Latest News

DALL·E-2024-11-11-14.39.17-AI.webp
DTC-In-Perspective by Bob Ehrlich

Harnessing the Power of Artificial Intelligence

January 14, 2025 0

I’ve been pondering what the revolution in artificial intelligence (AI) truly means for DTC marketing. Can my aging brain grasp how AI works? Does it mean DTC advertising could be developed without engaging real patients, or even without agencies crafting the ads? Could we one day see virtual pharma marketers? Imagine our annual Top DTC Marketers list featuring artificial entities — what a surreal awards dinner that would be!

After speaking with experts, it’s clear that AI offers DTC marketers a vast ocean of opportunities. The potential benefits span the entire spectrum, from concept testing to producing polished ads. Faster copy development, reduced costs, and more options to present to real patients could redefine the process. Envision a world where virtual focus groups test ad concepts in mere seconds. Every target group could evaluate countless concepts, with AI instantly refining them until the ideal message emerges.

AI offers DTC marketers a vast ocean of opportunities, from faster concept testing to personalized ad creation.

Imagine media teams using AI to virtually identify the optimal omnichannel mix, tailored to every patient target group. The current array of media choices is already overwhelming. AI could enable us to explore every option at a micro level, creating unparalleled precision.

We’ve already seen digital advertising move in this direction. However, DTC remains television-centric, with about 60% of spending focused there. Most consumers are exposed to just a few ad executions per brand. AI could change that dramatically, enabling instant variations that adapt to the viewer. Those three standard ads could become 300, each optimized for the audience in real-time.

Of course, significant challenges lie ahead. The steep learning curve of adopting AI will inevitably slow its widespread use. Internal legal and regulatory reviews remain essential. The OPDP may also struggle to oversee a world of hundreds of promotional variations.

The advice from AI experts is clear: experiment with the tools available now. Adoption will take time, but starting small is the first step for pharma marketers. Ultimately, AI is a tool for human marketers to create more personalized and effective ads. My hope is that AI will lead to more creative, distinctive ads that cut through the clutter of DTC advertising.

Every pharma marketer should challenge themselves, their agencies, and their research partners to integrate AI into their processes. Start small, experiment, and see where AI can lead you. The journey will undoubtedly be challenging, but the potential rewards make it a path worth exploring.

Bob Ehrlich

Direct-Consumer-Pharma-Drug-Sales.jpg
DTC-In-Perspective by Bob Ehrlich

Revolutionizing Pharma: The Rise of Direct to Consumer Pharmaceutical Drugs

December 3, 2024 0

One of the current trends in DTC marketing is the availability of some branded drugs shipped directly from the manufacturer. Some pharmaceutical companies are starting to cut the wholesalers and retailers out of the purchase cycle. While still in its infancy, the direct to consumer operations have enormous implications for how consumers will get their drugs in the future. Eli Lilly and Pfizer are the first to offer this service.

The direct sales of drugs to consumers have been in place for nearly a decade from non-pharmaceutical companies. Hims started in 2017, and there are now many non-pharmaceutical companies diagnosing, prescribing, and shipping to consumers. Drug companies have decided to enter direct sales in the past few years.

Why are drug companies now getting into the direct sales business? There are several good reasons for this new approach. First, drug makers are now seeing a huge growth in direct sales companies offering compounded versions of their drugs. These are cheaper and, in categories like weight loss, have lots of appeal to consumers. Second, cutting out the middlemen gives drug companies better ability to lower drug prices. Third, there are enormous marketing advantages to knowing your customers and tracking their purchases over time. Fourth, drug companies are concerned about counterfeit drugs through reimportation which is a real problem for consumers ordering from the internet. Fifth, consumers like the convenience of getting diagnoses and prescriptions without having to see their doctor in person.

“Cutting out the middlemen gives drug companies better ability to lower drug prices, know their customers, and combat counterfeit medications – reshaping how consumers access healthcare”

I would expect that drug companies will greatly expand their direct to consumer programs and use traditional DTC advertising to make consumers aware of their purchase options. The direct business will not replace retail drug stores or drug wholesalers for most drugs. Most of the growth will come from lifestyle categories like weight loss, sexual dysfunction, sleep disorders, migraine, anxiety, and depression. Any category where an online survey and virtual healthcare can diagnose a consumer condition is an opportunity for direct sales.

