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How Marketing with Meaning Can Save Pharma — Part 2

[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.

Nike+ Running

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.

Aralast Test Kits

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.

Marketing with Meaning Sticker

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.

How Marketing with Meaning Can Save Pharma — Part 1

You know that I love hyperbole-sounding titles for my posts and today’s certainly appears to be no exception. But it is an exception. This isn’t an exaggeration.

There’s no question that pharma is in trouble. There seems to be a scandal a minute (whether real or created). Billion dollar fines seem to be the norm instead of billion dollar products. Sales growth has stalled for many and workforce cuts seem to come everyday.

That’s all pretty bad, but it doesn’t even capture the number one problem and it won’t come as a surprise to anyone: public opinion of pharma is terrible. Not just bad, terrible.

As a regular user of Twitter, I use Tweetdeck and one of my columns shows every tweet with the word “pharma” in it. Today, I noticed this tweet:

pharmatweet

I thought it was maybe just one anti-pharma zealot. Then I saw it again. And again. And again. In fact, after searching, I realized there were hundreds of this exact same tweet (see for yourself). Hundreds of tweets all with the same message: a pharma conspiracy. Pharma conspiracy theories aren’t new, but this one stood out for me.

For those not familiar with the story, Natalie Morton was a 14 year-old in the UK who received a government-mandated injection of the cervical cancer vaccine and died hours after receiving it. In the UK, it’s mandatory for all teenage girls to receive the vaccination. For good reason too, it prevents a leading form of cancer, cervical cancer. A vaccine to prevent cancer. Imagine that. Back when Nixon declared a “War on Cancer” in 1971, how thrilled would be to know we had a vaccine to prevent one form of cancer? Instead today, it’s not seen that way at all. It’s just another pharma conspiracy to get more profits.

Back to Natalie’s sad story. Immediately after Natalie’s death, several news organizations jumped on the story. Here’s what Huffington Post ran. It appeared to every anti-pharma person that they’d finally been vindicated. Here was big pharma’s vaccine killing a perfectly healthy girl. Of course, none of them mentioned that 1.8 million girls had already received the vaccine without a single death similar to Natalie’s reported. Of course, the anti-pharma outrage should have stopped today, when an autopsy was performed and found that Natalie died from complications of an undiagnosed tumor. The medical examiner reported the following: “The heart was heavily infiltrated by a tumor which extended to the left lung. It was so severe death could have arisen at any time. The role of the immunization appeared to be minimal.”

End of story, right? Wrong. That’s when the tweets started. Rather than concede that the vaccination didn’t cause this girl’s death, she was used to infuse a little emotion into the anti-pharma zealots’ rhetoric. Yes, it’s really easy to fake a massive chest tumor during an autopsy.

Why is it like this?

Instead of praising pharma companies for potentially eliminating the approximately 11,000 incidences of cervical cancer each year and preventing about 4,000 deaths in the United States alone, “big pharma” gets beaten up. Why?

No doubt there are countless reasons, some of which the industry has brought upon itself with some questionable marketing tactics and scandals followed by massive government fines. But this isn’t the only reason. People are very passionate about the cost of the medications (but not very passionate about the costs of the other aspects of their helathcare). Since most people don’t know what an MRI costs and many don’t pay for a dime of the cost of one, they don’t get upset when their insurance company gets the bill. But when you pick up your prescription at CVS and have to shell out your cash, it’s a different story. That makes people mad.

Clearly, I’m not going to be the one to solve that problem. I’m not going to tell you I know how to completely fix all the PR issues pharma has. But I think we can make a dent.

So, let’s look at three major pharma problems:

  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

Question: Can Marketing with Meaning improve all three of these?

Answer: Not overnight, but yes, it can.

Question: Does pharma really need this now with all of its other challenges to worry about like patent issues, healthcare reform, and increased government scrutiny?

Answer: Because of these challenges, there’s no better time.

Interested?

In part 2 of this post, I’ll tell you all about how Marketing with Meaning can do all this. In the meantime, you should read up on what Marketing with Meaning is all about. You can also register yourself for the upcoming E-Patient Connections conference where I’ll be presenting this concept (in 6 minutes and 40 seconds). If you do register, use promo code jr500 to get $500 off. Finally, a perk from this blog.

How Pharma Can Cut Out the “Middleman” (aka “The Doctor”)

At some point along the way, I think I swore some oath that I’d use my knowledge for good and not for evil. And yet, I find myself writing posts about (among other things) How to Avoid FDA Regulations Using Mobile Marketing. Granted, I did mention in that post that “I’m not advocating intentionally avoiding FDA regulations,” but I suppose I gave a little help to those who might want to do such a thing (for the record, you rule breakers will love my post about What If There Were No Rules in Pharma Marketing?).

