Verilogue's market research is bad folks, I mean really bad
Nov/08/2009 01:22 Filed in: DTC
Effectiveness
DTC marketers are already in enough mud. There are budget cuts all over the place, layoffs, and executives who see marketing as an expense rather than its true value. While I do believe that DTC ROI could be a lot better with less money I can assure you that a lot of drugs are doing well because of DTC advertising.
Why is this research so bad?
Imagine following say 50,000 people that go to the grocery store. Only 10 of them buy a Digiorno a pizza. Does this mean that their ad campaign failed ? No, because of that 50,000 people you need to ask how many are in the market for frozen food and how many of them eat pizza? The same is true with this flawed research. If you really want to find out if DTC is effective look at the target market for each product and determine how many of them asked for an Rx
Did you ever stop to think that out of the 12,000 conversations you followed that many of patients were not there to ask for an Rx but rather see their doctor about other problems? How many of the 12,000 people were in the target market for Cymbalta (suffering from depression) or in the target market for Boniva ?
The study sites the difference between the DTC campaign for Boniva and Cymbalta. While Cymbalta spent the most money, according to the study, Boniva did a lot better spending a lot less money because of a great campaign with Sally Fields.
This is laughable because it's obviously a lot easier to ask for an osteoporosis drug than admit your need a drug for depression. I don't have the research in front of me but I bet people are more willing to admit they have osteoporosis than depression. By the way over 80% of the discussions around ED drugs (Cialis, Viagra. Levitra) start with a patient asking for the brand by name.
I guess this research would make a good place holder for your morning coffee.
As for the 23 requests for specific drugs they must have been following my friends and family because within that circle of people I know of at least a dozen requests for specific drugs including me. I go to an Urgent Care Center where I ask for ALL my drugs and they give it to me on request.
According to Business Week: Verilogue's research will be sobering news to many in the pharmaceutical business. Despite the recession, the industry is still spending heavily on direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads—and taking flak for it. DTC spending is down just 7% so far this year, a relatively small drop. There are reasons for this too. First a lot of on air time is purchased in advance by media companies and has to be either used or they lose it. Second DTC budgets are usually set well in advance and it's hard to know what any brand spends because spending is usually bundled with either other brands or as part of an integrated media plan.
By the way I suggest that Verilogue contact the market research people at Amgen or Lilly and ask about the research they have on the ROI of DTC. Enbrel is an Amgen brand that has benefitted very much from DTC marketing thank you and Cymbalta is also benefitting from DTC marketing.
These articles are sure to cause DTC marketers more headaches as executives read them and ask "do we really need DTC marketing?" The answer of course is, yes we need DTC marketing, we just need it to be more relevant and transparent. We, above all, don't need flawed research and poor reporting.
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