There are legitimate ethical and policy implications to expanding direct pharmaceutical distribution. The non-pharmaceutical direct business makes it easy to get prescription meds through an online survey or telemedicine that inappropriate prescribing is possible. I expect pharmaceutical companies will have better controls in place to make sure a prescription is justified. After all, these big pharma companies have a lot more to lose in public reputation and through regulatory, public policy, and legal actions.

The Amazoning of America has certainly shown that consumers love the convenience of shopping from home. Getting a diagnoses, prescription, and delivery online is becoming accepted for many drug categories. Drug companies see the potential and expect major growth in this channel.

Bob Ehrlich

Point-of-care-POC-DALL·E-2025-01-14-10.40.36-An-illustration-of-a-modern-doctors-office-waiting-room-with-divers.webp
DTC in FocusDTC News

The Power of Point of Care in the Marketing Channel

December 2, 2019 0

 

Your parents are the ones who always take care of you.  Mom kissed your knee when you fell on the playground, and Dad drove you to the hospital when you needed to get your tonsils out.  Your parents kept you healthy and safe.  They were your rock and knew all the answers and just what to do.

Time passes.  You’re in your thirties and somehow in an instant the role of caregiver has flipped.  This was the case for me.  Nothing could prepare me for the moment I learned my mom, my rock, was diagnosed with a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  I recall googling “NHL” only to be served hockey statistics; I was frustrated and scared.  Every time we went to see her oncologist or when I accompanied her to chemo, I would get hit with a wall of anxiety.  Each time we stepped into the hospital, what my mom and I truly needed most was support.

As a caregiver and patient, I understand the emotional moments that can happen at the point of care.  As a healthcare marketer, I also understand the value of this space as a channel, and I’ve been fortunate to see it evolve over the tenure of my career.  Today, pharmaceutical brands and healthcare and lifestyle advocacy groups push messages at these point of care (POC) settings, hoping to educate patients about therapy options.

But POC as a marketing channel needs to be treated both similarly and differently from other marketing strategies if a marketer wants to appear relevant and connect in a meaningful and useful way.  The reality of distracted, concerned patients and worried caregivers means brands that want to engage with patients at the POC need to approach them with greater empathy and understanding, with content that resonates emotionally and rationally with this audience.

But what makes POC unique anyway?

The POC channel supports the patient at critical moments of their health journey. 

From acute illness to more chronic or prolonged conditions, important milestones of the health journey happen at the point of care.  Through a recent survey collaboration between Outcome Health and Nielsen, we learned that the wait times within the rooms of point of care are substantial, with patients waiting on average up to 38 minutes in the waiting room and then another 36 minutes in the exam room.  These wait times represent a huge opportunity to communicate with and impact patients, caregivers and physicians all at the same time — essentially turning a “captive” audience into a “captivated” and educated one.

Inventory is finite if POC content is done right.

POC differs from other digital ad channels because inventory is specific, targeted, and limited.  Think about it.  There are only so many rheumatologists in the United States, and there are only so many brands that treat or support patients who see a rheumatologist.  Factor in the attention span of the average person today, include the other places they can get content in the doctor’s office (like magazines, posters, pamphlets), as well as the fact that we are all walking around with smart devices that can deliver content that we ask it anytime, anywhere, and you realize how critical it is to provide content that is aligned with why a patient may be in that rheumatologist’s office in the first place.  This content (continuing with the Rheumatology example) could include anything from signs and symptoms of Lupus, to managing rheumatoid arthritis through diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices, to understanding how to best support a loved one who has osteoporosis — this is just the short list of potential content that may be pertinent to patients or caregivers seeing rheumatologists.  The funnel of dependencies leading to the opportunity to message a patient who is seeing their provider for an ailment and being able to support that patient on their journey means that there are finite opportunities like this, which makes messaging at the POC more sophisticated and challenging in the same breath.

The point of care is the final touchpoint of the marketing message. 

On many occasions, I’ve heard pharma marketers muse, “What if we could hold hands with patients when they have those important conversations with their provider?”  In the POC channel, you can.  Unlike TV, print, and digital that serve to create awareness for new therapies or reach patients before they reach the office, POC holds their hand in the office, moments before and during time with their physician.

POC drives patients to take action.

Messaging at the POC has been proven to impact and shift patient behaviors.  In a study by ZS Associates, patient behavior was measured after being exposed to digital signage at their provider’s office.  Of those exposed, 84% were more likely to ask their doctor about an ad they saw, 68% asked their doctor for a specific medication, 31% were more likely to fill their prescription, and 34% were more likely to take their medication as prescribed.

