BI's Famously Unpronounceable Video Lives On!

BI's Famously Unpronounceable Video Lives On!

A day or two after I posted my impression of Boehringer's (BI's) new YouTube video that spoofs efforts to pronounce the company's name through "word of mouth" (WOM) marketing, BI made the video private and unviewable by the general public. BUT, thanks to "crazyparrot1000," the video has been uploaded here. I have also embedded it below:





Last night, I tweeted: "@Boehringer Sorry to see that the parrot video was made private. Was this a project approved high up in BI?" As of yet, I have not received a response to that tweet.

Why did BI decide to block viewing of this video less than 48 hours after it debuted on YouTube? In a tweet, BI said "The vid was made for a test & the period of time was short, so that is why the vid must be made private for now."

Sorry, but I'm not buying that.

I think my followup post (BI Masters the Art of WOM through Its "Parrots," er, Spokespersons) nudged BI into realizing it had made a mistake. In that post, I pointed out that BI was slapped by the PMCPA regarding how it may have dissed the competition via its real-life Word of Mouth "parrots" -- ie, patient advocates, key opinion leaders, and the press. The following image sums it up nicely, IMHO:

Sexist?
I sincerely wish BI gave me a chance to preview this video while I was at a recent pharma eMarketing conference in Lisbon where I first learned that BI was going to launch something big on YouTube the following week. I may have criticized the video for being too sexist (the women are all very well endowed and are referred to as "lovely ladies").

Maybe -- just maybe -- it could have been negative reaction from BI's employees regarding the inappropriateness of buxom lab techs that got BI to remove the video. If so, I think BI should make that known and offer a public apology. What do you think?

Is this BI parrot video sexist & does BI need to apologize publicly?
	Yes and BI should apologize
	Yes, but no need for BI to apologize
	Not sexist and no need for BI to apologize
	Not sexist but BI should apologize anyway for wasting money on this

In any case, perhaps the video was not green-lighted by the higher ups in BI, but I bet it was shut down by them!

Lessons Learned
P.S. A lesson learned by BI is that you often cannot take back what you did via social media and YouTube. Despite the attempt of BI to block the viewing of its video, it lives on in the version that was copied and re-uploaded by "crazyparrot1000." BI acknowledged this in a retweet of a tweet notifying them that the video was still on YouTube: "Yes we are! Power of #sm :) RT @xilede: @Boehringer you are aware that the parrots are still around on #youtube, right?"

BI is now backpedaling and claiming the whole thing was sort of a university thesis project: "As @BoehringerUK said, Uni of Mainz is now preparing thesis on vid. Entire prject was trial balloon & now analysis comes! #hcsm"

In previous tweets, however, BI was making a big deal about how this video is ushering in its new emphasis on word of mouth marketing:

"Embarking on a new comms journey, @Boehringer has started to push the idea of WOM. Watch to learn more http://ow.ly/6zD1u #hcmktg #pharma"

"An idea needs to fly and we take this literally. Take a moment & watch our short video on #YouTube http://ow.ly/6Akmu #mtv @raycokes #pharma"

Unfortunately, it seems the idea of this video should NOT have flown!

Will BI, however, try to get YouTube/Google to remove the copy of the video uploaded by "crazyparrot1000?" It's possible. I suggest you copy it ASAP before this happens. One thing I learned at the Lisbon conference is how to do this: Go to site KeepVid.com

Social Media and Celebrities: A Winning Combination for Pharma Marketers

Social Media and Celebrities: A Winning Combination for Pharma Marketers

Attendees at yesterday's session of the Social Media for Pharma Conference were treated to two case studies that combined social media with celebrities.

The first was the "Kaleidoscope Case Study" (aka, "How To Extend The Value And Reach Of Your Organization’s Campaign To Increase Engagement And Program Results") presented by Jim Dayton (@JimDayton), Director of Emerging Media at InTouch Solutions.

