[Before you read any further, you probably should check out Part 1 if you haven't already.]

When you last left this blog, I outlined some of the big issues facing pharma marketing and provided a pretty striking example of how the lack of trust in pharma by many in the general public manifests itself. As a recap, I outlined three big problems that I think can be addressed by changing the way pharma companies market their products.

1. Horrible PR and public perception from  marketing tactics perceived as questionable
2. No public belief in the cost to value equation for pharma products (i.e., people don’t think they should cost so much, which means they think the products aren’t worth it)
3. Falling sales and profits

Sure, that doesn’t capture every issue, but whatever the issue, it likely fits somehow under catch-all issue number 3: falling sales and profits. My assertion was that a concept called Marketing with Meaning could improve all of these. For those who closely follow this blog, you’ll know that Marketing with Meaning is a concept developed by Bob Gilbreath, our Chief Marketing Strategist here at Bridge Worldwide. So, yes, I’m a little biased in thinking this is a really important concept that every industry and every company should understand and implement, but I’m also one of the biggest skeptics out there and if I didn’t think it was a fit for pharma, I wouldn’t be writing about it. Now…on with the show.

First, a little background for those not familiar with Marketing with Meaning. It’s pretty simple really. Marketing with Meaning is two things: marketing that people choose to engage with and marketing that itself improves people’s lives. It’s the opposite of interruptive, broadcast advertising. Simple enough, right? So, why is the first part important? Let’s look at some numbers, shall we?

• Do you like using TV ads as a marketing tactic? Well, IDC Research has shows that 2/3 of DVR owners skip commercials all or most of the time. For the most popular shows, Nielsen Media Research reports that 20% of ALL television viewers (not just those with DVRs) are skipping commercials.
• Remember telemarketers? Probably just a distant memory for you. That’s because 76% of Americans signed up more than 150 million phone numbers on the Do-Not-Call List within months. What’s the next list?
• How about Flash banner ads? Heck, our company makes them all the time for clients. Are these working? Well, 6 million Firefox users have installed AdBlock, which eliminates every one of these ads. (Even the Cannes Gold Cyber Lion winners like our “Can Hands” ad. Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Not a pretty picture. You’ll notice that digital marketing isn’t immune. People are just as frustrated with digital marketing that isn’t meaningful as they are with any other channel. So, what do we do? Well, the good news is that some companies have already figured out what to do. And while they may not be calling it Marketing with Meaning (yet), that’s just what they’re doing. “So what,” you ask? Our research at Bridge Worldwide shows that “the more meaningful people find your marketing, the more they’ll be willing to pay for your stuff, the more of an investment they’ll make in it emotionally, and the more motivated they’ll become to spread the word.” (from “The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning“)

Sound like what you’re trying to do with your marketing plan every year? More people buying your products. More people creating deeper emotional connections with your customers. And more people talking to others about your products. You’re probably spending millions right now to deliver some of these goals right now.

You probably want an example of Marketing with Meaning by now. First, let me tell you what it’s not. It’s not cause marketing and it’s not marketing that is somehow against conspicuous consumption. Meaning in this case means “personal value.” It’s what you find meaningful. That’s going to be different for different people. A cause like saving the rainforests might not be important to your average teenage boy, but a funny, viral video he can share with his friends might be. He’s also not interested in a program that improves high cholesterol, but his father might be. Because everyone’s a bit different, there isn’t a one-size fits all approach. Like anything, you’ve got to match you meaningful marketing program to the needs of your customers. But, there are also many ways that you can be meaningful.

Now for the examples…

Samsung could have put more billboards all around airports that no one would have noticed, but instead, they paid to install charging stations for travelers like me who can never seem to find an outlet. And, by the way, they get to show me, a very grateful traveler who is charging up a bunch of electronics (which eventually are going to need to be replaced), some of their latest gadgets.

When Adidas bought Reebok in 2005 and threatened Nike’s domination in athletic shoes, Nike didn’t react like they always have by doing a massive media blitz. Instead, the reconnected with their core audience, die-hard runners, and created Nike+. In case you don’t know, Nike+ is a chip that fits into your Nike running shoe and syncs with your iPod allowing you to track your runs and get a little verbal encouragement along the way. It all connects back to a website that features a giant community of runners that now numbers in the hundreds of thousands. 30% of Nike+ users come to Nike’s site three times a week. That is, they CHOOSE to come to Nike’s website…three times a week. Is anyone choosing to do that with your website? Oh, one other thing, Nike CEO Mark Parker credited an 8.1% rise in quarterly profits just 6 months after introducing it to Nike+. Remember, that’s in the face of millions spent on media by the Adidas/Reebok behemoth to capture Nike’s share. It didn’t come close to working.