Where does POC marketing fit in alongside DTC and traditional channels?  The point of care should serve as a complement to your brand’s other marketing and sales efforts, with specificity and context for patients waiting to see their doctors, moving them forward towards treatment.  POC marketing can be leveraged as a digital tool, as a TV alternative, and even as a patient engagement solution to share benefits like co-pay assistance programs.  Because your ad is now in the room with patients and their physician, messaging must be tailored for this space; simply dropping your TV spot onto an exam room screen isn’t likely to cut it with patients who are waiting to see their doctor.  Advertisers should welcome the opportunity to become more deeply integrated into the patient-doctor experience and develop content that can be integrated into the clinical setting.

Because there’s such a range of experiences (and emotions) that happen at POC, it’s important that any content (sponsored or not) intended for this space is sensitive to that.  You can’t create effective content without considering the patient’s mindset.  Content must be curated and contextualized for each touchpoint of the point of care experience.  Videos should be relevant for that clinic’s specialty and help to facilitate physician-patient conversations.  When you’re at the doctor’s office, sitting in a gown (or in the passenger seat supporting an ill parent), wouldn’t you prefer fact-based, custom information that’s helpful and supportive of the conversation you’re about to have with your physician?

On the other hand, there are also moments of the health journey when patients don’t want to dig further into their treatment plan or condition and prefer access to content that simply entertains or distracts them.  We as marketers need to take into account the range of experiences that happen within the point of care and provide content that aligns with and supports these unique moments.

The most important thing to remember is that patient needs vary within the POC environment, and you can’t take a “one size fits all” approach with your messages within each channel.  The diversity of needs and experiences is prompting the space to evolve beyond just awareness.  New trends within the space include patient education, adherence, support group registration, and more.  The channel is poised for continued growth and we, as healthcare marketers, need to continue to innovate so that everyone entering the POC space can feel informed, inspired, entertained, and renewed during the most critical moments of care.

 

Matt McNally

doctor_office_waiting_room-Point-of-Care-POC-DALLE-1200x686.jpeg
DTC-In-Perspective by Bob Ehrlich

DTC in Perspective: Point of Care (POC) Marketing Challenges

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…”
-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.

Bob Ehrlich

DALL·E-2024-03-30-21.36.24-A-simple-line-drawing-with-a-minimalist-design-set-against-a-vibrant-crimson-background.-The-image-should-feature-a-central-hear.jpg
DTC in FocusDTC NewsGuest ColumnistSponsored Content

Check the Pulse of Your Heart Health Marketing

August 17, 2017 0
Sponsored Content

Every 42 seconds, someone in the US has a heart attack. Each minute, someone dies from a heart disease-related event.1

Even though heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the US, many adults are uninformed of the causes, symptoms and proper treatment of heart-related conditions. In fact, according to PatientPoint research, over half of patients who are treated for heart health said their issues were unexpected. Further studies have found 70% of adults are not familiar with symptoms associated with heart disease.2

As these statistics reveal, the need for education and support materials for patients at the point of care is paramount – and critical to pharma companies’ success. Because if heart health isn’t top of mind for most adults, it’s likely your treatment isn’t, either. And with nearly half (47%) of cardiologists now restricted, gaining awareness among physicians is also a growing challenge.3

To ensure the right message is delivered to these heart “unhealthy” patients at the right time, PatientPoint conducts in-depth research in the space. Here’s a snapshot of patients who visited cardiologist offices installed with the PatientPoint Communicate – Cardiology Waiting Room Digital Screens Program:

  • Average age: 60 years
  • Gender: 60% female
  • Race: 79% white / Caucasian
  • Employment status: 59% retired
  • 42% are accompanied by another adult
  • 59% want to lose weight
  • Top conditions identified to be at risk for or diagnosed with: high blood pressure / hypertension (72%), high cholesterol (68%), arthritis (55%), heart disease (53%), heart attack or cardiac event (48%)

This information enables us to develop content specifically tailored to these conditions, gaining unprecedented positioning as a trusted consultant to our partners – clients, physicians and patients – to ensure their message makes the most impact at each important moment.

