conditions Researched Online Because of TV Ads
1 Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS)
2 Smoking/Trying to Quit Smoking
3 Erectile Dysfunction
4 Acne
5 Human Papillomavirus (HPV)
Source: ePharma Consumer(R) v6.0, Manhattan Research, LLC
"Unbranded advertisements are building awareness for certain conditions, and encouraging consumers to take action and research these conditions online," says Mark Bard, President of Manhattan Research. "In some cases, more than one-third of consumers researching a certain condition online report that research is the direct result of a television advertisement they saw. It is clear that unbranded ads are having an impact."
Behind the Propaganda-This Authors Opinion
DUH !!!!!! When I was at Lilly we used Manhattan Research and they can be a great resource for information but DTC marketers have to be careful not to use this information as the base for all decisions. It provides part of the picture but does not tell the whole story. All too often we look at data and fail to understand what it tells us. Let's take ED for example; it's no wonder that it is on the top researched list but it maybe there because aging baby-boomers are not able to "respond" like they used to when they were younger. As men age they require more sexual stimulation to engage in intimate activities and many men may feel that because of this they have ED when in reality they do not.
Restless Leg Syndrome is another condition that many people may have had but weren't aware that it was a "medical condition" until we were exposed to the DTC ads. A friend of mine saw the ads and commented that he had some of the symptoms. Upon going to his doctor to talk about the symptoms his doctor did a blood test which revealed he had Type II diabetes and the pain he was feeling in his legs was because he had started to experience some nerve damage.
It's alarming that 4 out of the top 5 conditions researched most online are lifestyle issues more than serious medical conditions. Yes smoking can lead to a wealth of health issues but smoking is all too often a choice that is made by people who are well aware of the risks involved. High cholesterol is a much more serious problem yet millions remain untreated. The education of consumers about dangerous conditions, high cholesterol, obesity and high blood pressure is where the drug industry has fallen short. Rather than educate a public about these life threatening diseases they would rather talk about ED or restless legs. Rather than integrate and combine strengths to inform and educate they would rather sell you a brand.
If the drug industry is to gain the respect of legislators and the public they have to do a hell of a lot more unbranded advertising on serious and potential life threatening medical conditions. It's time to stop continually talking about ROI and then say we are here to provide better health solutions for our customers. But then that would piss off Wall Street wouldn't it?
Click stream analysis of pharma product sites clearly show that people are comparing medications. They want to know how prescription drugs compare to each other in terms of effectiveness and side effects. Yet brand are not allowed to compare products unless they do head to head clinical studies. Now what if all the top brand in the high cholesterol market got together to take an important message to consumers who may have high cholesterol but are unaware of the dangers it could pose. They could sponsor a campaign to drive people to a common website where they could evaluate their risks but more importantly compare ALL the different medications. Oh my God you say ! Collaboration on a disease state website where consumers can easily compare medications? Now why would we do this?
Well for one thing if in fact the goal is to increase awareness of the dangers of high cholesterol than you need to grab the attention of the audience. Let them compare medications and make a decision with their health care professional that is in their best interest. Manufacturers could provide links to their individual product websites and even offer trial incentives all in one site. Imagine a customer focused site to provide answers to their questions and inform them of a potential silent killer....
Well here is my storyboard....
So telling me that the risks for Celebrex maybe the same as OTC products does little to make me feel better. In fact I may want to stop taking OTC products like Advil or Aleve, Consumers hear things selectively when they see ads on TV. Certain words tend to be more emotional than others (death is definitely one of them) and soon people are going to associate death with Celebrex. Now I am sure that the DTC people at Pfizer have a lot of research from focus groups that shows that the commercial is good but when are marketers going to learn that focus groups don't represent the general public. They are 4 or 6 people in an enclosed and regulated environment and they don't have the usual external distractions that we all get when commercials come on.
Can you imagine surfing the channels on TV only to hear:
These medicines also increase the chance of serious skin reactions or stomach and intestine problems, such as bleeding and ulcers, which can occur without warning and may cause death. With any of these medicines, patients also taking aspirin and the elderly are at increased risk for stomach bleeding and ulcers.
I'm a gambler so oh yeah...let me go ask my doctor for a medication that may cause intestinal bleeding and death ! The stupidity of this campaign is beyond imagination. Instead of explaining the risks of the medication (i.e. how many people in clinical studies reported these side effects) Pfizer has decided to compare the medication to OTC products which are a lot less expensive by the way.
