Marketers asking more of TV, except pharma marketers of course
Mar/02/2008 08:22 Filed in: Media
(TV)
Advertising Age has
been running a series of articles about the decline
of TV effectiveness in an information driven world
where consumers hold all the keys. Smart marketers
realize that they can't afford to place their bets on
TV alone anymore and need to find a way to get
consumers talking about their brands. However while
this conversation is taking place DTC marketers are
opening up the MBA textbooks and using TV as their
primary marketing channel. Too bad...
TV is a great way to build awareness of your brand or product but awareness does not necessarily translate into new product sales or prescriptions. People are a lot smarter than that today and talk to each other about brands and products. In pharma there is more of a challenge; you have key influencers that also can effect the health care decisions such as physicians and other patients. Pharma marketers ignore these influencers for the most part. They continue to train people right out of college to go into a physicians office to try and talk to doctors about their products but all too often salespeople become nothing more then delivery people for samples.
In the old marketing model you spent a lot of money on TV and then watched sales go up. Then came the Internet, scandals, and social media and as penetration of PC's increased people realized how easy it was to get on the Web and preach. That essentially is what a BLOG is, a person preaching to others about their experiences or interests. Sites like Amazon.com took it to the next level and let customers review and rate their products and guess what people believe other people rather marketers messages.
The new model is that in order to cut through the clutter marketers become aggregators of the conversation. They use new media to continue the conversation with consumers and they realize that pushing information does little good when people have a lot of information sources. The model continues to evolve for marketers except in pharmaceutical advertising. With all the drugs coming off patent pharma is now poised to introduce "new & improved" products to replace their blockbusters. They will continue to push information to consumers but the problem is that most won't be listening anymore.
TV is a great way to build awareness of your brand or product but awareness does not necessarily translate into new product sales or prescriptions. People are a lot smarter than that today and talk to each other about brands and products. In pharma there is more of a challenge; you have key influencers that also can effect the health care decisions such as physicians and other patients. Pharma marketers ignore these influencers for the most part. They continue to train people right out of college to go into a physicians office to try and talk to doctors about their products but all too often salespeople become nothing more then delivery people for samples.
In the old marketing model you spent a lot of money on TV and then watched sales go up. Then came the Internet, scandals, and social media and as penetration of PC's increased people realized how easy it was to get on the Web and preach. That essentially is what a BLOG is, a person preaching to others about their experiences or interests. Sites like Amazon.com took it to the next level and let customers review and rate their products and guess what people believe other people rather marketers messages.
The new model is that in order to cut through the clutter marketers become aggregators of the conversation. They use new media to continue the conversation with consumers and they realize that pushing information does little good when people have a lot of information sources. The model continues to evolve for marketers except in pharmaceutical advertising. With all the drugs coming off patent pharma is now poised to introduce "new & improved" products to replace their blockbusters. They will continue to push information to consumers but the problem is that most won't be listening anymore.
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