Let’s look at each of these points a little more closely:

  • Waiting room: Patients say the waiting room is often the most stressful part of their visit to the doctor. Reinforcing your brand message alongside easy-to-understand digital information regarding heart health, healthy living tips and personalized messages from the practice will put your brand top of mind right before patients visit with the doctor. Heart patients don’t want to hear about arthritis content. We speak the patient language.
  • Exam room: Once in the exam room, patients crave in-depth education. Interactive touchscreens bring health information to life, whether it’s through a personalized quiz, short article or a brand testimonial video. Once the doctor arrives, he’s likely to use the touchscreen to show the patient exactly what’s happening in her heart via full-color, 3D anatomical models. It’s here where your brand can provide the support and savings information to help guide discussions and, ultimately, decision-making.
  • After the visit: Because the risk factors for heart disease and stroke are directly related to lifestyle choices, continual engagement between provider, pharma company and patient is important to ensure treatment success. We know those age 45-64 (the common age range for the onset of many cardiovascular conditions) still see print as a valuable information resource,4 and including your message in brochures patients can take home and reference later will help reinforce your brand as part of the solution to living a longer, healthier life.

The scale of the cardiovascular market is driving greater demands of quality outcomes data. Providing the right education to patients and providers at the right moments will help pharma companies remove barriers to access and support long-term adherence.

 

References

  1. American Heart Association, 2015
  2. Cleveland Clinic survey, 2014
  3. ZS Associates, “AccessMonitor,” 2015 Executive Summary
  4. 2015 Two Sides North America

Linda Ruschau

engage-uninterested.webp
DTC-In-Perspective by Bob Ehrlich

DTC in Perspective: Patient Engagement–The Hot Topic

June 26, 2015 0
Bob Ehrlich
“Patient engagement will be the hot new topic…”
-Bob Ehrlich

We are hearing the term patient engagement a lot these days. It is the subject of many blogs, articles and conferences. But what is it? That depends on who is defining it. From a drug makers perspective patient engagement is getting prospective drug users to know about your disease category, drug and keeping them persistent and compliant once taking it. From a provider perspective, it means the process of dealing with patients from appointment setting, office visit, post visit follow up, and handling patient questions and concerns.

From the patient perspective it means how do providers and drug companies deal with them as customers. Patient engagement has become a popular term lately. It has emerged out of the changing dynamics of patient care. The patient today is paying more of the bill through higher co-pays and deductibles. They are much more sensitive to what things cost and their share of it.

That means they no longer will be blindly doing whatever the doctor tells them to do in terms of tests, prescriptions, and procedures. Physicians are ill-prepared to engage patients. The busy provider is now being peppered with cost and coverage questions. They also are being asked to justify what services they perform on a cost/benefit basis. These busier than ever doctors are now being asked to be cost experts. That is very difficult with the opaque nature of what services cost.

We are seeing a shift continue in the growth of patient knowledge. Combined with that patients being asked to pay more and we get a patient who demands to be consulted on what is done for them and at what cost. Patient engagement also means more digital medicine, as busy patients and doctors are going to rely more on remote exams, monitoring, e-consultations, and electronic health records.

A more engaged patient is more likely to be a healthier patient. Having access to more information, through face to face and digital platforms, will help patients understand what care actually makes a difference in terms of outcomes. Patient engagement means more business opportunities for health media and application providers. The physician’s office and retail pharmacies will become central in the effort to engage patients through existing and new media applications. ​

Clearly, engaging patients means providers need to rethink how to delight consumers through the entire process of care. I am sure we are at the low end of the customer delight scale. Successful providers will stress patient engagement and satisfaction. Drug companies are part of that process. I am sure most consumers are not yet delighted or engaged very well by drug makers. Satisfaction is a function of many things. Drug price, efficacy, dose convenience, side effects, follow up services, clarity of message, ease of contacting, and dealing with problems are all factors in engaging and satisfying patients.

I expect patient engagement will be the new hot topic across the provider world. There is absolutely no reason that health care cannot rise to levels of customer satisfaction of other industries. We have a long way to go but the winners will be those that recognize patient demands and satisfy new expectations.

Bob Ehrlich

DTC in FocusGuest Columnist

What’s the Role of Disease Awareness in Search?

May 20, 2015

Most pharmaceutical marketers understand the importance of including search marketing in their media plans. Often the champion of the final click, a good paid search campaign contributes to the overall success of any advertising effort and connects your brand to active seekers within the marketplace. Unfortunately, advertisers often focus the majority of their attention on the brand.com site and, at times, overlook the importance role disease awareness (DA) sites play within search strategy through enabling the option of executing a multiple listing strategy.

Let’s take a step back and look at how a good DA site provides marketers with the opportunity to better capitalize search results.

But… what if I’m not first-to-market?