I also love the cartoon blueprint it makes me feel like Pfizer has something to hide or is too cheap to use real people. I guess this campaign was supposed to make me feel more comfortable in taking Celebrex (I have a prescription for Celebrex for leg pain) but now I don't want to use it anymore. Instead I'll use topical heating pads or ointments because I don't want to risk any intestinal bleeding. Thanks Pfizer for reminding me of the risks, one less Rx to renew.
It's estimated that consumers see anywhere from 500 to over a 1000 brand messages a day. To cut through the clutter advertisers have convinced brand managers that they have to be "cute" and brand managers have signed off on this absurd notation. Instead of keeping the message simple and informing consumers of brand differentiations or key selling points they have to hire a talking beaver and a doo-wop group. Oh my aching head !
I guess I am not surprised given the lack of talent in pharma marketing but at some point you have to scratch your head and ask "what the hell is going on here?". I can't imagine what it was like to present the ad concepts for Rozarem and Astelin to executive management. Are these senior manager so devoid of marketing skills that they buy into these really bad concepts? This is what happens when senior managers have no marketing background and as such have to rely on agency and brand DTC people to present (and explain) concepts.
The Astelin ads are another example of really bad DTC and another reason why good talent is hard to find.
We need more accountability from DTC marketers if DTC advertising is going to continue to get funded at the $100 million level. The goal of DTC is after all to drive share but the execution is usually the responsibility of middle management. How a marketing manager could not throw their agency out the door when they pitched these spots is beyond me. They don't focus on the product differentiation (the first product that you can't get hooked on) and somewhere there is someone who believes that people understand that Lincoln represents honesty and the beaver hard work.
This is a prime example of wasted money and REALLY bad advertising. $110 million and only $76 million in sales..sound like the same accountability we have with the claim of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
According to the yesterday's Wall Street Journal:
The agency posted on its Web site a "notice of violation letter" to the company detailing the problems with the advertisement.Matt Kuhn, spokesman for Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, said the company isn't sure how the ad was released. "To date, a preliminary review of the situation is that no one internal to Takeda was involved in the approval to release" the ad, he said. Mr. Kuhn said the ad is no longer running and that the company will respond to the FDA.The ad stated, "Rozerem would like to remind you that it's back-to-school season," and included images of a school bus, computer and children walking with backpacks.The FDA said the images of children and school-related objects "suggest that Rozerem is indicated for and can be safely used in the pediatric population." A copy of the advertisement posted on the FDA's Web site suggested the ad ran on MSNBC in September.
"Nobody knows how the ad was released?" Uhhh..you really expect the FDA to believe that and if it is in fact true then Takeda has a hell of a lot more to worry about than an NOV, your business processes are in a serious need of a colonoscopy and someone needs to be held accountable. Frankly in today's business environment this is unacceptable and totally unacceptable for a highly regulated industry like prescription drugs. But hey ? Isn't this the company that uses a beaver and Abe Lincoln for its ads? Never mind...anyone thinks these ads are good obviously can't be someone we would expect to implement a process for its DTC.
Just how bad are the ads? Well the industry is abuzz with just bad these ads are. They don't cut through the clutter and for the life of me anyone that can put together that Abe Lincoln stands for honesty and the beaver for hard work watches way too much TV. Still Rozerem's web traffic for January has increased but somehow I don't think this is going to translate than a marginal share increase against Ambien CR. These ads are so bad that when I recently talked to a colleague who was about to send out a request for information for a new drug she informed me that because the Rozerem ads were in fact soo bad they were told that if the agency that created the ads were invited to pitch she would be replaced.
I have seen a lot of DTC ads over the last few years but none as bad as the Rozerem ads. I can't get over that they are still running but then what's a couple of millions of dollars to create the spots and buy media to lift share marginally. The Ambien brand team should be thankful that the folks at Takeda are sticking with this campaign because it means that they just sit back and have a good laugh.
I'll say this the new Web MD site is more visually appealing than their older site but with so much information to digest on one page its a bit overwhelming. There are imbedded FLASH modules that change, articles that ask you to click and advertisements that divert your attention. Instead of segmenting the audience and looking at how they would want to gather information Web MD seems to want to entice people into a maze of pages that even I have trouble navigating.
One
of the new features is the ability to store your
health information online. I find this interesting
because in recent research that we conducted we
continually heard that patients do not want to store
their personal health information online because of
privacy issues. It seems every week we hear stories
in the media about computers with personal
information being hacked or someone losing laptops
with databases on millions of people.
