ePharma, the "Ron Paul" of Pharma Marketing - We Are the 1%

ePharma, the "Ron Paul" of Pharma Marketing - We Are the 1%

At yesterday's ePharma Summit conference session on "Jumpstarting Digital Capabilities in Pharma: Learning from Other Industries," the presenter, Pete Mehr, Chief Healthcare Strategy Officer at Merkle, Inc., asked the audience "If you agree with the general thrust of this conference, how come it hasn't happened?"

By "general thrust" he meant that pharma must get more involved in eMarketing and catch up with the rest of the world. "The tools are there. So how come the change is so hard?"

Unfortunately for Mehr, he was standing right in front of me when he asked that question, so I just had to respond.

"We are the one percent," I said.

Of course, that was meant partly as a joke and I knew it would not lead the discussion where Mehr wanted it to go. So, I did not get a chance to explain what I meant.

What did I mean? It relates to what I often think while attending these conferences; namely, we are preaching to the choir and that choir is a small minority within the pharma marketing biosphere. But in the bizarro world of pharma marketing, that choir is not the "richest" as it is in the real world, but the poorest.

eMarketing is only a small percentage of the pharma marketing spend and it always has been and it may always be. It's the "Ron Paul" of candidates seeking marketing dollars. It's nice for Republicans to have Ron Paul and his creative ideas, but the big wigs would not like to see him rise beyond single digits. Same with pharma marketing's "Ron Paul" -- eMarketing.

Although there was one pharma marketing big wig at the conference -- Charlotte McKines, Global VP, Marketing Communications and Channel Strategies, Merck & Co. -- she was the exception that proved the rule.

I don't know if the ePharma Summit audience understood what I was getting at, so I decided to write this post. Tell me what you think.

FDA's Abrams Spends 4 Minutes Discussing Social Media Guidance at ePharma Summit!

FDA's Abrams Spends 4 Minutes Discussing Social Media Guidance at ePharma Summit!

This just in: FDA Won't Issue Specific Guidance for Youtube, Facebook, or Twitter. Claims These Media Are Just Passing Fads! Now Back to Your Regularly-Scheduled TV Ad.

Tom Abrams, the Head of FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC), apparently believes Twitter and YouTube are passing fads.

During his presentation at the just-concluded ePharma Summit in NYC, Abrams said FDA would NOT "do guidance on specific technology platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. Those things are really big now, but you know what, two years from now who knows what the next thing [will be]?" Abrams also pooh-poohed Groupon

Meanwhile, both Google and Facebook (valued at $50 billion) are courting Twitter, which so far has rebuffed their offers to purchase the company. According the the WSJ, people familiar with the matter say potential suitors put an estimated valuation of Twitter "in the neighborhood of $8 billion to $10 billion."

Abrams devoted exactly 4 MINUTES of his 45-minute presentation to "Social media in prescription drug promotion"!!! In contrast, Abrams spent about 7 minutes on TV drug promotion regulation.

Abrams then threw the ePharma Summit audience a bone by spending several minutes analyzing one specific internet-based drug promotion: the Derma-Smoothe website. Using several colorful screen shots, Abrams drove home the point that NONE of the violations -- Omission and minimization of risks, Overstatement of efficacy, Unsubstantiated superiority claims, Broadening of the indication -- had anything to do with the Internet. It was all about the message, not the medium.

Unfortunately, the Derma-Smoothe site that Abrams used as an example was nothing more than a printed brochure repurposed as a web site.

We are being conditioned by the FDA and other regulatory experts not to expect much guidance regarding specific Internet technologies such as Twitter. "It is unlikely," said Paul Savidge, General Counsel at BMS, "that the FDA will move away from the regulations that apply currently to print and broadcast media. If the expectation is that the FDA is going to somehow carve out electronic media or social media, that's probably unlikely." Instead, Savidge suggested the guidance will merely reiterate the basic rules that apply to other media.

I asked point-blank why the "media-agnostic" approach is expected for Internet guidance, when the FDA "carved out" TV -- actually "television, radio, or telephone communications" -- as a special case in 1999 when it released specific guidance on how to adequately inform consumers where to get complete prescribing information. The FDA recognized that it was impractical to include the complete prescribing information in a 60-second TV ad. The guidelines said providing a web site, 800 number, or magazine ad within the ad would be sufficient.

My question was why wouldn't the FDA also publish SPECIFIC guidelines for social media SUCH as Twitter where space is also limited?

What followed was a complicated discussion about why TV deserves special guidance whereas the Internet does not. One regulatory expert said that TV ads are "limited by time and space" (ie, the 60-second ad), whereas the Internet is NOT. "It seems," this person said, "that there is limitless amounts of information that you can put on the Web."

Nowhere in that discussion did the experts mention Twitter or Google Adwords, which cannot include "limitless amounts of information."