I know what you’re thinking – unless you’re at the helm of a first-to-market treatment, you’re probably thinking that a DA site just doesn’t fit your strategy. Certainly first-to-market competitors have a great opportunity to educate and grow interest in a category for patients and HCPs with an awareness site. However, the opportunity to influence this audience on a condition or disease state exists for more than just the first-to-market competitor. Unbranded education content generally resonates strongly with audiences wary of an overtly branded message and provides marketers with a forum to set the stage for a branded message to follow at a later point in time.

What’s more, a proper DA site need not be overly complex or represent the pinnacle in site design to be effective. Instead, focus investment on good, quality content that stands out from the crowd and strikes a new position on the condition. Savvy digital marketers can take this opportunity to set the table and influence what patients and HCPs should expect or demand from the category. Following on-brand messages can then reinforce differentiation to maximize this added perception. Examples of differentiation can include cost, safety, or even dosage and delivery (e.g., why take an injection when treatment is available via pill).

Finally, DA sites generally resonate better than brand.com sites for unbranded search campaigns. Diagnostic indicators of post-click success – including bounce rate, page views per visit, and even time on site – generally return stronger numbers when an unbranded searcher consumes DA content. With the right site design and layout, the engaged audience can be converted to the brand.com site and ultimately shaped to take the action the advertiser desires.

Once advertisers commit to adding a DA site to the portfolio, a multiple listings approach can be pursued within search. Below, I’ve broken out what makes this tactic so powerful for search advertisers.

Competitive blocking

This additional listing provides added flexibility to advertisers looking to provide active seekers with as many opportunities as possible to connect with their brand and their message. You may already be following this strategy without knowing it – having a separate website for HCPs and patients enables a second listing to populate the search results with a message unique to each audience. The DA site furthers this approach and provides the opportunity to reach both audiences who may be higher up the funnel.

Some advertisers truly embrace the multiple listing approach and create separate DA sites for patients and HCPs, creating yet another additional search listing. The possibilities are endless!

Added coverage and efficiency

Employing a multiple listing strategy provides a great way to even the playing field against competitors with deep pockets determined to remain in the top position. Added listings provide added impression share and SOV opportunities at greater efficiency than an all-or-nothing approach to search positioning (which is why I always advocate employing a separate domain for your patient and HCP brand sites).

If each of your site properties achieves even a 15% impression share, you can quickly begin accruing over half of the available search opportunity without spending the same cost per visitor that you would with fewer listings forced to remain at the top to ensure traffic volume forecasts are achieved.

Flexible messaging opportunities

Multiple listings provide advertisers with greater opportunities to determine the optimal investment levels within search. What’s more, using a test-and-learn approach often reveals which unbranded categories make sense to drive directly to brand.com and which respond better to the unbranded table setting of your DA site – and of course, which terms should have the opportunity to drive to both!

Know thy funnel

Many brand managers regard the branded site as the best chance to engage patients and HCPs. Unfortunately, speaking to a brand naïve audience searching on general condition terms via a branded site usually leads to poor engagement and a questionable user experience. Since we know that qualified patients and HCPs tend to search using basic, single-phrase keywords, it remains difficult to assume what level of brand awareness a searcher has based on the keyword they input.

Disease awareness websites play a critical role in successfully engaging patients and HCPs who may remain higher up in the conversion funnel. Multiple listings provide the opportunity to not only engage in message testing but also audience A/B testing. Which site property makes the most sense for these keywords and ad groups?

Creating a DA site provides brand managers with added flexibility in how they create and execute their paid search campaigns. Having the advantage of added listings in the search results allows advertisers the opportunity to customize their messaging and audience alignment approach at a much more granular level, all while returning greater efficiency and engagement.

Oliver J. Nelson

DTC in FocusGuest Columnist

Does the Rise of Payer Power Mean the End of Patient Empowerment?

March 18, 2015

At a recent pharmaceutical marketing conference in New York, speakers and attendees were focused on – and visibly concerned about – a massive sea change happening in healthcare. The concern went well beyond “the best way to implement wearables into pharma programs,” or “how pharma can get involved in social media.” This wasn’t about shiny objects. This was about business. The theme? The impact of the Affordable Care Act is here. And increasing scrutiny on costs and outcomes is having an unprecedented impact on our industry.

The conference-opening panel, titled “How Will Marketing Innovation Help Pharma Adapt to the Massive Changes in Healthcare?” highlighted this conundrum well. Monique Levy, Vice President of Research, Manhattan Research, may have sent a bit of a panic throughout the room with her provocative point that “it’s time to face the music: treatment decisions are not happening the way they used to be.” Levy cited Manhattan Research findings that the real treatment decisions are happening elsewhere, and, in her opinion, “the glory days of patient empowerment are over.”

