This blog is all about the latest technology advances that are going to improve our health and lengthen our lives. It's not the blockbuster drug advances, but digital technology that will lead the health revolution. I'm your author, Jonathan Richman.
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A few months ago, I innocently agreed to speak at the E-Patient Connections 2009 Conference. I say “innocently” because I didn’t know what I was getting into. It turns out that I somehow agreed to do a Pecha Kucha presentation. How hard could that be? Well, it was one of the most difficult presentations I’ve ever had to prepare. This is despite the fact that a Pecha Kucha presentation is only 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Minor detail though, you get only 20 slides and each slide is on screen for 20 seconds. After that, it advances automatically. No mercy. You don’t get to control it. If you want to see more about this format and see some great examples, check out the website dedicated to Pecha Kucha.
My topic was Marketing with Meaning as it applies to pharma, which I’ve talked about here before in a three part post (1,2, 3). After much preparation, I felt I was finally ready. I was the last to go and, because it would have been too easy otherwise, there was a major glitch with my slides. Instead of seeing the slides I supplied them and checked the day before, I saw “slightly” edited slides that had all the titles cut off or otherwise misformatted. Sometimes this resulted in nonsensical statements and, at other times, the results were quite amusing. Either way, I had to improv my way through not just this difficult format, but also the additional challenge of a little mystery every time a new slide appeared.
If you want a copy of the ACTUAL slides, as they were supposed to appear, you can download them here. You’ll see the titles and, therefore, slides make a lot more sense this way. This also includes my speaker notes as well..
In the end, it worked out fine and I was told my presentation was even better because I had to fight through the slide format issue. Of course, I think I should be insulted by this because no one saw my presentation the “right” way so they couldn’t actually make this comparison. But, hey, I’ll take it.
You can dig through the Twitter hashtag feed for the conference to see everything discussed and you can find the feedback that I received as well (I’m afraid to look). The hashtag was #epatcon and I’m @jonmrich.
[Quick disclaimer: I'm using "compliance" and "adherence" a bit interchangeably in this post. I know they're different, but I'm going to spare a big debate. Just go with it. Thanks.]
I’ve been involved in a few discussions lately about how pharma can improve compliance to their medications. Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve had these discussions and, likely, it won’t be the last. Part of my last job at AstraZeneca was managing our compliance program for their breast cancer products. If you’re in pharma, you know that this debate has been going on for years. Within the last five years or so, interest has really picked up in this area likely because someone really started crunching the numbers. As pharma sales growth has slowed, they’ve needed to look at different ways to sell more of their products. A seemingly obvious place to start is compliance. If you do some quick math, you figure out that if you can get people to stay on treatment, you can put hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to the company bottom line. Seems simple enough…
Somewhere around a third to a half (or more) of patients don’t take their medications as prescribed. If you want to see a ton of stats about this covering a bunch of different diseases, check out the ultimate in compliance resources, AlignMap. Oh, and by the way, maybe you’re thinking that those patients who are non-compliant are those with less serious diseases. You’re wrong. From AlignMap citing multiple sources…
Approximately half of the patients who chose to undergo the pain, risk, and emotional trauma of a kidney transplant do not adequately follow their medication regimen prescribed to prevent rejection, and 25% regularly miss doses of prescribed medications.
In one study, 58% of patients with glaucoma who were told that failure to use their medication would result in blindness were noncompliant; 42% of patients who had already lost sight in one eye after they failed to comply with their medications persisted in their noncompliance.
Another study estimated that half of those surveyed had missed doses in the two weeks prior to the survey, although they believed the medication to be effective and potentially life-saving.
That’s a problem.