P.S. Meanwhile, in a white paper released today (find it here), AstraZeneca said: "The FDA should recognize that social media is a new communication channel that both distinguishes and can appear to intermix the dissemination of information and advertising in the digital space." That doesn't sound media-agnostic to me!

11.5 Things I'd Like to Learn at ePharma Summit

11.5 Things I'd Like to Learn at ePharma Summit

Next week I'm investing a lot of money to travel to NYC and stay at a fancy hotel to augment my HiltonHonors points in order to attend the 10th Annual ePharma Summit. Sorry, but it looks like it's all sold out, which may be thanks to me being paid to promote the conference (Pharma Marketing News is a Media Partner for the event).

I'll be seeing a lot of friends like DJ Edgerton (@wiltonbound) of Pixels & Pills, who promises to have a birthday surprise for me at the Monday night Pixels & Pills ePharma Summit Tweetup & Phone Drive.

But I have learned that to get the most from conferences like these, you must set goals. So, without further ado, here are my goals, or things I'd like to learn:

(1) Will Thomas Abrams, Head of FDA's DDMAC, actually have something new to say? Hello! We all just want to know about those social media guidelines. Where are they? When are they? What are they? On the ePharma Summit blog, Marc Dresner likens the FDA to a plumber who doesn't know how to unclog pharma's social media pipes! (see "Where’s A Good Plumber When You Need One?")

(2) Are patient advocates really consumer opinion leaders and what do they really want from partnering with pharma marketers? Will they help or hurt pharma's image? Is it like partnering with the devil? What part of their "souls" will they have to give up? For more on the issue of online patient opinion leaders, see "Pharma Collaboration with Online Patient Opinion Leaders" (pdf).

(3) Kevin Nalty, you magnificent basterd, I read your book on the iPad ("Beyond Viral: How to Attract Customers, Promote Your Brand, and Make Money with Online Video (New Rules Social Media Series)" Whew!). Actually, I downloaded it on my Kindle, but haven't read it yet. I hope Nalty is giving away free, signed hardcopy editions. I probably won't read that either. I have run into Nalty at many of these conferences, but never heard him speak. I wonder if he's any good? I think I will bring my Flip video camera and make money online showing a video of me interviewing him. Maybe we'll pull some famous Nalty pranks in the audience while he speaks? BTW, I made Nalty famous when I exposed him as ADHD Boy! (see "Nalts Talks About His Days at J&J, His ADHD, and His Merck Performance Review").

(4) Does Pfizer really have anything to add to my knowledge? David Ryan, Senior Director, Multi Channel Planning, Pfizer, Inc. will give a keynote titled "Achieve Personalized Professional Marketing at Scale." I have no idea what the hell that means, but I think it means "you know, there's more out there than just social media, which we stink at. But we are great doing the other 'multi' stuff and that's what I will talk about." Anyway, I am willing to learn about multi-channel planning.

(5) Why is Wired Magazine giving a keynote titled "The Future of Health is in the Hands of the Consumer"? Is that magazine still published? I guess I'll find out.

(6) I want to learn more about "Pharma's Headline Catchers" and what that has to do with "ROI Drivers Online" from Comscore. Will it feature the kinds of headlines I caught in the 2010 Pharma Marketing Yearbook?

(7) I am all excited about "The 2010 MM&M Awards," which James Chase will present at the conference. Who are the winners? It's a closely guarded secret! I hope they allow live tweets while James does his thing. I don't much care for these kinds of awards but I do love the parties (see "MM&M Award Winners Announced at Gala NY Event!").

(8) I'm looking forward to hearing Lucy Rose lead a discussion about "Addressing Internal Regulatory and Legal Concerns and Challenges." She is dynamic and knows her stuff and will keep the audience awake during what would otherwise be a dull session.

(9) Social Media: "Wish I'd Done That!" This is one session I won't miss, although I think it should have been called "Wish I didn't do that" -- I notice, for example, that sanofi-aventis isn't on the panel (see "Disgruntled Patient Shuts Down sanofi-aventis Facebook Page"). Novo Nordisk's Craig DeLarge, however, will be there. I hope to ask him if other pharma companies wish THEY were first to post a branded tweet (see "Novo Nordisk's Branded (Levemir) Tweet is Sleazy Twitter Spam!").

(10) What's Tried, Trusted True, and New in search engine marketing? Google's Maryann Belliveau will tell us. No, she's not That Girl from Google who advised everyone to use the "one-click rule."

(11) Is this REALLY "The Year of Mobile"? No matter how many presentations I hear about mobile technology in healthcare -- and I've been to many starting about 6 years ago -- it's always "the year of mobile" for someone, somewhere. I'm just not sure it's pharma's year.

(11.5) I also hope to learn if there's an underground, secret passageway between the Hilton, where I'm staying, and the Sheraton, where the conference is, because I hear it's going to snow again next Tuesday!