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Explore the potential impact of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s nomination to head HHS on the future of direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising. Understand the legal and regulatory challenges that could reshape the industry.
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July 26, 2019 0
I sat down with Charlie Greenberg, a respected healthcare industry veteran and an expert in point-of-care (POC) marketing, to discuss current trends in healthcare marketing. It’s a topic Charlie knows well, having worked for more than 30 years in the industry with giants like Saatchi & Saatchi, Wyeth, and Merck. Charlie currently serves as a media and marketing consultant, so he spends a great deal of time thinking about the ways brands can improve their reach and maximize their return on investment.
Q: How has healthcare marketing changed during your time in the industry?
A: Market research on patient population profiles and their attitudes toward treatment options has become increasingly more sophisticated. We no longer focus only on demographics and affinity interests, but now incorporate attitudes toward treatment options, healthcare status, and relevant multicultural distinctions within an overall target universe.
Paid media in the marketing mix has embraced this more sophisticated market research by employing greater targeted media tactics. This is not only a function of the evolution of digital media but greater opportunities within the point-of-care arena and the availability to refine how mass media can reach a target audience.
Q: What’s the biggest thing healthcare marketers aren’t doing that they should, or that they should be doing more of?
A: Good marketers set themselves apart from the pack when they are willing to make bold decisions and address the marketplace by shaping customer thinking. Adopting a mindset of “test and learn” around how marketing dollars are spent needs to be better embraced. Short-term thinking often leads to stagnation and missed opportunities.
Secondly, marketers should also be investing more in communication which has the goal of building health literacy. This will not only support the ability to shape consumer thinking, but health literacy campaigns have been shown to lift the efforts of branded commercial campaigns when the two messages are running together.
Q: What effect can point of care (POC) have on the overall media plan? What benefits can brand managers and media planners realize from adding this channel to their mix?
A: Adding POC to a plan will increase the ability to laser target reaching prospects and patients. This complements the efforts of other tactics within the plan. Secondly, POC offers a guaranteed ROI, which also enriches the promotional effectiveness of the overall marketing plan.
Q: Why is healthcare personal to you?
A: It is rewarding to be able to feel a sense of achievement from launching that new snack food item on shelf, introducing a new car model or driving purchases of yet another shade of red lipstick. However, healthcare marketing offers a benefit of knowing that you are helping people understand health conditions and offering treatment to increase their quality of life.
Q: What’s your favorite thing about being a New Yorker?
A: New York City offers real mobility since it is one of few places in America where you have the option to walk to get to your destination rather than being tied to your car.
August 25, 2017 0
I see doctors more than I used to due to my advancing age. That gives me a chance to see more point of care marketing as I go to my many specialists for a variety of ailments. I often wonder how much patients are receptive to being educated while in the waiting room or in the exam area. Most doctors’ offices are a media smorgasbord of general interest magazines, health pamphlets, TV’s playing news or promotion for products physicians sell.
-Bob Ehrlich
Clutter is a significant barrier for POC media companies trying to prove to drug makers an acceptable ROI for their products and services. Patients also have their own entertainment system with their mobile devices and the growth of in office Wi-Fi makes them a viable entertainment option in waiting rooms. The challenge for POC companies providing information on disease or branded products is how to get their share of attention in that valuable 10-20 minute waiting period.
The days of just providing and expecting positive results from general disease information through a video, wallboard, or publication could be numbered. More needs to be done to grab attention given the numerous media alternatives available. That means POC companies are going to have to invest more in researching how patients actually behave in the waiting room. That is, what draws them to put down their mobile device and watch a POC video, interact with a tablet, or read a wallboard or custom health magazine. As patient choices expand, drug companies are going to expect some sophisticated analysis of patient in office viewing habits.
POC generally has reported higher ROI than mass media. The POC media companies are going to have to work hard to keep that advantage. It is clear that every drug company is looking to take full advantage of the marketing opportunity at POC. That physician office is the pivotal point in generating an Rx. Every drug maker wants to maximize that pre-exam time frame with disease and/or branded information.
