Charlie Kimball - Novo's Branded Spokesperson - Makes Expensive TV DTC Debut

Charlie Kimball - Novo's Branded Spokesperson - Makes Expensive TV DTC Debut

Charlie Kimball, the Indy racecar driver spokesperson for Novo Nordisk's NovoLog Flexpen, which is used to treat Type 1 diabetes, made his debut as star of his first direct-to-consumer (DTC) TV ad. Not only does the ad feature Novo's product, it also promotes Kimball's Indy team Chip Ganassi Racing. A win-win!

I saw the commercial on the CBS evening News last night. Kimball did a great job.

I couldn't find a version of the commercial on the Internet, but I DID find a video titled "Charlie Kimball and Novo Nordisk" in which Kimball discusses how the commercial was made. One thing that the video demonstrates is why pharma spends so much money on broadcast (ie, TV) DTC. It's not just the loads of money spent on buying airtime on the major networks. It is also the cost of producing the commercial itself. This is what Kimball discusses in the video (embedded below).

Kimball is amazed by all the people involved such as director, assistant director, key grip, not to mention the production crew's four trucks, two motor homes, and catering trailer. All together, 50 people were involved said Kimball.

In the past, Kimball had only been tweeting (see, for example, "Novo Nordisk's Branded (Levemir) Tweet is Sleazy Twitter Spam!" - the #3 Google search result for "sleazy tweet"!) and making personal appearances, which is more of a PR effort than a marketing effort. My guess is that PR costs much less than marketing and employs fewer people compared to marketing's BIG item productions such as TV ads.

So, thank you Charlie and Novo Nordisk for helping America solve it's unemployment problem!

Pharma is "Cleverly Navigating" the Social Media Space Says TIME Magazine

Pharma is "Cleverly Navigating" the Social Media Space Says TIME Magazine

"Surprisingly, it's the pharmaceutical industry that's been at the forefront of moving the FDA to issue social-media rules," reports TIME Magazine reporter Steven Gray in a story published online today (see "Drug Companies Take Their Pitch to Social Media — Carefully").

Steven interviewed me for this story and quotes me in this passage: "The companies realize their traditional websites and advertising strategies are no longer sufficient tools to promote products in a competitive marketplace in which doctors, pharmacists and consumers aggressively trade information about medicine on blogs. The companies are also aware that 'if they can't fully participate in the social-media conversation, they get marginalized,' says John Mack, publisher of Pharma Marketing Blog, which attracts about 25,000 industry readers a month."

I thank Steven for this 10 minutes of fame.

Steven's article focuses exclusively on Novo Nordisk's Race with Insulin Twitter campaign (@racewithinsulin), which is described as "one of the most provocative examples of how pharmaceutical companies are cleverly navigating the emerging, largely unregulated social-media space." "Provocative," yes. "Cleverly navigating," not so much. I only need to point out the story about how sanofi aventis not so cleverly launched a Facebook page to debunk that (see "Where's Your Social Media Crisis Management Plan?").

The article is actually a very good PR piece for Novo Nordisk and Race with Insulin. Although I mentioned to Steven my blog post heard about Kimball's infamous branded Tweet heard round the world (see "Novo Nordisk's Branded (Levemir) Tweet is Sleazy Twitter Spam!"), this wasn't mentioned in the article. That particular tweet was not particularly clever, although I agree that it was provocative.

You've no doubt heard from many industry people that the media is out to get them and write negative stories about the drug industry. In fact, that's the kind of story I was expecting Steven to write. He, for example, wanted me to OK his use of the word "provocative" to describe the Race with Insulin social media campaign. The TIME piece, however, is not provocative and does not attack the drug industry for its efforts, which is fine with me. Just remember this the next time an industry executive complains about the media!