I
believe that people go to Web MD to get answers on a
variety of issues that they maybe facing. I don't
believe that people would regularly go to the site as
they would sites they visit everyday like CNN.com or
Wall Street Journal.com. click stream analysis
clearly shows that when people are faced with health
issues they usually go to a number of sites like
WebMD or Mayo Clinic.com. When deciding on
prescription medications they will go to the products
website but then also might go to competitors to
determine which medication has fewer side effects.
This gathering of information is a normal process for
online health users but what I have also found is
that online health seekers can quickly become
overwhelmed with informational choices. Where should
they go and more importantly who should they trust?
When designing health websites it's important to use
the KISS principle (keep is simple stupid). Don't try
to overwhelm your audience with a myriad of calls to
action. Take off your marketers hat and think the way
your audience thinks and you will be successful in
what you do. The new Web MD site is a step in the
right direction but they need to let their users
design their site rather than the business
people.
Some impotence-drug makers have recently ramped up spending on advertising in an attempt to jump-start the category's faltering sales -- which have topped out around $3.2 billion a year world-wide, short of the $4 billion some analysts had predicted by now. Despite its aggressive cost-cutting in other marketing areas, Pfizer spent almost $35 million on Viagra ads in the third quarter of last year, almost 50% more than the year-earlier period, according to the most recent data available from TNS. Spending on Levitra quintupled in the third quarter of 2006 over the 2005 period. Both companies had pulled broadcast ads during parts of 2005 over regulatory concerns, though spending on other forms of advertising continued. Drug companies still are spending less on the ads for impotence medicines than in 2004, when Cialis and Levitra had just launched. Ad's on the Internet are all but completely gone even though when this author worked on Cialis 85% of the traffic to the website was the direct result of online ads and paid search.
The viral component of the Web, especially consumer generated media, could be leverage to deliver a great message to a relevant audience. Somehow there are still marketers that believe someone is going to see a spot on TV and it is going to convince them to ask their physician about Cialis, Levitra or Viagra. Why did they come to that conclusion? They probably have lots of qualitative research that shows the message is memorable or motivating. But here's a news flash geniuses : people say and do two different things in focus groups ! That's what happens when marketers rely too much on market research and manipulate data to show that TV is the right way to go. As this author reported before the websites for Levitra, Viagra and Cialis have only had modest updates and none of them take advantage of new media to break through the barriers that men have to asking for treatment. Maybe that's why their budgets are cut so much because someone realized that the DTC they were using was not producing the ROI that they had expected.
The ED category is probably one that could benefit the most from consumer generated media. Can you imagine a real guy talking about the personal decision he went through to ask his doctor for treatment and then realizing how dumb he was for waiting too long? Not to mention the fact that he could mention that his doctor didn't ask him any embarrassing questions. Marketers have a lot to learn about the new consumer and new media but the mistakes that are being made are unforgivable and it's time to change the people who control the dollars with new talent that can meet the needs of consumers who are skeptical but still hungry for information.
Second Life.com is an example of emerging media online. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 3,659,699 people from around the globe. Some smart brands are starting to make the plunge into this virtual world where people can interact with each other and share brand experiences. While this program is still in the early stages of its product life cycle it opens up a whole new opportunity to savvy marketers.
The
online viral opportunity of some brands, like Cialis,
could be huge but instead of breaking new ground your
more likely to see a "36 hour" commercial while
watching cable TV. No wonder the category is in a
funk. Marketers of ED products are stumped because
they can't figure out how to get men to ask their
doctors about their brands. They think that once
someone sees a commercial on TV it will eliminate the
potential barriers that men have to overcome to seek
treatment. Now you can see why I believe that a DTC
award is more of an oxymoron than an award.
This week I received an innovation to the next DTC
National in Washington DC and of course there is
another award dinner. Pharma marketers are great at
patting themselves on the back but this industry
should not reward baby steps as much as innovation.
Too many marketers out there stuck in traditional
brand marketing cycle..spend on DTV for reach and
frequency? No wonder the ED category has not seen
major growth..the marketers who control the media
dollars are just too myopic to understand that the
way to connect brands to people is to connect with
people. Too bad....
Forming a relationship with your customers is not easy. As people become more familiar with using the Web, and eMail, they are becoming more and more careful about whom they form a relationship with. Most pharma companied focus on new Rx's rather than increasing the lifetime value of current customers. They don't understand that in order to form this relationship they have to identify the value proposition that will get customers to raise their hands and say "yes, I want to have a relationship with you". We also should remember that each segment within your market may have a different need and thus segmentation of messaging within CRM is essential.