It’s a problem we’ve tried to fix for a long, long time. And, we’ve tried a lot. Here’s a list of the most common compliance interventions out there (again, credit to AlignMap, take the hint and check it out):
One on one counseling
Educational videos, brochures, and tapes
Court mandated and monitored treatment
Promotions of self-reliance and self-efficacy
Improved patient-clinician communications
Directly observed therapy
Mechanical or electronic reminders
Adherence programs provided by a pharmaceutical manufacturer
Automated or personal phone calls or email
Disease management programs
Celebrity endorsements
Public Service Announcements
Simplification or alteration of regimes
Assistance to increase accessibility
So, how many of these have you tried at your company? How many have made a big impact? The reality is that very few interventions make a significant difference in compliance rates. We haven’t figured out the magic bullet. If we had, we wouldn’t still be having this conversation. For my part, I believe the reason we haven’t made an impact is because we test and use one intervention at a time. That is, you create a text message reminder program to improve compliance. But what if I don’t use text messages? What we need to offer is a wide choice of different compliance programs with each individual enrolled in the programs that are going to impact them. Of course, this might not be completely practical, as it would require you to create twenty (or more) different compliance programs (see the above list) so that each person had enough choice. That could get pricey. Sorry to say, but likely that’s what’s going to be the thing that significantly impacts compliance when the first company decides to take the plunge and create a comprehensive platform like this.
In the meantime, let’s look at something different. Let’s try something not on the list…something that hasn’t been done before. It’s called fun.
Etymology: English dial. fun to hoax, perhaps alteration of Middle English fonnen, from fonne dupe
1 : what provides amusement or enjoyment; specifically : playful often boisterous action or speech <full of fun>
Okay, glad I could remind you. Fun. You like fun, right? Not much from that list above appears to be fun. So, what does fun have to do with drug compliance?
Maybe everything.
Watch what fun can do…
Now, if the pharma industry (myself included perhaps) was asked to increase the number of people who chose the stairs, we’d probably do it a little differently. Likely, we’d put up some signs that show the benefits of exercise on cardiovascular disease (and you know we’d use the word “cardiovascular” a lot). We’d also probably tell you about the risk of not getting enough exercise. Maybe we’d even get a celebrity that we could put on the signs (or make cutouts)…I’m thinking one of those trainers from “The Biggest Loser” would be great. And, we’d probably put in some sort of flashing light to call attention to the people who decided not to take the stairs.
Ho hum. All of those things have one thing in common…they aren’t very fun.
I was recently at a great meeting (in Iceland) where I met people from many different industries. One of the people I spent a lot of time with was Toby Barnes who is Managing Director for a company called Mudlark. This company does a lot, but in the end, they’re a company that makes games. Toby has incredible passion about gaming, but he’s not the guy who sits in front of the XBOX all day. He simply believes in the power of games to change behavior. Toby really just wants to create fun. One of the many things he told me that stuck with me was really simple. I’m going to paraphrase, but the gist was this: humans learn by playing. From the moment we’re born, through our most important developmental years, we learn by playing. The roles we play in life, how things work, what’s good and bad behavior, and how to communicate with others…all from playing. Somewhere along the way though, we stop playing and stop learning.
So, what is playing? Well, first, playing is supposed to be fun. Without that, the rest doesn’t matter much since no one will play with something that isn’t fun.
Let’s go back to the Volkswagon video. They created something fun, something people played with. People saw that taking the stairs could not only be fun, but also that it wouldn’t kill them to do so from time to time. We all know that we should take the stairs more often. It’s a simple way to improve our health that’s available to almost everyone no matter where they are. But, just like our medications, we don’t do what we’re supposed to do. By simply changing the way we encourage people to change their behavior, we can create something different, something that might just work.
Digital technology makes it really simple to create fun and engaging games–games that can teach us to change our behavior while we’re doing something we enjoy. When I mentioned earlier that I had an idea that wasn’t on the list above and hadn’t been tried before, I wasn’t being totally honest. You see, someone has taken this approach in healthcare…and it worked. I actually wrote about this a long time ago in a post called Gaming To Save Healthcare Marketing.
The greatest example of fun leading to a behavior change in healthcare is Re-Mission. This game was created to help kids fighting various cancers. It’s essentially a first-person shooter-type game, but you’re battling the disease.
Well, isn’t that nice. They created a game for kids fighting cancer to help them pass the time during treatment. Right? No. This game was designed to improve outcomes. In fact, the company behind this game, Hope Lab, conducted a randomized trial to test the game’s effectiveness. Half played Re-Mission and half another video game. The results were published in the journal Pediatrics. Here are some high points:
“Self-efficacy and knowledge were significantly improved in the intervention group compared with the control group.”
