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By Linda J. DiPersio, MSM, MSHC

A recent eMarketer study projects that by the end of this year 63% of the overall digital display ad spending in the United States will be attributed to programmatic media buying – and this figure is estimated to soar towards 83% in 2017. In the pharmaceutical industry, programmatic buying uses software interfaces and algorithms to define and analyze specific traits of patients who have a strong inclination to purchase certain medications over others. This data allows digital ad spaces to be tailored to patients more accurately, which influences and supports a patient-centric media strategy in a positive way. The skillful use of programmatic buying within this platform not only depends on educating marketers to recognize the myths but also on encouraging them to follow the trends that will lead to an increased level of patient centricity and greater financial success and efficiency.

Fictional vs. Factual Information about Programmatic Media Buying

2016 Trends in Programmatic Buying

Engaging Purchase-Based Targeting (PBT). With (PBT), marketers analyze segments of small groups of individuals that bought the product previously and then conduct exact image modeling to increase profits by finding more patients who are willing to buy. Behavioral and contextual data attributes enhance this digital segmentation.

Planning with Direct Automation. Advertisers create audiences inside their Data Management Platforms (DMPs) with automated guaranteed procurement. They push them directly to a publisher’s ad server that participates in user-matching.

Managing Global Frequency. Marketers effectively map users to all of their devices, match users across a myriad of platforms and determine frequency to an individual. They control their messaging and influence their bidding strategies to usher users into frequency where conversions emerge.

Bringing Talent In-House. Hiring former agencies and vendors, certifying their own technologies and retaining their own data are only a few of the ways that big marketers are consolidating talent internally. They desire an intense and direct connection to experts who specialize in programmatic buying and analysts who are focused on data science.

Closing the Loop with Data. The marketing attribution adage of “50% of my marketing works, but I just don’t know which 50%” is now showing 100% closure with organized substantiation. One example is specific beacon technology that allows marketers to actualize results with a three step process: 1) patients are alerted through social media on their mobile devices about a discount offer through social media; 2) their arrival at the pharmacy is verified and 3) data is integrated with the point-of-sale (POS) system that immediately indicates if the product was purchased.

Permitting Technology to Make Determinations. From the outset, data machine algorithms determine the exact make up and segmentation of the patient giving marketers an advanced and full understanding of the shared features of data attributes. Smoother media planning arises from automatic segment generation.

In conclusion, by understanding fact versus fiction and paying close attention to this year’s trends in programmatic buying, marketers can achieve more effective campaigns on a smaller budget and in a timely fashion. Algorithmic data analysis combined with a transparent, unbiased framework strengthens this type of buying and creates a win-win situation for the patient-centric media strategy. With programmatic buying projections, the pharmaceutical industry currently has the fortuitous chance to track the patient journey with available data delivering deeper, clearer and more concise content in the right place to the right people at the right time.

References:

Kleveno, K. “Debunking 5 Myths of Programmatic Buying.” 360i Digital Agency. (2013)

Loechner, J. “Marketers Face More Pressures Than Just Marketing.” MediaPost (2014)

O’Hara, C. “Trends in Programmatic Buying.” Media Measurement. (2015)

“Mobile Marketers Think Programmatic Advertising Is the Future So Why Aren’t They Using It?” CallFire (2015)

“A Look Inside Programmatic Pricing.” AdWeek (2015).

By Linda DiPersio, MSM, MSHC

In the book “The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care,” Clay Christensen, who developed the theory of disruptive innovation, stated, “There are more than 9,000 billing codes for individual procedures and units of care. But there is not a single billing code… for helping patients stay well.” In the pharmaceutical industry, disruptive innovation improves health by generating ideas that create new drugs at the expense of existing ones. It is an alliance between technological advances and new business models that dramatically changes the performance of the industry. The progressive spectrum of disruptive innovation challenges include lessons from the past showing resistance to change, implications surfacing in the present which emerge from cautious analytics and trailblazing dynamics in the future aligned with patient centricity.