According to the FaceBook "Kaleidoscope On Ice" fan page: “Kaleidoscope presented by sanofi-aventis” was a holiday entertainment variety special [presented on Thanksgiving Day, 2009] that featured Olympic skating champions and GRAMMY Award-winning music artists [as well as American Idol singers]. The show featured the historic return to the ice of the legendary Scott Hamilton and Dorothy Hamill who will skate to the music of fellow cancer survivor Olivia Newton-John. The event was in support of women who survived cancer.

This event was promoted in part via Twitter, a campaign that Dayton said was very successful based upon key performance measures -- followers, tweets, etc. Dayton noted that this success was based in part on the active tweeting of the event done by the celebrities who were not paid to tweet but who benefited form the self-promotion.

It's a shame that I did not hear about this event either via Twitter or otherwise. Or at least I don't remember it. Unfortunately for Sanofi, what I do remember is the incident of the woman cancer survivor who laid siege to sanofi-aventis VOICES Facebook Page (read this post: "Patient "Unadvocate" Lays Siege to sanofi-aventis VOICES Facebook Page. Where's S-A's Social Media VOICE?" and listen to this podcast: "What Sanofi-Aventis Learned from Its FaceBook Experience & What the Experts Recommend It Do Now").

The second social media/celebrity case study was "Race with Insulin" presented by Ambre Morley (@ambremorley), Associate Director of Product Communications and Lois Kotkoskie, Director of Promotional Review. Both work for Novo Nordisk. Morley and Kotkoskie made a good tag team, presenting some behind-the-scenes information about how the program was launched with careful regulatory oversight. Their presentation was entitled "How To Use Twitter To Deliver Measurable Results For Your Organization."

You might recall that Race with Insulin is also a campaign that combines a celebrity (racecare driver Charlie Kimball), social media, and real world events (listen to this podcast: "Novo Nordisk's Race With Insulin Campaign: It's Not Just About Twitter"). The twitter account (@racewithinsulin) is famous for being the first branded Twitter account and for posting the first branded tweet, which I labeled "sleazy Twitter spam (see here).

I tried to keep a low profile during both these presentations and did not raise the "fail" sides of these campaigns that I have blogged about in the past. Morley, however, incorporated my comments as part of her presentation to explain how to "Assess Your Promotional Challenges" and to answer the question "Does the reward outweigh the risk?"

During both these presentations, I wondered what was the tactic that actually brought the "rewards?" Was it the social media campaign or was it the celebrities? Could these overall campaigns have been successful without the celebrities? No way! Could they have been successful without the social media component, which most presenters said was just a tactic? Yes, definitely!

The day when real, non-celebrity patients are the celebrities in pharma social media campaigns is the day when pharma breaks away from the mold.

A point I made during Morley's presentation was that although @racewithinsulin has about 1000 followers, Novo Nordisk knows nothing about these followers other than what Morley gleaned from manually reviewing their Twitter profiles. I suggested that Novo Nordisk do what I do: ask followers to fill out a survey. Pharma marketers do this all the time on their web sites and via BRCs. Why don't they do it with their Twitter followers? Either they don't value their Twitter audience enough to learn more about it, or they do not have the resources to do anything with the information.

Inadequate resources was mentioned often at this conference. To move social media beyond merely being a promotional tactic to a strategy to learn more about consumers and patients, pharma has to devote more resouirces to the effort.

Drug Companies Are Flocking to Facebook for Eyeballs, Not Conversation

Drug Companies Are Flocking to Facebook for Eyeballs, Not Conversation

More and more pharmaceutical companies are launching Facebook pages that promote their products. The latest is Allergan, which launched a celebrity Facebook campaign for Juvederm, a dermal filler used for "long-lasting correction of moderate to severe facial wrinkles and folds." Allergan also makes Botox.

According to an MM&M story, "Ex-Extra host and broadcast journalist Dayna Devon will dispense personal tips to Facebook fans each week, and is sharing her experience with Juvederm through the social networking site."