“Adherence to at-home medication (trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and 6 mercaptopuring) was significantly improved in the intervention group compared with the control group.”
Yes, you read that right: “Adherence to at-home medication was significantly improved.” How did Re-Mission manage to do this? The game is fun and, if we follow Toby’s logic, we learn by playing. That’s just what happened here. These kids learned about their disease and its treatment by playing. Not only that, they learned by playing something they enjoyed.
Perhaps this is the real key to improving compliance. It’s not about creating fear-laced predictions. Not about creating nagging reminders. Not about creating tedious tracking tools. And not about spying on people. These are the things we do in most of our compliance programs today. They aren’t working like we need them to, so isn’t it time to find something different?
PS: There are a couple more experiments beyond the stairs that Volkswagon tried. All with the idea of fun, check out what else they managed to do:
This is part three in the series, so you should probably read part one and two if you haven’t yet.
We’ve now established what the concept of Marketing with Meaning is and how it might relate to pharma. I gave the example of Baxter’s marketing for Aralast as a perfect demonstration of how it can work. I’ve also offered you a few other examples from healthcare and other industries, which can be found on the Marketing with Meaning blog and in the free download of chapter two of the book.
Some people have told me that sometimes I oversimplify concepts like these. That is, they interpret my posts sounding as if I’m saying, “But, this is so simple…why in the world are you standing around doing nothing?!?” But having worked in pharma for many years, I realize, it’s never that simple. But I like challenges like that form my readers, so to show you that this is an important concept for pharma and one that they can and should embrace right now, I’m going to give you a three of examples of what Marketing with Meaning could look like for a few big pharma brands. I’ve somewhat randomly picked these brands, but if any of you skeptics think I “cherry-picked” these, just leave me a comment and let me know for which brand you want me give an example. (PS: I’ll take up that challenge for any brand in any industry, by the way)
Two disclaimers before I get into these. First, you’ll probably look at a few of these ideas and think that no one would want to engage with a pharma company in the ways I’m suggesting. You might be right. At least, you might be right today and I probably agree with you. But, if people won’t participate in my program because they don’t trust me, is the solution to never do a program ever again? No, the answer is to do the program and show that you are trustworthy. It won’t happen instantly, but if you do it consistently over time, then it will happen. These first programs might not have huge participation, but they’ll show the world that pharma can do it differently and in a way that they can trust and find very valuable. Second, I don’t have in depth knowledge of the marketing plans for these products. So, these ideas might be off equity and probably not in line with the brands’ marketing objectives. Not much I can do about that. The concept is what’s important, not the specific tactics. In addition, these ideas will certainly be controversial and difficult to get approved, but that’s sort of the point. We’re just going for a demonstration of the concept, not a comprehensive marketing plan. So, here goes:
Gardasil/Cervarix
I mentioned in part one of this series the controversy stirred up by anti-pharma people people regarding Natalie Morton’s unfortunate death. The anti-pharma people tried to blame it on the vaccination for HPV she had gotten hours before. It turns out that a massive undiagnosed tumor is what killed her. A sad story to be sure and one for which pharma companies got unfairly clobbered. I mentioned that a lack of trust of big pharma (no surprise to most of you) is one of the things that makes situations like this impossible for pharma to defend. It’s hard to listen to anyone telling you that all is well when you don’t trust them. That was the point of this Marketing with Meaning series. I think it’s the best way for pharma to get back that trust. As I said before, it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen if we’re consistent.
These vaccines are to prevent the spread of HPV, which causes most forms of cervical cancer. HPV, of course, is usually spread by sexual contact. As you probably know, we’re a little uptight about sex here in the United States. Discussing the need for the vaccine also requires discussing sexual activity. To some degree, this is related to the debate about whether you give teens free condoms. Does it encourage or condone them having sex or is it simply an acceptance of the reality that they will have sex, so you might as well help keep them from catching and spreading sexually-transmitted diseases? I’m not here to answer that debate.