So today I’m here telling you how pharma can cut out the doctor all together. I’m not talking about DTC advertising, I’m talking about a world where pharma makes it unnecessary to go to a doctor’s office as part of the transaction of obtaining a prescription drug. Of course, today you need a doctor to write a prescription for many products. The patient then has to take it to his or her pharmacy to get the medication. That’s quite a hassle. Why not cut out having to go to the doctor? Sure, many Canadian “pharmacies” have made quite a living on this premise using their on-staff “physicians” to do a phone consultation with patients before writing a prescription; a prescription that I’m going to guess is only valid at the pharmacy they work at for many reasons. Naturally, I’m not recommending this approach.

I know that many of you are pretty upset at this idea right now, but bear with me for a moment. You’ll either be much more mad in a moment or intrigued.

Where did I come up with this hair-brained idea in the first place? As a routine, I try to stay on top of new developments in healthcare, especially new uses of digital technologies. A while back, someone called my attention to a company called American Well. I love the concept and what the company is about, but I never really thought of an angle for pharma marketing. Until now…

American Well

American Well’s simple tagline is: “The doctor will see you now.” That about says it all. What American Well does is provide a system that allows patients to talk via live chat, including video, with a physician any time of the day or night. Physicians are recruited by American Well and offered payment to be “on-call” during what might ordinarily  may be an off day. When you log into American Well’s system, you have some choices regarding which physician you’re matched up with. It’s not going to be your regular physician, but it’s going to be quality doctor who is willing to see you right now. They can’t do everything and they likely don’t have your full medical history, so think of it like a walk in clinic. Obviously, you can’t have them stitch up a cut or set a broken arm via the Internet, but for routine care, this is perfect. It could potentially save a trip to the emergency room for many and would be a godsend in the middle of the night for some tired parents.

American Well Interface

For a moment, think about the economics of this for a health insurance plan. Compare what they save on walk in clinic costs and emergency room visits opposite what they pay for American Well’s services. Since health insurance companies are pretty interested in these economic aspects of care, they’re on top of this. If you’re a member of Blue Cross/Blue Shield in either Hawaii or Minnesota, then you’re in luck. Access to American Well’s service is part of your standard coverage. How nice is that? For the rest of us, we’ll have to wait to use American Well. It’s got to be a no-brainer that many other plans will be offering this soon.

But I don’t want to wait and neither should you. However, I don’t have the resources to launch this service for me and all of my readers. Hmmm, I wonder who might though?

Ah yes, pharma companies. Picture this. You log onto, say, the Singulair product website looking for information about seasonal allergies and you’re trying to figure out if this drug is right for you.  After a little research, you decide that you’re going to ask your doctor about it. Now, your allergies are pretty bad, but they’re not killing you, so you try to set up an appointment with your doctor. Two weeks out is the soonest they have available for your non-emergency. Over the two weeks, do you forget about Singulair? Do you even keep your appointment (especially if your allergies got a little better or your schedule forced you to cancel a few times)? Well, if you forget about Singulair or don’t show up for your appointment, Merck is out of a new prescription.

On the other hand, if Merck had licensed American Well’s platform on the Singulair site, then you simply could have clicked a button and spoke with a doctor that second. The doctor would have examined you (as best as possible via webcam), did a thorough history, and asked a few other questions before deciding which allergy medication was right for you. Yes, this doctor won’t know everything about you and they couldn’t do a full hands on physical, but you’re not experiencing chest pains either. The patient, of course, could ask if Singulair is a good option. This physician isn’t a Merck employee and isn’t paid by Merck, so she could pick whatever she thought was appropriate…just like if you went to the office. Managing this kind of condition might be a perfect case where the American Well model works really well. Merck had to pay for the service, but will more than make a return with this new patient now starting treatment.

In the traditional sense, this would be going around the patient’s doctor, but it’s not cutting the doctor out of the equation like a sketchy Canadian “pharmacy.” A qualified, licensed physician made a diagnosis and prescribed a treatment just as he or she does in their “real world” practice. How much different is this than someone going to the Take Care Clinics at Walgreens or similar concepts in many other chains including Walmart? What about stand along “quick care” or walk in clinics? Not much as I see it. In the case of the clinic at Walgreens, you’ll be seeing a PA or NPA in person. In the online version you see an MD (or DO perhaps) via webcam.