More? No problem. I’ve got hundreds of these. How about one that fits under entertainment? Yes, entertainment can be meaningful to some people and it can come in many different forms. If you haven’t seen the charging stations or used Nike+, I know you’ve seen this next one. Instead of spending millions on TV and print advertising, in 2006, Dove took a different approach. It created “Evolution” (credit to sister agency Ogilvy Toronto). A “simple” video all to support a campaign that would later be called “The Campaign for Real Beauty.” This concept was borne out of research the agency did that showed that 50% of women say that their body “disgusts them.” 50%. “Disgusts them.” Clearly, there was an opportunity to change that. So, with little hype (and no mass media buying), “Evolution” was launched. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. If you have, it’s always worth watching again.

If that doesn’t stop you for a minute, I’m not sure what will. That video, thanks to a massive viral spread, has been seen more than 500 million times. How much would it cost you for 500 million impressions? How about 500 million impressions on people who WANTED to see your commercial? $500,000? $1,000,000? $3,000,000? Nope. Try $50,000. That’s how much “Evolution” cost to create. Sure, not everything is “Evolution,” but you probably don’t need 500 million views of your video. However, you probably want more than the few hundred or few thousand it has now. “Evolution” launched an entire campaign around improving women’s self-esteem. Meaningful, right? Effective too. The Dove brand, which was previously flat, grew by double digits during this campaign.

I’m not going to list every example here. We’d be on Part 9,381 of this post if I did. If you want more examples, then you’ll have to check out the Marketing with Meaning blog or, even better, you can download a chapter of the book, which describes a lot of these examples and many more. It’s a free trial (Hint: also can be a form of Marketing with Meaning). Download chapter two of the book here.

Well, maybe just one more example would help. Since I know my readers, I know that you’re all saying, “That’s all well and good for Dove or Nike, but we’re not selling shoes and soap. We’re making medicines here that save people’s lives and we’re pretty restricted in what we can do.” Both true. The products you sell prevent, treat, or cure diseases. What’s more meaningful than that? So, shouldn’t your marketing be just as meaningful? If you’re saving someone’s life with, say, a chemotherapy for breast cancer, does it somehow reduce the meaning of the product if you’re promoting it in a simple print ad? Doesn’t that cheapen what it does just a bit? I think it might. It almost certainly does in the eyes of your average consumer who sees almost all advertising as interruptive and irrelevant. And, yes, you’re in a regulated industry, but some pharma companies are already doing Marketing with Meaning.

Meet Aralast. Aralast, marketed by Baxter, is a treatment for alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency. It’s a pretty rare condition in which there are low levels or no levels of AAT in the blood. AAT is an enzyme that protects the lungs from neutrophil elastase (NE), another enzyme that is produced by white blood cells. Without AAT, the NE can attack healthy lung tissue. The result can be early emphysema and liver damage. Here comes the “good” news and bad news. Only 100,000 people in the US have this condition. So, it’s a good thing that it’s not more widespread. However, the bad news is that no one has ever heard of it, so no one knows (including your average primary care physician) to look for it. 95% of people that have the disease are undiagnosed. The result is late diagnosis oftentimes when there’s not much that can be done.

A critical marketing objective for Aralast is creating awareness of the disease and encouraging physicians to test for it. If we followed the traditional pharma approach, we’d consider a massive TV or print campaign to inform people that they might have the disease and to get tested. Sure, for most people that see the ads, it won’t apply, but perhaps it’ll reach those precious few where it could help. Of course, we’ll annoy and further distance everyone else, but that’s the price we pay, right? Maybe instead, Baxter should spend a fortune lobbying Congress and health insurance companies to make the tests mandatory. Again, more annoyed people than satisfied people.

