Market Research
DTC Marketing Blog
Can You Hear Them? They're Talking About Us
Oct/14/06 07:01 | Permalink
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"More and more people are conversing with each other on social networks and blogs," said Randall McAdory, manager-business intelligence at Chrysler Group. "We want to know what they are saying about us."


This week Chrysler made news by resigning an agency to monitor chat rooms and BLOG's. It seems that Chrysler understands the importance of consumer chatter and wants to incorporate what they say into their strategic thinking and plans. If you go to Yahoo! or Web MD you can find boards on a variety of conditions as well as pharmaceutical products. For example Byetta, Lilly's diabetes drug, has a loyal following online with users talking about their experiences with the product and its side effects. One of the biggest "buzz" in these chat rooms and boards is that for most people one of the pleasant side effects is that they are loosing weight. People are also asking questions about one of the drugs side effects, nauseous, and how bad it is among patients using the product.


We can learn a lot about our products, brands and conditions by monitoring these boards. As a marketer I always want to know what my customers are saying about my product in this wired world. The next step, of course, is determining how to engage these people with the brand in a highly regulated industry. Pharma seems to be taking a very cautious approach here and it will be interesting to see who takes the first plunge into this grey area.


Consumer generated media is gaining more momentum and I believe it will continue to link consumers like never before as technology is adopted by more and more people and becomes easier to use. The opportunity if there if only someone in the pharmaceutical area would take the first step.
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Listen ! Your current customers are trying to tell you something !
Oct/09/06 17:18 | Permalink
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Market research is supposed to provide insights into the way people think.  The problem is that most market research does not provide these insights and as thus marketers get the wrong information they need to turn consumers into patients.

When I worked on the ED market for example I suggested that we interview current patients to determine what finally motivated them to ask their doctor for a prescription.  Of course my manager did not believe that this would provide valuable information and as thus only continue to do
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research with men who had ED and not sought treatment yet.

You can learn a lot from your current customers including their perceptions of the brand and the decision making process they went through to get treatment.  This could lead to a decision tree which could identify key intervention opportunities for the brand.  Marketers spend way too much time testing and retesting messages and DTC advertising and then when share doesn’t increase they look for reasons why and ask for more money to do more research and develop more spots.  It’s no wonder that the state of DTC today is in sad shape.

This week executives from both Wal*Mart and P&G acknowledged that marketers have to let go of the old marketing beliefs and that consumers now control messages.  This is even more true with pharmaceutical products.  Any DTC marketer who believes that someone is going to watch a TV commercial and go to their doctor to get an Rx is mistaken.  It requires an integrated campaign to reach consumers at every touchpoint with a consistent message that is relevant to them.

Listening is becoming a lost art; there are way too many marketers that hear what they want to hear and use market research to cover their asses rather than gain valuable insights into how to improve patients lives. 
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