As Pharma Spends More on Digital, External Digital Agencies Receive Poor Ratings from Marketing Executives

As Pharma Spends More on Digital, External Digital Agencies Receive Poor Ratings from Marketing Executives

Pharmaceutical brand teams are generally dissatisfied with their outsourced digital marketing, according to a study by Cutting Edge Information (see press release).

In surveys and interviews, executives acknowledged the challenges that their industry presents to external communication agencies, not the least being the lack of clear regulatory guidelines for pharmaceutical digital marketing. Despite that, pharmaceutical brand teams' opinions of agency performance are generally negative. Across all activity categories, only 21 percent of responses were "good" while 35 percent were "poor." No respondent ranked their experience with outsourced digital marketing as "very good." This is based on 34 responses.

It seems that familiarity breeds contempt -- the poor rating of digital agencies comes at a time when pharma marketers have increased the proportion of marketing dollars spent on digital.

Data from the summary report claims that "traditional digital marketing" (Web sites, web display ads/banners, email, search) represented 26.6% of the overall pharma marketing budget in 2011 compared to 23.7% in 2010; a 12% increase. These absolute percentages are similar to what PwC/IAB reported for all industries (see, for example, this chart). But my analysis suggests only 11% of pharma's total DTC marketing budget is devoted to "traditional digital marketing" (see "Ad Dollars Follow Eyeballs to Web").

Social and Mobile marketing are not "traditional digital marketing" according to Cutting Edge's definition. While the share of marketing dollars spent on traditional digital marketing has increased 12% from 2009 to 2011, the share for Social and Mobile digital "channels"/technologies (which is it?) have increased by 99% and 288%, respectively, according to Cutting Edge data (see chart below created from Cutting Edge data).

The report cites this caveat about the data: "this data does not suggest that actual spending by pharmaceutical companies on print media declined 26% between 2009 and 2011 but that print media is taking on a less significant role as a percentage of the total marketing mix." The same is true for the increase in share of social media and mobile: these "channels" are taking on a MORE significant role, especially since there are data suggesting that the OVERALL pharma DTC (direct-to-consumer) marketing budget decreased from 2009 to 2011 (see this chart).

Janssen Uses Digital Storytelling, Animation to "Bring Prescription Medicine Labeling to Life." But Not iPhone or iPad Life!

Janssen Uses Digital Storytelling, Animation to "Bring Prescription Medicine Labeling to Life." But Not iPhone or iPad Life!

Have you ever seen those animated stories any one can create using a service called "Xtranormal?" According to the web site, "Xtranormal helps you create amazing interactive stories with a few clicks and a little imagination."

The following funny animation about medication adherence was created using Xtranormal Movie Maker by HealthPrize, a company that markets a drug adherence program that was featured Pharma Marketing News (read "HealthPrize Teams Up with RealAge to Improve Adherence"¹; use discount code hprze).



Basically, you create a script, choose characters, scenery, gestures, etc. and  "Ta-da! You're instantly an animator, poet, pundit, educator or comic. Couldn't be easier," says Xtranormal.


Janssen Therapeutics -- a division of Janssen Products, LP, which is part of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, which in turn is a Johnson and Johnson company -- is currently "piloting" a series of animations that remind me of Xtranormal scripted animations like the one above. The script for the Janssen pilot, however, comes from the patient information sheet that accompanies the prescription medicine PREZISTA® (darunavir), which is used in the treatment of HIV.

To enhance patients’ access to and use of this information, Janssen launched this pilot program -- called The PREZISTA Zone (here) -- designed to "transform the experience of exploring this information online through digital storytelling and animation."

Features include the story of Jacob, a man who has just been diagnosed with a "chronic disease" (ie, HIV infection), told through a series of seven animated clips that help illustrate sections of the Patient Information (read more about this here).

Unfortunately, showing you the animations embedded in this blog post is problematic because they were created with Adobe Flash. If you have a flash-enabled browser, you'll be able to view the "trailer" video created by Janssen. I have embedded that bit of flash code below. If, however, you are viewing the mobile version of this blog on your iPhone or iPad (two of the leading mobile devices used by physicians and by patients like Jacob), you won't be able to see the "trailer." You also won't be able to view any of the animations over on the PREZISTA Zone web site.




You can see why these animations remind me of "movies" created with Xtranormal.

The following screen shot shows Jacob's physician explaining the side effects of PREZISTA to Jacob using what might be an iPad (probably would be in the real world).

Too bad Jacob's physician can't show Jacob the relevant PREZISTA Zone animation. She could be attending other patients while Jacob watched the animation and then answered any questions he may have had when she returned. That would have improved her practice. But she has to go through the list of side effects just as if she were reading them from the patient information sheet. That's what it sounds like when watching this animation, which reminds me of how the characters sound in the Healthprize animation.

Of course, Jacob has a smartphone (most likely an iPhone), which he is seen using in the following frame where he is talking to his sister about how to store PREZISTA:

“As a physician, I know from experience that people tend to learn in different ways, and that can pose different kinds of challenges for patients trying to educate themselves about their medications,” said Bryan Baugh, MD, Medical Director at Janssen Therapeutics. “We designed The PREZISTA Zone to meet a variety of personal preferences for learning and interacting with online information.