Since the physicians on the other end of the service are ordinary doctors looking to supplement their income a bit, they still get the same promotional attention from pharma companies as any other physician in the country. You aren’t likely to find doctors who will only write prescriptions for the company that is sponsoring the use of the service. Even if you could, I doubt that American Well would stand for that and I doubt that any pharma company’s legal team would allow it either. So, what’s wrong with a pharma company providing patients live access to a physician 24/7? Isn’t this an incredibly valuable service to the community? We’re talking an awful lot about healthcare reform right now and about how some people can’t afford to go to the doctor. Well, here’s a pharma company bringing the doctor to you…for FREE.

Am I missing something? Is there any possible way to cast this in a negative light? Perhaps some doctors who aren’t interested in being a part of the American Well program will be a bit upset, as they might lose some patient visits and they’ll claim (probably correctly) that it isn’t the same level of care that they could provide. Fair enough, but is the upside worth the downside? As a pharma company, you can break it down by cold, hard math. Is the value of the increased prescriptions more than the cost of the American Well system plus the loss in prescriptions from doctors who hold a bit of a grudge against the company? Simple math really. Requires some estimation, but not many factors to consider.

So, is this a potentially an amazing example of Marketing with Meaning or a horrible idea that hurts patients and physicians (and “the system”)?

Just to be clear, before you leave angry comments, I’m not suggesting that pharma companies try to cut off the relationship between patients and their doctors. Nor am I suggesting that this be a replacement for an ongoing relationship with a physician who can manage your health over time. Having said that, there are going to be more technologies available that make it easy for people to get the products and services they want using the methods they want. Healthcare is no exception. So, while this might not be the answer or a feasible marketing tactic for pharma, did you know it even existed? If not, what else is out there that you should know about?

What Pharma Can Learn from the Pizza Guy

Dose of Digital Mini White Paper

I just couldn’t resist this post title after the response I had to my post (both positive and negative) called: What Pharma Can Learn from Pringles. Without going into too much detail, the takeaway message was supposed to be simple. Pharma and healthcare can learn a lot about the approaches other industries take in their marketing. Yes, pharma in particular is heavily regulated and limited in what they can do or say, but too often the best practices of other industries are ignored instead of us figuring out how to apply what worked well elsewhere to what we’re doing in pharma. It’s a big missed opportunity that I’ve been working on fixing for a long time.

So, in keeping with this theme, I wanted to share a concept that we call “The Selfish Consumer.” It was created by our Chief Technology Officer, Michael Wilson, here at Bridge Worldwide. Here’s the basic idea:

“TiVo, iPod, and blogging have something more in common than the right technology at the right time. They provide the same old media in new and interesting ways. This not only changes consumer behavior, but forever shifts consumer attitude. Greedy for content and equipped with almost magical abilities to control media delivery, we have armed a very intelligent consumer.”

View Michael’s presentation on “The Selfish Consumer” here:

The Selfish Consumer

We’re not saying that your consumers are “selfish” in a bad way, but that digital technologies simply make it easy for them to be when it comes to digital content. As marketers, we need to accept this as the new reality. But what does it mean for us? There are actually three implications, which are all closely related:

  • Quality: We need to ensure that we’re creating great content and giving access to it in ways “The Selfish Consumer” demands
  • Competition: Everything online is potentially a competitor when we understand that we’re all competing for the same consumers’ time and attention
  • Expectation: What “The Selfish Consumer” gets from one industry when it comes to digital, he expects from every other

I’ve done a couple of presentations and blog posts about the first two: quality and competition. The most recent was my presentation “If You Build It, They Will Come…Or Will They?“, which addresses “Competition,” you can find on SlideShare. So, today, I’m going to address “Expectation.”

“Expectation” is a pretty simple concept. If a customer is used to getting a certain service from one company, he expects it from all that company’s competitors. This is why new innovations and special offers get duplicated so quickly and so readily. This happens within industries and it’s very common. However, it’s rare that a special offer from one industry gets carried over to another. Just because Subway is offering buy one, get one free sandwiches doesn’t mean the Hilton down the street is offering buy one, get one free rooms. When it comes to digital technologies, it’s a whole different story.

If one industry offers a certain digital technology, then “The Selfish Consumer” expects every industry to offer it. This concept (and example) was first explained to me by my colleague Bob Gilbreath, Chief Marketing Strategist here at Bridge Worldwide. What Bob pointed out is that if people now can track their package online thanks to FedEx and UPS, they expect this same thing in other industries including those industries that have nothing to do with packages. So, here’s what “The Selfish Consumer” says: “If I can track my package online, then I should be able to track my pizza online too.” And, thanks to Domino’s, now you can.