It's
also important to identify trends within your
segments, develop messages for each segment and
deploy your CRM programs with speed and quality. If
your product, or disease condition, is in the news
then take advantage of than to talk and engage your
audience. Don't wait three months until it's old news
do it now and do it quickly is the key to a great CRM
program. Marketers often overlook people who have
opted in for information from your company. These
people can provide a wealth of information from
product packaging designs to competitive programs
that are capturing their attention.
CRM is not easy to implement but if you have the
right people in place it can provide valuable
insights and help your brand meet it's business
objectives. It's time for pharma to stop thinking
about new Rx's and look at ways to keep current
customers happy, and that is what a great CRM program
can do.
By all accounts the TV spots on this years Superbowl were not exciting or entertaining. Creative people have taken over instead of marketing people and when that happens you get spots that may cut through the clutter but don't drive business. The Budweiser spots are a prime example. Although I feel that they are very creative they don't make me want to go out and purchase Bud and that is the driving issue with TV ads today. The commercial for the AHA was bad and misplaced. The website does have a nice interactive tool but I can assure you that not a hell of a lot of people want to go online to find out that their couch potato lifestyles could lead to heart disease. This is what happens when you think of what you want to "push" to online customers rather than acknowledge that the Internet is a "pull" customer content driven channel.
$2.6 million was the going price for a 30-second spot at the Superbowl. What idiot thought that while people are sitting in front of their TV's eating dinner or munching snacks that a reminder of heart disease would cut through the clutter. That is like trying to sell membership for AARP on MTV ! This my friends is what happens when common sense it overruled by corporate politics and media planners whose job it is to get the client to spend as much money as possible rather than engage and reach a targeted audience. Shame on the people at the AHA for such a bad move and wasting $2.6 million.
Enablex is a new prescription medication for over active bladders. The spot shows a bunch of colorful balloons with water in them until you get the feeling that they are ready to bust. My guess is that their research told them that people with overactive bladders could relate to the image but the point is it does not communicate the benefit of the medication to the audience with a limited attention span. What this medication is really selling is the ability to go out do the things you enjoy without having to worry about the need for locating the closest bathroom. That is the USP (unique selling proposition) and that is what I believe they should be emphasizing in their commercials.
I am sure that Novartis and P&G did tons of research to determine the effective of this spot but that is what happens when marketing becomes more of a science and less of an art. Instead of focusing on the quality of life that one might enjoy with this medication they have resorted to cartoon images of balloons.
There are a variety of reasons for the decline in cancer deaths in the US at a time when they should be increasing with the aging population. There are many new drugs on the market, people are proactive in cancer prevention and early detection and of course there is a decline in people who smoke. While this is a good first start the pharma industry still has a long way to go.
I
really believe that the pharma industry needs to do
more to increase awareness of cancer, it symptoms and
possible treatment options. When my mother was
diagnosed with colin cancer 6 years ago I went online
to try and get information the problem was that there
was too much information and most of it was not
consumer friendly. Today sites like getbcfacts.com
are a model for what patients are looking for the;
the basic information of breast cancer and treatment
options. There should be site like that for all types
of cancer because today a diagnose of cancer does not
mean a death sentence.
One of the advantages of DTC is that it can increase awareness of disease conditions but the industry needs to do more. Instead of looking at the ROI of a campaign like this we need to know that by helping make people aware of early signs of cancer we can save lives. If a pharma company can spend as much on an unbranded site as a branded site they need to know that it will lead to a better customer perception of the industry and their brands. Anyone who has watched a close relative or family member die from cancer knows that if they only could have caught the disease sooner maybe their loved ones could still be around. This to me is what DTC is about...reaching and touching patients and making them aware that if their cholesterol is untreated it could lead to coronary heart disease..to let them know when to see a doctor if there is a lump in their breast. I think somewhere we have become so engulfed in numbers that we fail to see the patients who can lead a better life because of what we do. Maybe I am an idealist but if I can touch just one person and give them information that could lead to a better quality of life then I know it's a start....
Trade magazines can be found in every industry and some actually can be a source of great information for marketers. DTC Perspective is not one of those magazines. While thumbing through the latest issue they featured a report on awards, that they sponsor, and everyone seemed to win either gold, silver or bronze awards. This is called good public relations to ensure that DTC marketers sign up for future seminars held by DTC Perspectives.
Let's look at DTC Company of the year..Sepracor for their Lunesta campaign. According to website hits (see below) Lunesta is far behind market leader Ambien and only slightly above the disastrous Rozarem. Correct me if I am wrong but the whole purpose of a DTC campaign is to gain market share? The Silver winner was Botox Cosmetics..I am not even going to go into why they should not be considered for DTC awards.