It’s no secret that, thanks to the Affordable Care Act and a variety of other factors, more and more treatment decisions are being made by payers – not providers, and – to Levy’s point – not patients. Levy maintained that patients may have preferred choices – they may even ask their doctors about them – but the payers are in control. For an industry that, for decades, has viewed its primary audiences and critical decision-makers as physicians and consumers, this represents a fundamental shift. Craig Kemp of Merck Vaccines, who also spoke on the panel, agreed. “There are fewer options now to promote pharmaceutical brands, and there will be even less in the future … Things are changing fast.”

So does the rise of payer power mean the end of patient empowerment? A recent study published in Health Affairs provides an alternative viewpoint. In the two-year study, researchers analyzed patient “activation” levels for more than 32,000 adult patients at Fairview Health Services in Minnesota. For the study, activation was defined as a “metric used to quantify a person’s knowledge, skills and confidence in managing one’s own health and healthcare.” (Some might call that empowerment.) To summarize the findings, patients with higher levels of activation demonstrated more improved healthcare outcomes and lower healthcare costs. In contrast, those with lower activation levels experienced significantly reduced chances of positive outcomes and their healthcare costs were higher. Researchers saw costs increase or decrease as patients’ activation levels changed. In other words, empowered patients had healthier outcomes and cost the healthcare system less than their less-empowered counterparts.

This study proves ending patient empowerment may not be the best option after all. In fact, it provides an important link from patient empowerment to the two things that matter most to payers: costs and outcomes.

While there’s no doubt we are experiencing a massive shift in the way healthcare is “consumed” and decisions are made, it’s important to not lose sight of the big picture. Imagine a world, for example, where pharmaceutical companies adopted a model of only “selling to” and speaking with payers, leaving the HCP and consumer completely out of the discussion. Of all of the stakeholders in this decision-making mix, isn’t it the patient who has the most at stake?

Yes, there are more challenges and barriers than ever before. Yes, there are many unknowns about the future. But that doesn’t mean the industry must choose one audience over the other, or shift its focus completely from one realm to the next.

Think about the outcomes that matter to payers and how you can measure and report your products’ impact on those outcomes. Encourage ties between empowerment, education, outcomes, and cost. Prove the worth of your products. And if those products work better with adjunct services and tools, prove the worth of those, too, and they will be reimbursed.

And yes – still – think about what patients want and need, and serve that up. Empower them with knowledge, skills, confidence, and choices. Because it’s the patient – the true “end user” – that is the greatest reminder of why we are in this business to begin with.

Wendy Blackburn

DTC in FocusGuest Columnist

To Segment or Not to Segment? That is the Question in Pharma Marketing.

March 18, 2015

Having split my career neatly into two halves – first non-pharma, then pharma – I feel I have a good sense of what best practices can, and should, be lifted from the regular world into pharma marketing. In my experience, attitudinal segmentation by disease area isn’t one of them. In the non-pharma world, a segmentation study can be extremely helpful, and can help you narrow your gaze to a laser focus on the unmet needs of the most valuable target audience.

To clarify, I’m talking about good old-fashioned customized attitudinal segmentation studies. The ones that start with a foundation of qualitative research to uncover the range of attitudes, perceptions, and needs that exist in your category, and then plug those dimensions into a quantitative survey – culminating in a neatly segmented pie of a condition-specific universe. Each of those slices represents a target that is more or less valuable to your brand, based on unique mindset and demographics. These segments go on to inform creative development and help you make sense of future tracking studies and copy testing.

In the non-pharma world, a segmentation study can be extremely helpful, and can help you narrow your gaze to a laser focus on the unmet needs of the most valuable target audience. For example, I imagine that, years ago, Volvo figured out that among the car-buying public, there were people with deep pockets whose greatest concern was keeping their kids safe. They then developed deep equity in owning safety –  literally – and in their communications, based on the understanding that this segment was real, and its needs unmet. Similarly, Dove was successful in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) world by segmenting the market and figuring out that an opportunity existed to serve the needs of women who rejected popular notions of beauty.