Dominos Pizza Tracker

Yikes. If you’re bringing something to “The Selfish Consumer,” there had better be a way for them to track it. That’s now the standard…the expectation. What does this all mean for pharma? It means that pharma needs to look at what digital technologies and tools its consumers are getting from other industries. Once you know what they are, take a look and see which might translate well to pharma. Need a hand?

Nike+

If I can track my exercise progress thanks to my shoe company, I should be able to do the same with my healthcare company. Of course, you can. There are quite a few trackers out there, so this is a perfect example of one industry’s lead moving over to pharma. No, Nike+ didn’t create the first health tracker, but neither did a pharma company (bonus points for anyone who knows who did). Nike+ is a health tracker in the end, so that’s not a big leap. But what’s next? Here are a few common digital tools and technologies that consumers get from other industries and might start demanding from pharma:

  • Product reviews — I’ve already talked about product reviews a lot (with more to come later this week). Consumers get them everywhere online now and use them to make purchase decisions on everything from very low to very high involvement items.
  • Online customer service –I wrote about this a while back in a post called “Providing Meaningful Customer Service in Healthcare.” According to a recent Manhattan Research study, “More than three-quarters of ePharma Consumers report that they “expect” online customer service from a pharmaceutical company.” EPharma Consumers are “those who use the Internet to research prescription drug information. In past five years alone this group has tripled to about 95 million U.S. adults.” Why? Because they get online customer service from every company they interact with online from shoes to books to vacations. Everything you can buy or think about buying has some form of online customer service. Why not pharma?
  • Privacy — Nothing is more private than someone’s health. Yet, we pharma marketers ask people to tell us an awful lot about themselves before we give them something of value. More and more other marketers are moving away from this and allowing people to register with limited or no information. They use technologies like OpenID, so that visitors don’t have to register (and give out more personal information) for yet another site in order to get access to a website. That means you don’t even have to share an email address to get access. Most marketers are also very careful with the information they capture online. For instance, if you’re not going to use someone’s home mailing address for a certain promotion, then you really shouldn’t be asking for it for two reasons. Number one, asking for less increases the chance that someone will complete the enrollment process. And number two, it’s none of your business. Yes, you might say that you’re going to use it later for something different. Well, that person didn’t register for “something different,” they registered for one particular thing. They gave you their information only for that purpose (PS: using fancy opt in choices with pre-checked boxes or double-negative language doesn’t really entitle you to use information later).
  • Aggregation and deferment – Two related ideas here. First, there are many sites out there that simply pull together all the content related to a specific topic and put it one place for you to review at your leisure. They are called aggregators (see: Netvibes or Pageflakes for an example). Pharma companies might just find that using aggregators is the simplest way to create a disease awareness portal that works the way “The Selfish Consumer” expects. The folks at S&R Communications Group just had a great post on this very topic. Today’s consumers can set up an iGoogle page with everything they want, why not every new piece of information about their disease on one page? Aggregators would pull content from the best sources, the leading experts, bringing together the best of the best information instead of relying on a single source (i.e., you).  Deferment is related to aggregation because it too involves turning to outside experts in the areas where you are not the expert. In the case of a pharma company, you might be the expert in high cholesterol since you make one (or more) products to treat this condition. A key part of the treatment for high cholesterol is diet and exercise management. However, a pharma company is not an expert in diet or exercise. There are plenty of people who are though and whose names and experience are far more credible than yours in this area. For example, perhaps you turn to the people from Weight Watchers for the diet portion of your content. They are recognized as experts in this area. This works for two reasons. First, it frees you up to focus on what you know best: high cholesterol. Second, it also tells your consumers that you have their best interest in mind. You’re not trying to do everything yourself, you know when someone might know more than you. You are essentially providing your consumers with referrals to other experts. This is the “Enlist” part of my four tenets for best in class digital strategy in healthcare.

While it may seem really challenging and a ton of extra work to connect with today’s “Selfish Consumer,” it’s worth the effort. First, and most basic, this is what your customers are demanding. If you remotely subscribe to the notion that “the customer is always right,” then you should get on board with this as well. Second, the most “selfish” of consumers aren’t selfish at all. In fact, they share…a lot. They share things they like and things they don’t. So, if you do your job with them, they’ll help spread the word for you about your product and company. If you don’t do your job, then they’ll still spread the word, but you won’t like what they have to say.

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