But why open up a Facebook page, which looks like just another product website (see screen shot below), especially if you are not going to accept and publish comments to the Wall?

IMHO, Allergan and other pharma companies are not launching Facebook pages to "engage" consumers in "dialogue." First, there is no "dialogue." Of course, the excuse is that pharma is waiting for the FDA to publish guidelines that will allow them to use ALL the nifty social networking features of Facebook, including online dialogue. Here's an example of how the FDA is being blamed for not "allowing" comments on pharma Facebook pages:

@RosettaHC tweeted: Juvederm launches Facebook page. No open comments allowed. (FDA: when's guidance coming?) http://bit.ly/aPpC8v #hcsm #fdasm

If it looks like a Web 1.0 site and acts like a Web 1.0 site, why not just stick to a Web 1.0 site and forget about Facebook?

The REAL reason for launching Facebook pages is because of Facebook's POPULARITY and the number of "eyeballs" it can deliver, not the the number of conversations. According to the latest Hitwise analysis, Facebook has surpassed Google in terms of Web site traffic (see figure below and "Facebook More Popular Than Google? Let the Ad Wars Begin").

Pfizer Asks for New FDA Regulations, Not Guidance, for Social Media

Pfizer Asks for New FDA Regulations, Not Guidance, for Social Media

Pfizer submitted comments to Docket No. FDA‐2009‐N‐0441 regarding Promotion of FDA‐Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools (find it here).

The world's #1 pharmaceutical company stands alone in calling upon the FDA to develop new regulations for the Internet and social media rather than issuing guidance that puts an "interpretative gloss" on existing rules.

"FDA should not try to fit the square peg of Internet and social media communications into the round hole of the Agency’s existing rules developed for conventional media," said Pfizer in its comments. "Rather, FDA should develop comprehensive new rules describing the actions manufacturers must take in order for their online communications to be truthful and non-misleading in the specific context of the online environment. The Agency should ultimately establish these new rules not in guidance -- which by definition cannot change existing rules but can merely provide an interpretive gloss on those rules -- but rather in new regulations. As discussed below, the public health would be benefitted by the establishment of binding, legally enforceable new rules that have been developed by FDA specifically for new media."

Pfizer contends that "for FDA to regulate in this sensitive area through guidance instead of rulemaking inherently raises First Amendment concerns because of the nature of the process used to develop guidance, and the nature of the Agency pronouncements that result." Guidance, says Pfizer, is too vague and engenders "extensive litigation."

I don't know if that is a veiled threat or not, but Pfizer "believes it would be imprudent for FDA to repeat this pattern of seeking to address an entirely new field of conduct, where First Amendment rights are clearly at stake, without the discipline that comes with a rulemaking proceeding. Further, since the WLF litigation, the courts have only become more aggressive in policing FDA regulation of speech."

Ah Ha! WLF -- the Washington Legal Foundation, an organization "devoted to defending and promoting the principles of free enterprise and individual rights" (mostly for pharma companies) -- rears its head! I suspect, in fact, that the WLF wrote the first draft of Pfizer's comments or maybe it was Arnie Friede, former Pfizer Chief Counsel.

Pfizer predicts that vague guidance will inhibit companies from engaging in social media: "Many manufacturers simply will decide, as a risk management matter, that they will not engage, irrespective of any guidance from FDA, because the enforcement discretion reference means that the Agency regards that engagement as potentially violating a statutory or regulatory provision."

In other words, Pfizer believes guidance would stifle pharma's use of the Internet and social media rather than encourage it, which Pfizer implies should be the goal of FDA. "Such an approach [issuing guidance rather than new rules] would not be ideal, however, if FDA genuinely wants to encourage manufacturers to increase their level of engagement in online activities."

So the FDA is doomed if it does issue guidance and doomed if it doesn't. Either way, according to Pfizer, the FDA will stand in the way of free speech.