We are seeing consolidation of POC companies through acquisitions. Having fewer and larger players with deeper pockets makes it more likely we will see new patient behavioral research. I would expect, as a drug marketer, to have the POC media companies do lots of testing on how to generate patient attention. Their technologies now allow for streaming in a highly targeted manner. That could mean different messaging down to a local physician level taking into account patient demographics. Drug makers are going to expect POC media companies to increasingly present innovative ways to get patients to pay attention in an increasingly cluttered waiting room.
I was in my ophthalmologist’s office this week and was entertained by a POC module from Outcome Health, formerly ContextMedia:Health. They had a reporter on the street interviewing people with trivia questions on eye issues such as incidence of eyeglass use and contacts. I noted everyone in the waiting room was watching as it was a different and attention grabbing way to educate patients. We all had our mobile devices in our hands but took a break to see the answers to the trivia.
What I have noticed through my many physician visits is that there is still massive opportunity to bring media innovation to the waiting and exam rooms. There are a number of great companies in this space and continuing consolidation will bring more consistency to what patients see. Drug makers will welcome being able to expand POC use with larger media companies controlling more offices. That consolidation may make it harder, however, for start-ups to compete but hopefully we can still have opportunities for the small entrepreneurs. After all, the current POC giants all started relatively recently as small businesses with a new way to educate patients.
February 10, 2017 0
Merck’s cancer drug Keytruda recently began its DTC campaign competing with Bristol Myers’ Opdivo. What is significant is that highly targeted drug categories continue to invest heavily in DTC. Keytruda is a biologic injection that has indications for non small cell lung cancer, advanced melanoma and head and neck cancer.
-Bob Ehrlich
The market is small by size compared to mega categories like diabetes and cholesterol where sufferers are in the tens of millions. Lung cancer cases number about 200,000 newly diagnosed annually. Of course, when the treatment price is around $100,000 per year for biologic lung cancer treatment versus less than a thousand for cholesterol drugs; the DTC payback is certainly achievable.
Roughly the numbers show a $50 million ad campaign for Opdivo and Keytruda need only gain 500 new patients from DTC to break even on a revenue basis. While consumers are the DTC apparent target, these ads also reach oncologists. Once an oncologist knows patients are seeing the DTC and will ask about the drugs, it clearly provides the motivation to consider using them.
The Keytruda ad is very different from Opdivo. While Opdivo used a headline dramatic announcement approach, Keytruda chose an individual patient story. Using an actor portrayal Keytruda showed a 60ish age woman named Sharon telling her story in a tv production studio. Sharon says she learned her type of lung cancer could be treated with an alternative to chemo. She tells how she was given only months to live but a year later after treatment she is still there with her family.
The commercial is filmed in black and white which adds to the seriousness of the presentation. Sharon’s story in this 90 second ad is told very well. It is very informative and understandable using Sharon and supers emphasizing the key benefits. What is interesting is that they are showing Sharon in the production studio both telling her story and in the makeup room preparing to be filmed. Her family is also at the studio watching her being filmed telling her success story.
The sell portion of the ad is about 30 seconds with fair balance risks and warnings in the last minute. Clearly the ad is technical in terms of disclaimers about who can take the drug and one wonders if patients who have non small cell cancer are aware of their biomarkers and gene types mentioned in the ad.
Given the high prices for treatment stock analysts see Keytruda generating revenue in the billions. A DTC campaign costing $50-100 million for a drug bringing in billions is a small risk for Merck. Opdivo had been criticized by some doctors for advertising to patients in an area best left for oncologists. This is a fair question but advertising breakthrough therapies does help potential patients become aware of their options. It also puts pressure on insurance companies to cover the large expense.
Keytruda has done an excellent job in its DTC ad. This campaign will get attention and is very different in executional style from Opdivo, an ad I also think is very good. The broader concern is whether advertising $100,000 drugs to consumers causes Congress to look more critically at both drug prices and DTC ads. While individual patients get extra months and in some cases years longer to live, government payers and insurance companies are paying a lot for that life extension. While no one wants to put a price on those months, unfortunately it is a calculation needed to be considered by policy makers.