Discussing sex with your kid is pretty tough for most people. It’s uncomfortable (for everyone). Parents might not be sure how far to go and what level of detail to provide. And they likely aren’t aware how much their kid already knows. When your kid senses this, it makes the conversation even worse, so many parents struggle with this parenting challenge. In many ways, this discussion is like talking to your kids about drinking, smoking, or drugs. These can be uncomfortable as well for parents. But, parents have gotten better at these over the years thanks to some really good campaigns from government agencies, non-profits, and even manufacturers. The free download of chapter two of the book from Marketing with Meaning has a great case study about the Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA) on page 42. They’re the people who brought you the “This is your brain on drugs” ads. But, they’ve left these behind to focus instead on educating parents about how to talk to their kids about drugs. Check out what they’re providing for parents on their site.
While weighing the risks and benefits of the HPV vaccine is an important part of the decision process being able to have a frank and open discussion about sex with your kid is a key part as well. A parent might think they can put off the decision to have their child vaccinated for a few more years because they aren’t sexually active when, in fact, they are. So, here comes the Marketing with Meaning part: why not help facilitate this discussion? Do exactly what PDFA did to help parents talk to their kids about drugs, but make it about sex instead. Help parents with the difficult questions, with the details, and with knowing when you should have the talk. No one’s providing this really well on a national level and it’s a great chance for a pharma company to demonstrate some Marketing with Meaning. This isn’t selling vaccines or promoting a brand. That comes over time when parents trust you more. This is providing something meaningful to parents who are your most important customer for these vaccines. You’ll be able to talk about your product later when they’re actually listening.
Enbrel
For those who don’t know, Enbrel is a treatment for moderate or severe cases of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It’s also one of the top ten selling drugs in the world. But what would happen if the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis started to decrease? What if someone was helping people slow the progression of or delay the onset of arthritis? Check out this campaign for Tylenol. You’ve probably all seen these billboards by now. What are they doing?
These billboards appear to be showing you a way to avoid taking Tylenol. If there are fewer people with headaches, then doesn’t their demand (and then sales) go down? Of course, what Tylenol knows is that providing this advice helps people create a better connection with the brand. People view these and believe that Tylenol isn’t simply out to make a buck, they care about your health. When you’re about to pick up a pain medication in the store next time, who do you turn to? The company that you know cares about your health or some private label store brand? Of course, this doesn’t create an emotional connection with everyone, but over time it has an impact. These ads are Marketing with Meaning. Yes, they’re billboards that are somewhat inherently interuptive, but you choose whether or not to read the words. When you do, you realize that they give a tiny, but valuable piece of information that can help in the future.
So what does this all have to do with Enbrel? Let’s take the same approach as Tylenol and help prevent those with the earliest stages of RA from progressing into the more serious, latter stages. It’s just like a headache medicine helping you prevent headaches. How can Enbrel do this? Exercise is an important part of preventing the progression of arthritis. Of course, some of the most debilitating effects of RA happen on the hands. They become painful and lose flexibility over time. You can slow this with proper exercise, but how do you exercise your fingers? Well, WebMD has an entire section dedicated to this. Any other ways, just in case you find those boring? Hint: if you’re writing a comment about how there’s no way to do this, you’re doing it. Typing and moving a mouse can be a good way to get some exercise in both the hands and fingers. Not too much to the point that your hands get sore or lead to carpal tunnel syndrome or anything, but enough to get people moving their fingers around everyday. But how do you get people to type? With a game.
The onset of RA typically occurs in middle age and women are disproportionately affected. This group is also big players of “casual games.” Seriously. Here are some stats from two sources (Pew and ESA):
Average game player age: 35
26% are 50+
36% of gamers 65+ say they play EVERYDAY or almost everyday (the highest of any age group)
50% of gamers are women
These are simple, often Flash-based games that can played quickly and might have an interesting rewards system. It’s games like Bejewelled.
You could create a game that requires you to use increasing amounts of finger dexterity (up to the level you can comfortably do) in order to get through puzzles or move onto the next level. Perhaps part of the play requires you to use one hand and quickly press a few different keys in order that are spread in different keyboard positions. The faster you do it, the more impact it has on the game. It doesn’t have to be complex (but it does have to inherently be a fun game and not just an exercise tool). You would make the game open to the public and it would just carry a small Enbrel logo in the corner. If you make the game good enough, you’ll help people prevent the progression of their RA, something they’ll be incredibly grateful for…something that will dramatically build their trust in you. And, if it’s good enough, the game will get played and spread around by people that don’t have RA, but it will also increase their trust in you as well. More trust with more people is just what pharma needs.