Past: Resistance to Change

Despite the remarkably positive success of antiseptic surgery with carbolic acid saving many lives during active combat in late 19th century Europe, Surgeon Dr. Samuel Gross from the United States said, “Little, if any faith, is placed by any enlightened or experienced surgeon on this side of the Atlantic in the so-called carbolic acid treatment of Professor Lister.” The medical community in the United States not only disapproved of the concept of germ theory that promoted the protection of patients against airborne microbes, and any drug associated with it, but also they fully rejected it – instead believing that miasma or bad air caused infection. After 30 years of successful usage in Europe, the jolting factor of antiseptic surgery acceptance in the United States is attributed to the almost assuredly avoidable death of President James Garfield. His non-life threatening gunshot wound from an assassination attempt was cared for by a team of doctors with germ-laden contact, including non-sterilized instruments, which lead to a major infection most likely being the cause of death.

As the above example shows, the advancement of pharmaceutical innovation efforts are most often prevented by established world views, opinions, customs, attitudes, societal values and complex psychological and emotional issues ingrained in the network of relationships that define individuals singly or collectively. In certain situations, innovation challenges are rejected directly because they are seen as threats to the means of support and character of many stakeholders, such as pharmaceutical companies, Federal regulatory institutions and the American Medical Association, that deploy an intangible but forceful influence on decision-making. Resistance to change in pharma emanates from industry incumbents whose jobs rely on sustaining the existing business model and political power. As Upton Sinclair said, “Never expect someone to understand change when their livelihood depends on not understanding it.”

Present: Cautious Analytics

Currently, pharma believes that marginal innovation is actually “safe” disruptive innovation because it is supported by confirmed targets, proven forms of action and/or established drug classes. In reality, it is extremely risky. Marginal pharmaceutical compounds have a high risk of not achieving end results, not being accepted by regulators and/or not performing up to the standards of existing less costly therapeutics and fail commercially. Recent studies with marginal drugs show a 50% failure rate due to a lack of efficacy or safety.

Safer trials, which are designed to add evidence-based support of the versatility of top drugs, take away the amount of funds from innovations and discovering new cures. There are no pre-competitive consortiums to divide the challenges and costs of developing new knowledge about disease causation. Today, innovation is distributed over a group of partners with universities conducting the riskier early translational research and pharma investing in late development with perceived low risk. Beginning as low risk, low returns and low R&D, cautious analytics eventually equate to bad risk with ill-fated consequences.

Future: Multi-Dimensional Patient Centricity

In the future, the drug lifecycle needs to incorporate many facets of patient centricity, including the use of new technologies such as gene- and proteomics, gene therapy, nanotechnology, and Big Data driven predictive analytics. Precision medicine will identify exact patient needs and tailor molecular profiles to create the most beneficial treatment plans for patients on an individual level. New social media tools will allow patients to share information and participate in collaborative discussions with regulators and pharma.

If pharma practices the five skills of questioning, observing, networking, experimenting, and associating that are outlined in the book “The Innovator's DNA” authored by Gregersen, Dyer, and Christensen, disruptive innovation will be constructively delivered, empowering patients, and effecting positive change through physicians who will proactively treat and potentially prevent illnesses before they become a major source of concern. Creativity that changes behavior will be framed by:

• Asking controversial questions that confront existing knowledge of the industry;
• Thoroughly examining behaviors to identify new ways of doing things;
• Encountering people with fundamentally dissimilar ideas and perspectives;
• Building interactive experiences that trigger non-traditional responses to discover what insights emerge; and
• Connecting the dots with questions, issues or ideas from unrelated fields.

In summary, the past and present challenges mapped out on the spectrum provide valuable information that will shape future disruptive innovation in a beneficial way. Lessons learned from the past indicate that attitudes impacted the resistance to effective existing pharmaceuticals. Presently, with pharma’s perception of “safe risks,” engaging in cautious analytics eventually results in bad risks. In the future, leading the way with a multi-dimensional, patient-centric approach to the drug pipeline will allow for increased profits and improved health outcomes. As Clayton Christensen said, “Disruptive innovation is a positive force.”

Sources:

Christensen, C., Hatkoff, C. and Kula, I. “Disruptive Innovation Theory Revisited.” Innovation Excellence. (2013)

Coleman, D. “The DNA of Disruptive Innovators: Will Pharma be Disruptors or Disrupted?” Eye for Pharma. (2014)

“Disruptive Innovation and the Future of the Drug Lifecycle.” PhRMA. (2013)

“Growing the Pipeline, Growing the Bottom Line: Shifts in Pharmaceutical R&D Innovation.” KPMG Pharmaceutical R&D Innovation. (2014)

Munos, B. and Chin, W. “How to Revive Breakthrough Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Industry.” Science Translational Medicine. (2011)

By Cheryl Lubbert of Health Perspectives Group

As we look back over the past year for lessons learned that we will take into the New Year, there are many we could choose: from celebrities on social media to controversial pricing. But based on our work with thousands of patients, helping to connect them with biopharma companies large and small, one of the top areas of concern right now is protecting their personal information.

