November « 2010 « Return On Focus --- http://returnonfocus.com --- Return On Focus

Majority of DTC Advertising Stimulates an ‘Inquiry’ Not a Branded Request

November 28, 2010

Majority of DTC Advertising Stimulates an ‘Inquiry’ Not a Branded Request

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Patient Marketing,What We Think — Tags: , , , , , — dreinhardt @ 8:12 pm

It’s got little more proof than an urban legend, but most of us have heard the statistic that 80%+ of patients have requested a prescription for a specific brand following exposure to a DTC advertisement.

I’m not looking to assail the percentage—I’ll save that for another post. But, I do want to challenge the action. The research that we’ve conducted at Return on Focus has uncovered a nuanced, but important distinction in describing the actions taken by patients as a result of being exposed to a DTC advertisement.

Across more than dozen disease states ranging from primary care to specialty care, our patient research shows that almost 80% of patients characterize their actions as an inquiry, not a request.


How can I be so sure? The answer most often selected in our research is “Ask MD about Product X, but listen if he/she did not think it was right for me.” Currently, most campaigns might generate an inquiry about a given brand, but it’s far from the empowered, branded request we all want to believe is happening.

At ROF we have gone so far to create an entire service offering – Action & Articulation – as part of our Communication Platform Development work to ensure the resulting patient articulation results in a prescription for the Client’s brand.

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November 21, 2010

Is This Thing On? Aligning Media Investments with Channel Consumption.

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Patient Marketing,What We Think — Tags: , , , , , , , , — dreinhardt @ 6:18 pm

We recently completed an independent analysis for a client examining the evidence regarding channel consumption for the Young Adult demo of 18 – 24 years of age. This demo is important to a wide range of disease states ranging from Cystic Fibrosis to ADHD to Contraceptives. The end goal for our project was to elucidate the channel consumption implication for this demo on DTC advertising.

Beginning with data from Forrester Research, we were surprised to learn that we were starting from a general deficit as an industry.

The Forrester data revealed that DTC Marketers have not traditionally displayed acumen in aligning spending with channel consumption. Total media consumption for our target demo was at a staggering 10 hours, 45 minutes. The consumption for print and newspapers was just 12 minutes down from 20 minutes five years ago.

It’s not really that surprising given we have all witnessed the headlines of newspapers cutting back and magazines struggling to monetize the Internet to make up for lost subscriptions. Print probably never deserved 34% of all the DTC spend to begin with, and channel consumption of Young Adults is so stark I’m hoping someone will be shocked into more evidence-based media investments.

Additional evidence for the lack of alignment between channel consumption and advertising spending was brought forth by an analysis recently completed by Morgan Stanley.

How much evidence do pharmaceutical marketers need?

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November 15, 2010

The Placebo Effect of Pharma Social Media Endeavors

Filed under: Patient Marketing,Social Media,What We Think — Tags: , , , , , — amanning @ 9:41 pm

The definition of placebo is a preparation that contains no active ingredient. To date, most attempts by pharmaceutical companies to ‘engage’ in social media by disabling all comments, like/dislike features, and sharing tools have had the net effect of removing the active ingredient from social media entirely.

I’m inclined to believe that our collective euphoria around social media as an industry is akin to a classic placebo effect, where the outcome improves simply because there is an expectation that it will. This short-term impact is fed more by internal marketing hype (i.e., our brand is the first to have an app) than any real customer value. Like any placebo, the influence is short lived and inactive agents are ultimately replaced with real product.

So, what does this mean for Pharma? Although initial industry forays into social media may have a benefit for some patients, unless they have access to the genuine product, the results are likely to be artificially inflated and transient.

Now, will you provide your customers with a genuine social media product, or are you content to wait for the placebo effect to wear off?

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November 8, 2010

HELP . . . Where’s the Mall Map? I’m Lost Within Your Tactical Landscape

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Patient Marketing,Professional Marketing,Social Media,What We Think — Tags: , , , , , , , — dreinhardt @ 10:51 pm

As Brand Plans become more bloated, I am getting lost within the tactical landscape and many product managers are feeling the same way.

How can you tell? I can tell when I ask to see the tactical landscape or, as we like to refer to it at ROF, the ‘Mall Map.’ It’s the one page schematic that shows how all the tactics for a given brand link together, identifies the dependencies for each initiative, and helps the marketer determine where there might be potential bottlenecks between initiatives (or even vendors). How is it possible to manage today’s complicated brand plan without having the ‘You Are Here’ dot?

I did a quick poll of ten brands and not one had the complete Mall Map. Sure, the e-Marketing Team had one for their online tactics, but it was just one piece of the puzzle. What was the general response to my polling?
Dan – Is that something you could put together for us because without it how can you do marketing effectiveness?

Now that’s exactly my point!

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