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The Future of Digital Relationship Marketing in Pharma

I’ve found that I’m answering more and more questions about relationship marketing in pharma, so I wanted to provide my perspective. Most pharma companies have some ongoing relationship marketing program typically in the form of a newsletter or other regular email or direct mail-based program. But there’s a lot more to relationship marketing than the occasional email especially when it comes to digital.

Relationship marketing is exactly what is sounds like. It’s marketing that involves an ongoing relationship between customer and company. “Relationship” is of course the key word, but often times, it’s really just a one-way communication:company to consumer. That’s going to have to change.  A few trends in pharma and healthcare are going to make this happen whether we like it or not. Understanding these trends is going to be critical if your relationship marketing program is going to bring value to customers or be piled in with the rest of the spam out there.

Here are six emerging trends that every pharma and healthcare company needs to consider not just in regards to their relationship marketing programs, but in all their marketing efforts.

  • Healthcare Information 24/7 —  The information that consumers will have access to and will use to make decisions will continue to increase in volume and availability.
  • Consumers As “Physicians” — With the staggering increase in bloggers, user-generated media (such as YouTube), and social networking, end users are creating and controlling more and more of the content available online.
  • Internet = Trusted Source — All other forms of media already fall behind the Internet as a source for healthcare information for most Americans.
  • It’s Their Data, Not Yours — In the future, consumers will have more control of their healthcare records and history.
  • Healthy Social Networking — Because of the sheer number of people utilizing the Internet, it is possible to find people who share the same experiences as you.
  • Constant Contact, Constant Care — Some technologies to monitor patients’ health, now in early development, which still are largely cumbersome and not embraced by the public, will become more widespread.

If you want more information on each of these trends, then you can download my full white paper on this topic: The Future of Healthcare Relationship Marketing  (2224 downloads)

You can download more publications and presentations on the “Pubs and Presos” page.

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What Pharma Can Learn from Pringles

Yes, Pringles. The potato chip. Actually, technically speaking, they are potato crisps. Crisps or chips, I realized that there’s something that Pringles can teach pharma and healthcare. First, some backstory and a disclosure.

Last week was the Cannes Advertising Festival. It’s the Oscars of the ad world for those who aren’t familiar. The awards are given out in many different categories, but since this is a blog focused on e-marketing, I’m going to just talk about the “Cyber” category, which is all about digital. The Cyber awards represent the best of the best in digital marketing in every industry. Why do I suddenly care so much about the Cannes awards and Pringles? Well, our agency, Bridge Worldwide, happens to be the digital agency of record for Pringles. And, we created a banner ad (yes, banner ad) that won a Gold Cyber Lion award.

The more I looked at the ad, the more I thought that it just might relate to pharma. How can a Pringles banner ad tell us anything about digital marketing in pharma and healthcare? Great question. First, before we move on, check out the ad. Follow this link to check out “Can Hands.” The banner’s in the lower right…just keep clicking as long as you’d like. People who have commented on the ad call it “the only banner you’ll love to click.” You need to check it out for the rest of the post to make sense, so we’ll wait.

Pringles Can Hands Banner Bridge Worldwide

Now, if that didn’t at least amuse you, I’m not sure what else to tell you. I’m getting to the tie-in with pharma, but just so you know, I’m not going for some cheap publicity for this ad by writing about it here. It doesn’t need my help. Much to our surprise, this ad was (and still is) the talk of the Internet over the weekend. It’s showed up on the front pages of Reddit, Fark, and Buzzfeed. Of course, it’s been all over Twitter as well with well over 2000 tweets and more than 14,000 clicks on the shortened bit.ly URL alone. The link to the ad demo was the 4th most tweeted on all of Twitter on Saturday according to Twitturly. Without giving away too much confidential information, this ad has been viewed more than 125,000 times in the past two days. People going out of their way to see an ad.

So why am I telling you this? Simple, does anyone ever go out of their way to see your ad?

Let’s get a few things out in the open. Consumer packaged goods isn’t pharma. I know it. Remember, I used to be a pharma marketer, so I haven’t forgotten the rules. Pringles has a whole different set of rules compared to pharma. I know it. I also know that potato crisps or chips or whatever isn’t the same as treating a disease. Got it. But, let’s put that all aside for just a minute. Let’s look at what’s possible. For me, this is the only way we find things that are truly different, unique, and stand out with our customers.