Why does this custom attitudinal segmentation fall short in pharma? Because there is a profound difference between pharma and non-pharma that reduces the value of segmentation. Primarily, there is a fundamental difference in how consumers enter the category in each world. In the consumer world of goods and services, people choose to be in the buying universe. One chooses to identify as a Volvo person vs. a Subaru person vs. an Audi person. One nominates oneself into that universe. One chooses to buy into Dove’s brand image vs. Chanel.

In pharma, the rules are starkly different; no one chooses to be in the diabetes club, or the psoriasis club. You enter these clubs kicking and screaming, and if you had your way, medicine would not be in your life at all. Yes, if you have a condition that is profoundly impactful, such as arthritis vs. an asymptomatic condition such as high blood pressure, you will enter the club sooner rather than later, but ultimately, regardless of the condition, pharma is the only category where the primary end users want little to do with it (which is why caregivers are such an attractive target… but that’s a whole other article).

So, how do you profile your best opportunity?

The fact remains that to anchor great communications and build a brand, it’s critical to understand what portion of the disease universe represents the best opportunity. The good news is that a different type of segmentation can play a role here; specifically, a segmentation of overall healthcare attitudes (as opposed to a segmentation of patients diagnosed with a particular condition). Everyone has healthcare attitudes, and everyone who consumes healthcare (that is, the entire human population) can be divided into recognizable healthcare attitude segments.

If you work in healthcare marketing, you have seen these segments under various names. There is the Proactive Health Preserver – the person who takes charge of their health, has a strong sense of identity, does not allow themselves to be defined by their condition, and plays a strong role in their own treatment decisions. At the other end of the spectrum, there is the Disengaged and Uninvolved. That nomenclature speaks for itself. And in between, there are another two or three segments that represent people you would recognize at a backyard barbeque.

The reason that general healthcare attitudinal segmentation is more valuable than a condition-specific one is that healthcare attitudes remain fixed across conditions, and often across time. A Proactive Health Preserver (or a Solution Seeker or an Uninvolved) with diabetes represents essentially the same type of opportunity as a Proactive Health Preserver with psoriasis. The condition-specific study does not need to be fielded, because you can predict in advance what the segments will look like and who will be deemed valuable in DTC terms. Spoiler alert: it’s nearly always the Proactive Health Preserver/Solution Seeker (or whatever he/she is called in your study), because they are the ones who are most open to medication and most influential in their treatment decisions.

Further, over time, attitudinal segments tend to remain stable, because they tap into profound perceptions about sense of self and authority that are central to who we are as people. For example, people with a strong internalized identity who are not defined by external circumstances (such as their diabetes) are likely to retain this mindset over the long term. They will see medication as a tool in their arsenal and will not avoid treatment because they don’t want to be “that guy with diabetes.” They will research treatment options and partner in their treatment plans.

Similarly, those who are unable to extricate their identity from their condition are not likely to change this attitude over the long term, and those who leave it all to the doctor are likely to continue doing so over time. This is opposed to other types of segmentation (such as patient-journey based), which, because they are rooted in an external temporal structure rather than an internal mindset, are not truly segmentations. Those segmentations map a patient population as it moves along a disease path. This information may be useful when developing a CRM program, but again, that’s another article.

What can a pharma company (and its agency) do to bring segments to life?

Rather than spend several hundred thousand dollars on segmentation studies that continue to reveal the same segments when the dust clears, a pharma brand team would be better off using existing data to bring their core segments to life. For example, by using the healthcare segmentation already provided by syndicated studies from Kantar Media (MARS) or The Futures Group, and then layering your disease state over that segmentation, we can then profile these augmented segments to determine where your best opportunity lies. The result is a detailed view of attitudes, demographics, and actual media consumption that is actionable. This profile can be cross-referenced with other sources such as qualitative research to flesh out the richness and detail of your target and bring them to life.

What can I do with my de facto segments? The segmentation keys (provided by the vendor) can overlay your de facto segments on to your customer database, so you can create customized messaging for priority segments. You can fold them into your tracking study, so you can track the impact of communications against the patients who are most valuable for your brand. And you can use the segment screening criteria to recruit patients into qualitative research. To learn how to do this, all you have to do is call whatever syndicated vendor makes the most sense for your brand.

So, I still need to do qualitative research? Yes! Leveraging off-the-shelf segmentation with an overlay of disease state does not negate the need for in-depth qualitative research among patients. Understanding how your patients think and feel at every step of the journey – the obstacles and opportunities at key touchpoints – is crucial. The research is also critical to bringing your segments to life in the rich and nuanced way that is necessary to anchor great briefs, and great work.