Ambien CR is
leaving Lunesta in the dust in website hits and
Rozarem doesn't
even register !
For
sales over $5 billion the award went to GSK for their
work on Boniva, Levitra and Avodart. This to me makes
some sense. The spots for Boniva with Sally Fields
are great and communicate the unique point of
difference (once a month vs every week). However
Levitra's campaign, with the causes of ED, may have
hit a niche in the market but have failed to move the
market share needle. The Bronze award went to Amgen a
real DTC powerhouse and that alone should tell you
just how bad these award choices were.
These awards mean nothing but they do make
marketers feel good about themselves. They can go
back to their managers and say "look, we won" and pat
themselves on the back with the false sense that they
actually did something that added value to their
brands. However management is now starting to dive
deeper and deeper into the marketing dollars spent on
DTC. Want $40 million for a new campaign? Tell me
what it's going to do for share and how we are going
to measure it? Of course there are a number of savvy
marketers who can manipulate data to show that what
they spent actually drove share.
It's a shame that some marketers actually believe
this hype and self promotion. This author was part of
the DTC team of they year a while back for Cialis and
I can tell you that the award and $1.50 might get me
a New York subway token.
There is a lot that is wrong with DTC today and
pharma companies are not willing to fix it. Less than
1% of media, for example, is allocated to the
Internet at a time when premiere marketers like
P&G are allocating more dollars to the Web and
moving away from TV. When I receive an issue of DTC
Perspective I think next time it will just go into
the round file where it belongs with all the other
promotional materials. DTC marketers need to stop
looking for awards and start looking at the sales
numbers and patients response to ads before they pat
themselves on the back for a job well
done.
Astra Zenca's website on breast cancer (www.getbcfacts.com) is an example of just how good a website can educate and inform consumers with real answers and straight forward communication. The site is very focused on the user experience and visitors have an option to customize the site to meet their needs. This to me is what a great website is all about.
What I really like about the getbcfacts.com website is the way the information is presented to visitors. The site navigation is very easy and is intuitive which frankly you don't see that much in pharma websites. Visitors can get information on a wide variety of subjects from diagnosis to treatment options. There is even some information on clinical trials for people that maybe interested in working with a physician to test new pharmaceutical products.
Where I think the site really excels is the
customization or personalization feature within the
site. Users are guided by a video to enter
information about themselves and then they are
presented with information relevant to their profile
(obviously the folks at Astra Zenca get it). We need
more of these type of websites to educate and inform
a public hungry to research health issues on the
Internet. The only issue I had with this site is that
I was served the ad while surfing the Internet and I
am sure that I am not in their target audience. They
maybe able to do a better job of targeting these ads
online.
It looks like there is a potential battle brewing in the multi-billion dollar prescription cholesterol market. Vytorin has fired the first shot with the results of head to head clinical studies against market leader Lipitor. A three-quarter page ad in todays Wall Street Journal with the headline saying that "Vytorin was clinically proven to lower bad cholesterol more than Lipitor alone". They also show a graph that indicates that Vytorin lowered bad cholesterol by 53% compared to 45% for Lipitor alone. It seems the battle lines are drawn.
Merck and Schering-Plough are promoting the head to head clinical studies on their health care professional and consumer websites as well. The key question is will it be enough for patients to ask their physician or will Vytorin become a second line statin for people whose high cholesterol doesn't respond to treatment with Lipitor? I believe that this battle is going to be fought in the doctors office not with patients. Pfizer has done a great job in promoting Lipitor with physicians. Pfizer is promoting clinical studies that show that Lipitor may reduce the risk of major CV events by almost half. In addition Pfizer is firing back with three key points; lower LDL reductions, outcomes such as stroke reduction of 48% and nonfatal MI reduction of 45%, safety and experience and finally health care access "available for 94% of patients with managed care coverage.
Will these work? Hard to tell, Pfizer tried some of
these tactics when Viagra faced competition from
Cialis and Levitra and they didn't work that well but
the ED market is mostly a patient/consumer driven
market. Pfizer does a great job of bundling their
products to managed care plans and that might give
them a slight edge but the real question is will
patients ask to be switched and will physicians
switch patients? My guess is that patients currently
taking Lipitor and responding to treatment will not
ask to to switch to Vytorin. Why should they? Either
way it will be interesting to see this battle unfold
in the multi-billion dollar cholesterol war. Pfizer I
am sure will not allow this attack to go
unchallenged.
A
key message to HCP's on Lipitor
As
you can see Pfizer is hitting back to Vytorin's
challenge with this
message on the Lipitor HCP
site.