Too bad Jacob cannot "learn and interact" with The PREZISTA Zone via his iPhone!

¹Healthprize is an advertising client of Pharma Marketing News but I have not been paid to mention Healthprize in this blog post.

New Victoza Prescriptions Flatten After Novo Signs Deal with Paula Deen

New Victoza Prescriptions Flatten After Novo Signs Deal with Paula Deen

New prescriptions written per month for Victoza -- diabetes treatment sold by Novo Nordisk -- have leveled off just after Novo signed on celebrity chef Paula Deen as a spokesperson. Prescriptions for the drug were rising steadily for a year and a half prior to that.

The two events may be coincidental (and the flattening may be temporary), but interesting nevertheless because it puts a hole in the theory that the return on celebrity endorsements of pharma products is worth the investment.

The Victoza Rx data comes from a chart I found in the petition filed by Public Citizen with the FDA that asked the agency to withdraw Victoza because of increased risks that patients may developed pancreatitis, serious allergic reactions and kidney failure (find the petition here).

The chart shows a plot of "Number of Prescriptions" of Victoza (liraglutide) versus Byetta (exenatide), a competing drug marketed by Amylin (see below):

It appears that the number of (new) prescriptions written per month has leveled off at about 150,000 -- a number that has not increased since about January 2012 when Novo announced that Deen would be a spokesperson (see "My Bad! Paula Dean Shills for Novo Nordisk, Not Novartis").

In its petition, Public Citizen states "As can be seen by subsequent FDA safety alerts issued for acute pancreatitis, thyroid toxicity, and kidney failure over liraglutide’s first year and a half of marketing, warnings have not succeeded in preventing serious adverse reactions. This is especially unfortunate because diabetics are already at increased risk for pancreatic and kidney toxicity. ... The number of prescriptions for liraglutide has been steadily rising, putting increasing numbers of patients at risk of adverse reactions to this drug. The increase in adverse reactions is seen in the continuing reports in the FDA’s database, making it clear that the FDA’s use of warnings is not sufficient protection."

Public Citizen, however, does not report that based on post-marketing data, BYETTA has also been "associated with acute pancreatitis, including fatal and non-fatal hemorrhagic or necrotizing pancreatitis" according to the safety information that is part of its "package insert."

A couple of questions:

1. Will this new focus on Victoza safety information scare Paula Deen? 
2. Can she discontinue taking Victoza if she felt it was necessary or would her contract with Novo prevent her from doing that (she does take other medications to control her diabetes)?

Consumer Use of Social Media for Healthcare Purposes: Pharma Shouldn't "Drink the Kool-aid"!

Consumer Use of Social Media for Healthcare Purposes: Pharma Shouldn't "Drink the Kool-aid"!

A Twitter pal suggested I would "enjoy" this Los Angeles Times article: "Consumers using social media for medical information, report says." The report from PwC’s Health Research Institute found that "one-third of consumers are using Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to seek medical information, discuss symptoms and express their opinions about doctors, drugs and health insurers."

This sounds like good news for pharmaceutical marketers who want to "engage more with consumers online since they are increasingly making medical decisions based on the information they find there."

While surfing the Health Research Institute's web site for the details, I stumbled upon a chart summarizing a previous survey of 1,000 US adults in the fall of 2011. The chart, which I found here, allowed me to segment the data by age and gender, which are two demographics that are very important to the pharmaceutical industry.

First of all, most pharma marketers want to reach an somewhat older population who are most likely to be suffering from some medical condition for which new drugs are being developed - type 2 diabetes, for example.

Here are the data for two age groups (25-34 and 45-54):

I imagine that the 45 to 54 age group is the "sweet spot" for pharmaceutical marketers. According to this survey only 25% of consumers in that group uses any type of social media for healthcare purposes.

NOTE: Comparable data from Manhattan Research’s Cybercitizen Health® U.S. 2011 study, suggests that 65% of U.S. adults in the 25-34 age group use health-related social media, whereas 43% in the 45-54 age group use health-related social media. It should be noted that MR focused on consumers who have created or consumed health-related user-generated content on blogs, social networks, health ratings websites, online health communities and message boards, or patient testimonials, whereas PwC focused only on the six specific social media sites indicated in the above charts. 

IMHO, the PwC data is more useful to pharmaceutical marketers interested in reaching consumers via social media. Often, online health communities and message boards -- which are included in the MR anlaysis -- are not accessible to unregistered users and search engines and are therefore of limited benefit to advertisers (see "Data Mining in the Deep, Dark Social Networks of Patients").

Women are also very important to pharma marketers -- they are the caregivers and make most of the health decisions for their families. Here are the data comparing the use of social media for healthcare purposes for women versus men:

This is a surprise. First, I was lead to believe that women dominate social media (see, for example, "How to Score With Women (as a Marketer) via Social Media"). Well, that may very well be true for general use, but a significantly greater % of men use social media for healthcare purposes than do women if we believe the data shown here. Twitter is not favored by women at all!

NOTE: MR data from a survey cited above says that 45% of BOTH U.S. adult men and women use "health-related social media." Again, I think MR includes social media sites in its data that are not very relevant to pharmaceutical marketers (see note above).

This is not good news for the marketers in the pharma industry who proselytize the use of social media. Beware of the Kool-aid being served!