However, to ensure that your qualitative insights are reflective of your key segments, it’s important to put thought into recruiting these segments for qualitative, which can be done, again, by leveraging the segment tools that can be provided by the vendor. If that’s not possible, the next best approach is to apply a proxy for the segmentation key, ensuring all recruits are proactive about their health and influential in their own treatment decisions – attitudes that, when it comes down to it, are really the key criteria for evaluating the value of one segment versus another.

Deb Silverman

DTC in FocusGuest Columnist

How to Better Connect & Engage with Patients?

March 18, 2015

The goal of any support program should answer this question: What factors must we use in the program that will instill patient confidence in our product – and by default our company? Trust is built by a series of actions and those actions speak volumes more than any words or discount prices ever can! A recent article in eMarketer reported seniors do not trust pharmaceutical company sites and prefer WebMD more.  In this work, companies need to be brave and work harder to deliver a better “patient experience,” while a patient is “on the product.”

A situational review

  • Patients do not want a relationship with a product; they want an “experience.”
  • Federal regulations tend to inhibit innovation in these pharmaceutical support programs.
  • The pharma industry’s patient support programs, in terms of the information they provide, are not valued as they once were. So many other avenues are available, and considered more trustworthy, to patients to get information, including the Internet and patient advocate groups. Maybe it is time to give Regulatory and the other legal protectors some new assignments.
  • Competitive pricing could force excellent programs to be marginalized and undifferentiated (i.e. Gilead and Abbvie in hepatitis C).
  • Patient Engagement is the hot new topic. Not only is pharma trying to come up with a viable, profitable formula for PE, but the Accountable Care Act is forcing many ACOs, integrated delivery networks, and other health care delivery system to tackle this issue as well. With so many different health care systems putting their unique spin to the issue, other questions arise: what works, what does not, how to separate the good from the bad? Think mobile app development.
  • The industry has examples of good and bad pilots. When programs scale to larger patient populations, they lose their patient focus. Outside of specialty drugs, physicians will choose DTC efforts over patient support programs as a factor influencing prescription recommendations.

The first problem is inherent in the program itself: Not all are ground in proven theoretical based methodologies that assist with a patient’s needs. In our opinion, the way to connect and engage is remove the current program silos. Commercial organizations need to consolidate approaches, converge vendors, look to execute more than innovate, and, most importantly, measure and value engagement as much as they do reach and lead generation efforts. Senior leadership should consider looking at the total spend as many fail to ask if all those dollars being spent can be focused more effectively to deliver better program execution.

It has been done before

We frequently mention the work! Biogen Idec demonstrated this with its MS drugs (Avonex & Tysabri) in the in the late 90’s to early 2000’s. Its focus was execution excellence and customer support. The call center and customer relationship management approach acted as the quarterback of its patient focused efforts. Its current website says it handles 800,000 calls a year.

Patients wanted to know about what to expect on therapy, they wanted to know what side effects they would experience, especially with Tysbari’s known side effect, Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy ( PML). Because of the regulatory requirements, the company embraced this as an opportunity, not a burden, to disclose potential side effects. Moreover, in 2002, Biogen had to take these issues head on because of other products in the market and the high visible media reports on PML.

Back then, management felt it important to have an employee assigned to each patient or caregiver as the single point of contact and relationship steward. This required consolidation and coordination with the ad agency, PAP, HUB, Co-Pay Card, Reimbursement and Benefits investigation, specialty pharmacy and technology.

It’s not a stretch to say that, 13 years later, this plan is still literally paying off: To quote a recent Motley Fool: “Biogen Idec’s MS drugs include the billion-dollar blockbuster drugs Avonex, Tysabri, and Tecfidera, as well as the company’s newly launched Plegridy … Sales of Biogen Idec’s MS drugs increased 47% to $7.93 billion, and its total sales increased 40% to $9.7 billion last year.”

In conclusion, keep in mind these points:

  • Doing this right with patients will produce the brand’s best product advocates.
  • Switch the metric quantified! Measure and reward commercial and medical teams on the number of patients who get better on the therapy as a result of the product and support; not on how many new patient starts were achieved in the past week. Measure engagement, get engagement is what produces real results!
  • “What have you done to help a patient on our product today?” should be stuck on a post-it on every employee’s computer, laptop and iPad.

If the product works, produces outcomes, and patients can easily access information they want, this will help them. They will get started on therapy and realize the value of staying on therapy for the long term. Consider who saved Tysabri from a market recall.

Robert Nauman

Older Posts