Imagine that Pringles was a pharma product for a minute. There’s no fair balance here, but it wouldn’t require it. The brand name is mentioned (if you click a few times), but nowhere does it include the “indication:” potato crisps. I guess this makes this banner a reminder ad then.

We pharma people love and hate reminder ads. We love them because we can promote the brand without the clutter of fair balance, but we hate them because we can’t get in any key messages. Regardless, pharma spends a lot of money on these. My point? If Pringles were pharma, this ad would be regulatory compliant. Just saying.

Now, just to be clear, I’m not recommending that every pharma company make an ad like this. The whole talk about regulations is all academic. No pharma ad could probably get away with this tone. I’m actually not recommending that anyone make an ad like this. It’s been done. No one can really create a “never-ending banner” like this one anymore. But what I am saying is that there’s something for pharma to learn here.

This is what pharma banner ads look like today:

Cymbalta Banner Ad Lipitor Banner Ad

Lyrica Banner Ad Premarin Banner Ad

The Premarin Banner (with the cloud) on the bottom at least has some animation, albeit odd and “icky” animation.

Premarin Ad 2

I’ll just leave it at that rather than ask a lot of questions about what purple rain has to do with vaginal dryness.

Now, don’t feel bad if you think you banner ad stinks. Most banner ads are terrible regardless of the industry. Pharma isn’t a special exception. But, as the Pringles banner shows, there’s a way to make any advertising interesting and engaging. It just requires looking at things differently. So instead of relying completely on agencies that only have pharma experience (and pair it up with ours that might be about the same), maybe it’s time to look beyond pharma to see how everyone else is doing it. We know that we can’t do the exact same things other industries might try because of regulatory issues, but I also know that doing the same things we’ve always done in pharma isn’t good enough anymore either. This might be one of the times where the answer lies outside of our industry.

To be sure, I’m not recommending that you run out and make banner ads. I have no idea if you need banner ads or if they are part of your strategy. I want you to look bigger picture and realize that there are whole groups of really smart people that we don’t listen to because they aren’t in the pharma club or don’t know the handshake. Last time I checked, the pharma industry wasn’t doing that well at least compared to historical results. Maybe there’s no time like the present to start trying a new approach. Your equivalent Pringles banner ad may be a really innovative disease management tool or amazing caregive support website. Just keep going until you make whatever it is you are doing something that you can imagine people sharing on Twitter. Do you think we thought this would happen for a banner ad for potato crisps? Yes and no.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since starting to work at my current company, it’s this: it takes very little extra effort to make something great. It takes a lot of effort something to get started and slightly more to make something good. Once you get to “good” though, there’s really not more you need to do in order to get to great. You do need the right people with the right kinds of thinking and the right amount of time and resources, but those are the ingredients. Of course, I’m making it sound really easy and leaving out one important piece: you need some brilliant creative people. It only takes one idea, but you need people who are constantly coming up with them to find the one. Fortunately, we happen to have these folks. (Read the blog “Can Hands” creator, Jason Bender, co-writes).

So, who’s ready to do things differently? If you are, but don’t see how it’s possible, here’s my offer: You pay for the normal costs to get to “good” and I’ll pay for the additional thinking required to make it great. Don’t think it’s possible to make something share-worthy in pharma? Then challenge us. I’m glad to make it public challenge if you’d like (and put the reputation of this blog on the line) just to be able to show that it’s possible. It’s time for something different in pharma and healthcare. The only question is who goes first. If you’re ready, head over to the contact page and let’s get started. One caveat…this has to start with a “big pharma” company because if it can be done there, then it can be done anywhere. So, if you’re a top 20 pharma company (and I know you’re here), you’re eligible for this offer.

We’re ready for your challenge. All this talk about Pringles is making me crave a Super Stack.