This is not a concern that has impacted Direct-to-Consumer marketing historically, but the world is changing, and DTC is evolving. We are in the middle of an unprecedented shift in the way companies communicate with consumers, from a mass-media, one-way approach, delivering product information from the top down to drive demand, to a “me-media,” two-way model focused on the exchange of information for mutual benefit, powered by new technologies and evolving consumer expectations.

Research shows that consumers expect and want more two-way communications, especially as it relates to support. For example, a Manhattan Research study showed that 59% of online consumers expect the healthcare system to offer the same level of customer service they receive at a service-oriented company like Amazon.com. Yet only 8% of online consumers say that pharma companies are providing a better customer experience than two years ago.

This new way of communicating poses many challenges for biopharma companies, including explaining complex medical data, navigating technology, and regulatory and legal oversight. But it also brings to the forefront a new challenge unique to this approach: consumer concerns about privacy, security, and transparency where their personal health information is concerned.

As a result, privacy and security are the top concerns we see moving into 2016. Though they both relate to how private information is handled, these two concepts are different, as defined by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS):

• Privacy is the right of an individual to make choices with respect to the collection, use and disclosure of their data.
• Security refers to the safeguards – physical, administrative and technological – used to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data.

You’ve all heard the scary news about security breaches that send us frantically to our credit card statements and credit reports. First, it was data stolen from Target and Home Depot, and other incidents followed. Just a few weeks ago, we learned that hackers targeted JPMorgan Chase and 14 other companies, including The Wall Street Journal, pulling off the “largest theft of customer data from a U.S. financial institution in history,” stealing personal information of more than 100 million people, in a data breach described as “breathtaking in its scope and its size.”

Unfortunately, news like this has almost become routine. But consumers are taking the ease with which data can be stolen or misused to heart where their health information is concerned. This year we have heard time and again from patients that they want to share their health experiences and even their data and information, but they are worried about their privacy.

And who can blame them for being concerned? In a study in Harvard Business Review, the authors reported: “Though some companies are open about their data practices, most prefer to keep consumers in the dark, choose control over sharing, and ask for forgiveness rather than permission. It’s also not unusual for companies to quietly collect personal data they have no immediate use for, reasoning that it might be valuable someday.”

Even with the financial breaches mentioned above, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, health care has been the most common area for data breaches in the past three years, and medical identity theft was up about 20% between 2013 and 2014.

Data concerns are impacting every corner of the healthcare, from electronic health records to health trackers. This year we conducted a survey through our online platform Health Stories Project, and we found that less than half of respondents are confident that the information in their Electronic Health Record is secure, and less than a third even know who has access to information in their EHR.

And in the Altimeter Study on Consumer Concerns About Data Privacy, consumers were asked about the data implications of fitness trackers, connected cars or connected home appliances, and how they could be used for a company to collect health data and sell it to someone else – and most did not give a positive review, expressing concerns about:

• 78% if/where companies sell their data
• 73% where companies keep their data
• 68% how companies identify them as an individual
• 67% who sees and analyses their data

So consumers have concerns about their data privacy, ranging from data selling, storage, and access to the ability to be identified individually. What can we as an industry do to address privacy and security concerns?

In addition to addressing the technical factors that keep data secure, biopharma companies can help their customers feel comfortable and confident sharing their health information by being transparent about how they will (and won’t) use it and how they will keep it private and safe.

The authors of the Harvard Business Review study I mentioned earlier summarized the role transparency will play: “In a future in which customer data will be a growing source of competitive advantage, gaining consumers’ confidence will be key. Companies that are transparent about the information they gather, give customers control of their personal data, and offer fair value in return for it will be trusted and will earn ongoing and even expanded access. Those that conceal how they use personal data and fail to provide value for it stand to lose customers’ goodwill – and their business.”

With growing concerns about privacy and security, the key is to plan all of your initiatives with the understanding that patients are sharing the most personal data they have when they share details about their health. As an industry, as we shift to a two-way model of communication with our consumers, it’s our responsibility to honor and protect that, and to communicate clearly how we are making that a priority and a reality.