I’ve been talking about pharma and social media for what seems like a long time now. I’m certainly far from the only one. A cursory glance at any healthcare marketing blogs (check out a few from my Blogroll) and publications will show you that it’s a hot topic. Despite all the talk, social media is still struggling to be adopted as a standard channel in the pharma marketer’s playbook. One reason is certainly the conservative nature of many pharma organizations and the potential regulatory issues that social media can create. Aside from the issue of adverse event reporting (which I’ve already discussed in detail), there’s a major issue around people talking about off label usage of a product as well. If you’re a pharma company hosting a branded social media site and someone posts some off label information about your product, it’s the same as you posting it. The FDA, of course, isn’t too keen on this. If you delete all comments or don’t allow them, well, it isn’t much of a social media program. It violates the Expected Visitor Experience (or E.V.E.). 

But what about an unbranded community? There are a number of them out there (see the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki for examples). Many are not sponsored or created by pharma companies, but quite a few are. However, I still see a lot of reluctance from companies to try this approach as well. Despite the fact that an unbranded community allows for more interaction and freer discussion among members, which translates to happier visitors and a more engaged community, many pharma companies are worried about missing an opportunity for a brand message. An unbranded, disease or condition-based community avoids many of the issues surrounding off-label promotion and might even decrease the already small number of reportable adverse events recorded on the site. But still, there’s this need to get in the product name.

So, today I’m going to try a different approach to persuade companies to change. I’m going to use pharma’s own words to show why an unbranded community should be considered among the standard marketing tactics. I’m going to compare direct-to-consumer TV with social media. Watch this.

Despite ongoing criticism from the public regarding DTC TV, pharma companies still spent over $4.3 billion on DTC advertising in 2008. This is not all DTC TV, but it is significant portion, certainly into the billions. Bottom line, a lot of money goes towards all those TV ads. The public criticizes these ads for numerous reasons, but chief among them (whether right or wrong) is that they drive up prices, waste money that could be spent on R&D, are misleading, and cause people to unnecessarily seek treatment. 

The pharma industry has tried to counter this with a few sets of stats. Pfizer has this to say on its website: “DTC advertising contributes to the public health by bringing important health information to patients and encouraging them to discuss their health with their health care providers.” They even have this chart, which shows that among patients who visited their doctor because of a DTC advertising, 25% receive a new diagnosis.

AstraZeneca quotes the same information on its website as well and add: “A FDA patient survey on DTC advertising also revealed that nearly one-in-five patients reported speaking to a doctor about a condition for the first time because of a DTC advertisement.” You can dowload, read, and interpret the FDA patient survey they reference for yourself here. 

The gist of the argument is simple. Without DTC advertising, including TV, many people who have a disease might not ever find out until it’s too late. I’m not here today to argue the merits of this statement. I’m just going to use this stance to show pharma companies why social media might be a better fit to help find people with undiagnosed conditions and get them to seek treatment.

There have been countless studies that show patients are seeking information online. I’m not going to try to list them all here, but this one from Pew is pretty representative. Bottom line: ~75% of people with access to the internet are using it to find healthcare information. I think everyone can agree that this is happening and that, according to one iCrossing study, patients are starting to go to the internet as their number one source for information even more than they go to their doctors.

Enough stats. Here’s my argument: if pharma companies say that the goal of DTC TV is to help people figure out they have diseases that would otherwise be undiagnosed, isn’t the internet really the ideal channel to help reach this goal?

Here’s why:

• People are already online looking for healthcare information, so they are open to listening while they’re online and not while they’re watching TV
• Because of the power of search engines, people with certain symptoms will quickly find that they might have a condition. In other words, you’re likely to find the right people at the right time. Compare this to TV, where reaching a person with a specific undiagnosed condition is a needle in a haystack-like search at best.
• Digital technologies can reduce the number of people who unnecessarily seek treatment. The additional information that can be shared online and simple tools including symptom comparison guides can help ensure only those who really need treatment seek the treatment.
• Oh yes, it all can be done at a fraction of the cost of offline DTC advertising especially TV.

I know that it’s naive to think that the only reason for DTC TV is that it reaches people with undiagnosed conditions. DTC TV appears to sell product. From the FDA surveys previously mentioned, here’s the quote that keeps money flowing towards DTC advertising: “In the consumer surveys we examined, the percentage of consumers who, in response to a DTC advertisement, requested and received a prescription from their physician for a drug they were not currently taking was generally about 5 percent (ranging from 2 percent to 10 percent). By our estimate, this means that about 8.5 million consumers received a prescription after viewing a DTC advertisement and asking their physician for the drug in 2000.” That’s a lot of prescriptions. For perspective, pharma spent $2.5 billion in DTC advertising in 2000 when these surveys were done. Some quick math tells me that this $2.5 billions spent for 8.5 million prescriptions means that each prescription would need to be worth $294 to break even. With more than half of people stopping their treatments after after 3-6 months (from Osterberg L, Blaschke T. Adherence to medication. N Engl J. Med 2005;353:487-97), $294 is a pretty high number to get to.

I’m not going to try to encourage pharma marketers to stop DTC TV today. All I’m saying is that a sliver of this budget might be better spent elsewhere. An unbranded community that helps people determine if they should seek treatment and then helps them once they start treatment can be an important tool for every healthcare marketer. All of this can be done in a compliant way that allows for real interaction among members and offers value to each patient opposite the shotgun approach of DTC TV. Talk only to those who need to hear your message. Everyone will thank you.

One final thing to consider…here at Bridge Worldwide, we’ve created something we call Marketing with Meaning. Essentially, the idea is that your marketing itself should add value to consumers’ lives, meaning that people will want to participate in your marketing. Think about it for a moment. Your advertising, your marketing, should be valuable. Not just your product, but the way you sell it. Many brands have successfully done this (read all about them on the Marketing with Meaning blog). One of the best examples for me is Nike+. With the online program for Nike+, you can track your progress, talk with other runners, set goals, enter challenges, and read more about running. The cost for the program is zero. Does it sell more Nike shoes? Absolutely. The marketing itself adds value to consumers’ lives and the brand benefits.

For me, healthcare is the ideal industry to adopt a strict Marketing with Meaning approach to selling their products. An unbranded community that educates and supports members is a perfect example of Marketing with Meaning.  People are tired of the interuptions, of ads that don’t apply to them, and of junk mail and telemarketers. While online, they can cut all this out with various blocking tools and by simply leaving your site. Isn’t that reason enough to look at new approaches? Finally, appropriate Marketing with Meaning also has the added benefit of improved perceptions for pharma among the public. Don’t we all know pharma can use a bit of that?

Possibly related posts (auto-generated):

1. The Seven Uses of Social Media in Business — The 7 “C”s
2. Healthcare and Pharma Social Media: It’s All About E.V.E.
3. How Marketing with Meaning Can Save Pharma — Part 2