Twitter App Just for Pharma Regulations: Twegulate

While meeting up with some industry friends here at CBI’s 2nd Annual Bio/Pharmaceutical Emerging Media Optimization for Consumer-Focused Marketing conference, we talked a lot about Twitter. There’s also been a lot of debate about a recent addition the the Twitter-verse courtesy of Novo Nordisk. They recently launched Race with Insulin and promptly did something no other pharma company has ever done. They sent out a tweet with a pharma brand name. Here’s what their page looks like:

Twitter race with insulin

You’ll notice about the smallest fair balance fine print I’ve ever seen, but they’ve got it there. Their branded tweet was this:

race with insulin tweet

After this went out, the industry bloggers promptly went into action. It was started by Ross Fetterolf, VP Digital Strategy at Ignite Health, who called this tweet “A Historic Day.” He closed his post with this: “I wonder if Charlie’s 125 followers have their Levemir flexpen’s primed and ready to inject along with Charlie when it’s time for his next dose. We’ll have to wait and see.” On the other hand, John Mack published a blog post about this tweet called: “Novo Nordisk’s Branded (Levemir) Tweet is Sleazy Twitter Spam!” He called the tweet nothing more than a “reminder ad.”   John further added: “A reminder ad of any sort — whether in print, TV, Web, or Twitter — is, IMHO, a form of spam. I consider, therefore, Kimball’s unabashed product endorsement Tweet a particularly sleazy example of Twitter spam. We certainly do NOT want to see more Tweets like this and I disagree with Ross; I sincerely hope that this Tweet is NOT used as a “model” for other drug companies who want to adopt Twitter as a marketing vehicle.”

I’m with John here. But there’s been quite a lot of debate back and forth on this. Supporters of the tweet say that those with diabetes do talk about the brands they use all the time in everyday language, so this is normal for them. Others, like me, might agree with that, but don’t agree that any person would normally mention their drug’s generic name and where to find prescribing information. Can’t quite picture that coming up in conversation.

I’m fine with Novo Nordisk trying this. In fact, I applaud them for doing it. I also realize the realities of what can be tweeted and what can’t and how fair balance must be used. Debate continues on how pharma can do branded tweets that are even better. However, has anyone stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t a feasible channel for pharma brand marketing? Maybe disease state information, but not branded information. John Mack also thought of this idea: “Charlie Kimball’s [the driver who Novo Nordisk sponsors] Tweets would be much more interesting if he stopped posting about cleaning his race suit, taking Levemir, etc, and told us a little bit about how he FEELs being a race car driver with diabetes, how he deals with the unique problems his medical condition gives him, etc. THAT would truly be inspirational!”

That I can get behind. The reality is that if you do have to include fair balance in every tweet, you can’t have authentic conversations, which is what Twitter is all about. Stop trying to get a brand message into everything, pharma friends. That’s not the answer to everything.

However, knowing that my comments or John’s are unlikely to dissuade the most determined pharma brand manager, those of us at the conference tried to think of a tool that pharma could use to Tweet without worrying about running into regulatory issues. Steve Woodruff came up with the big idea. Twegulate. Well, I couldn’t help but run with the idea, so I rushed back to the hotel and created it. Here it is for the first time anywhere…Twegulate:

Twegulate Twitter for Pharma

What’s great about Twegulate is that Important Safety Information (ISI) is automatically included in every tweet. You can’t adjust it, you can’t delete it. Because the ISI is so long, it doesn’t leave many characters for the rest of the tweet, but you do get a full eight characters. You can use this to add updates such as: “Not much” “Hello” “Good Bye”. Not hugely engaging, but it’s a start.

Unfortunately, I don’t expect Twegulate to be launched anytime soon. We really don’t need it. As it stands now, pharma companies are doing it on their own with existing tools. Our automated tool probably doesn’t have a market. Oh well, so much for retiring this week.

Live From CBI Emerging Media Pharma Conference

Today and tomorrow, I’ll be at CBI’s 2nd Annual Bio/Pharmaceutical Emerging Media Optimization for Consumer-Focused Marketing conference. I’m speaking today (I’ll make the presentation available later).

You can follow all the goings-on at right here. Through the magic of Twitter, you’ll get live updates from me and many industry leaders who are also here.

If you have questions, send them in. Chances are someone here can answer it.

Also, you can view and download my presentation by following this link: “If You Build It, They Will Come…Or Will They?”

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