What Baxter does is totally different. It gives away the tests (and the lab processing) to anyone who requests them. Concerned consumers can request the test and have their doctor administer the simple blood test and physicians can also request a supply for their offices. The test themselves are, of course, marketing the awareness AAT deficiency (just like our commercial would have tried to do). They’re also branded with the Aralast name. Marketing the product right on the test package?!? Isn’t that exploiting the importance of detecting the disease? Aren’t doctors turned off that the test has been commercialized? No and no. Why? Because the test is Marketing with Meaning. Once again, Marketing with Meaning is marketing that people choose to engage with and marketing that itself improves people’s lives. When it comes to these tests, check and check. Yes, people are choosing to engage with it. Doctors and patients alike are ASKING for the test either through the brand’s website or sales representatives. And, these tests are improving lives. Without access to the free test, many people wouldn’t have thought about getting checked and many others wouldn’t have received it because of pressures within our healthcare system to try to reduce unnecessary tests. (Thanks to Bob G for his post about Aralast, which I borrowed heavily from for this section)

The marketing of Aralast, which comes in the form of free tests for AAT deficiency, improves lives. The product itself clearly improves lives by saving people from early emphysema and liver damage. But the marketing does also. It increases awareness of the disease, it reduces the costs to our healthcare system, and it makes it easier for physicians to diagnosis a difficult to detect disease. It does all of this at the request of customers. People seek out Baxter’s marketing for Aralast (in the form of free test kits). Who’s seeking out your marketing?

So, if a modest-selling product like Aralast can do it, why can’t a top-selling drug like Lipitor do it?

In part three of this post (yes, there’s more), I’m going to tell you how Lipitor can do it. I’m also going to tell you how several other drugs from big sellers to niche products can do it too. Free Marketing with Meaning advice. Stay tuned for Part 3.

(Warning…here comes some commercialism, so if you’re easily offended by that sort of stuff, you should skip this. If you read on, you don’t get to complain later.)

Since you’ve made it this far, I do have to add one more thing. This is going to be a commercial, but I think it’s also Marketing with Meaning. One of the ways we spread the word about our agency, is via this blog. You won’t see an ad for Bridge Worldwide in your latest trade journal (though we did one once a couple years ago though) or at an exhibit booth at a convention. Instead, we invest in this, Dose of Digital (among other things). The Marketing with Meaning blog is, of course, another way we market our agency. We think the information we share in these blogs is valuable and is an example of Marketing with Meaning. You’re choosing to engage with it, right? And it improves people’s lives. Not in the way Aralast’s marketing improves lives, but it makes your job as a marketer easier (we hope). That’s improving lives. There are different degrees, to be sure, but you can always achieve even a modest improvement.

With that, I’d like to tell you about something we’re particularly proud of here at Bridge Worldwide. Last Friday was the official launch a book written by Bob Gilbreath, our company’s Chief Marketing Strategist (and my boss, so be nice). The book is called “The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning.” While Bob was the author, we’re all really proud of the book and we have made it the cornerstone of what we do here at Bridge Worldwide. If you have read Bob’s blog or find what you’re reading here pretty intriguing, I encourage you to go get a copy of the book. Not only is it full of great examples, like the ones in this post, but unlike other business books, it tells you exactly how to bring Marketing with Meaning to your company. Step-by-step, internal and external.

Intrigued? How about a sneak preview? You can download chapter two of the book here. It’s a good place to start because it’s the first chapter that really sets up the concept of Marketing with Meaning and also gives some great examples.

One more offer…

Use Twitter? Then I have a request/offer. However, only do it if you’re buying into the Marketing with Meaning concept or read the chapter and liked it. I want you to tweet this only if you really think people should get book. It’s not supposed to be spam.

Okay, here’s the offer: I’ll send EVERYONE that tweets the following message an awesome Marketing with Meaning sticker (or 10…whatever…just share with your friends). There are going to be as cool as the Apple sticker someday, so get in on the ground floor. It’s not a massive token of appreciation, but if you’re a believer in the cause, you’ll want one.

Okay, here it is (please copy and tweet it EXACTLY like this or I won’t know you did it.):

Download a free chapter from the new book, “The Next Evolution of Marketing” Please RT http://bit.ly/twitter_bww

I’ll DM you and to get your mailing address after your tweet goes live.

Of course, if you’ve seen enough and are ready to buy some copies of the book, here’s the link to the book on Amazon. If you buy the book, I’ll send you stickers too. I could require you show me the receipt, but I’d rather it be on the honor system. Just use the contact page to let me know you bought a copy and where I can send the sticker (or stickers if you are going to share them with friends).

Okay, thanks for listening to my little commercial and for supporting the cause. Hopefully, you see how it’s Marketing with Meaning as well. If you’re interested in talking with others who are getting behind the cause, you can join the community. We’re just getting started.

Possibly related posts (auto-generated):

1. How Marketing with Meaning Can Save Pharma — Part 3
2. How Marketing with Meaning Can Save Pharma — Part 1
3. Pharma Marketing with Meaning Pecha Kucha