Lipitor/Crestor/or any other statin
I already gave you the Aralast example of providing free test kits for their drug. They have to because the disease is so rare that your average health insurance plan would see it as a waste because it would cost a fortune to find a handful of people with the disease. It would be a tremendous burden on the health system with little wide-scale benefits. So, Baxter takes that on as part of their marketing budget.
If we were in the UK right now, I could simply walk into the pharmacy and pick up a statin off the shelf. Statins are an over-the-counter (OTC) product there. There’s been debate about making certain statins OTC in the US and this debate will likely continue for some time. The arguments for allowing this is that more people will get treated. Presumably, this is because there’s far fewer barriers to getting an OTC product than a prescription one. There’s no trip to the doctor, no passing a slip of paper, and waiting for you pharmacist to fill the prescription…you just walk in and take what you need. The arguments against focus on concern about people managing their own heart disease; something, they say, should be monitored by a physician. I’m not here to declare who’s right and who’s wrong.
So, if the argument for allowing this focuses on giving more people access to these drugs by making it simpler to get treatment, can’t the prescription drug companies do this too? It’s a hassle to go to your doctor and get a blood test, wait for the results, maybe go back for a follow-up to discuss treatment, get a prescription…and on and on…you get the idea. Many people get their cholesterol counts during annual check ups, but not everyone gets one. So, why not eliminate some of the barriers? Take out the first few steps of the process by supplying at-home, cholesterol testing kits to those who ask for it. You already can get them without a prescription for about $15, so this isn’t completely crazy of an idea. Before you panic, let me tell you how it would work. Test kits can be made available through different media promotions, in-pharmacy displays, etc. The person gets the kit, takes the sample and mails it back. They can choose to have the results sent to themselves or to their doctor. You also allow them to request additional information about your company or your products, but you don’t keep their information. That is, you can’t keep the test results to use later on. Sorry, too much room for abuse there.
Here’s the simple math, which I admittedly haven’t done with absolute precision: is the cost of the tests (and processing) less than the incremental sales your product would get from people who would never have found out they had high cholesterol? If the answer is “yes,” then this is a simple decision. Let’s see…a test costs $12 to manufacture and process (I’m thinking bulk discount). Let’s assume that only one in four who take the test would actually be a candidate for statin treatment (based on this). That means you have to spend $48 ($12 x 4) to find one highly qualified and motivated patient (I classify them as such because they’ve had to do a lot to get to this point unlike, say, someone who just visited your website). Perhaps only one of the four actually goes to the doctor and gets a statin. That means, you have to spend $192 ($48 x 4) to get one motivated person a statin prescription. At around $130 per month, each person needs to take their treatment for an average of 6 weeks for you to break even. Of course, you won’t get every prescription, so apply your brand’s market share here as well. This doesn’t factor in the PR benefits and free media placement you should expect as well. Not sure if the math works (I think it’s actually conservative)? You could do this as a small, localized pilot to see what the rates of response are before going national.
Like Aralast, pharma gets to play the hero because they are reducing the costs within the healthcare system by absorbing some of the testing costs themselves. They are getting treatment to people who would go onto have severe heart disease without ever knowing it. But, you say, will people trust pharma to do this? As I said before, maybe they won’t at first, but enough people will. With those people as your proof, you show the world that you are doing this with good intentions and that there isn’t anything underhanded going on. It would be a slow process, but it would work over time.
There you have it. Three examples of Marketing with Meaning for three big pharma brands. These might not be ideal programs for these products, but consider them illustrative. Imagine what the people on these brand teams can come up with as they apply their intimate knowledge of the brand. I guarantee they’d be even better. These examples weren’t meant to say that these brands should do these programs, but more to demonstrate how it’s possible even for pharma to do meaningful marketing. Some already are, but if we can do it consistently throughout the industry, we can change public perception and get back to a place where people are glad pharma companies are around to provide them with life-saving or life-enhancing medications and not as something they need to protest against.
[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.
Horrible PR and public perception from marketing tactics perceived as questionable
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)
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.
