Are You Crowdsourcing Your Brand Strategy?

July 30, 2012

Beware the Strategic ‘Booty Call’

Filed under: What We Think — amanning @ 11:37 am

The definition of a ‘booty call’ (Note: this is the cleaned up version) is when someone calls at the last minute in hopes of receiving an immediate benefit from you without the hassle of a long-term relationship. Usually these calls occur because the booty caller wasn’t able to get the aforementioned ‘benefit’ from someone else.

Now we all know the most common use of this term, but I’m here to tell you that booty calls also happen in the business world – all of the time.

In fact, brand planning is the official strategic booty call season in Pharma. This time of year at ROF, we get lots of calls from old Clients who we haven’t heard from in a while. Frequently, our last conversations from the most recent engagement ended with, “Yeah, we’ve got that covered internally.” or “Our agency can handle it.” Then, several months later, there’s an urgent voicemail or email requesting participation in a meeting “later this week” or asking for a service that normally takes 9 weeks to be completed in only 4 weeks, so the results can be ready for a big, upcoming presentation that’s been on the books for months.

The thing about booty calls is that they’re unfulfilling for both parties and rarely ever evolve into a long-term relationship. Relationships are based on respect, and respect can only be earned over time. Neither of these elements are present in last minute meeting invites or RFPs with unrealistic timelines.

At Return on Focus, we see the best results when our Clients plan ahead and partner with us from the beginning of a project or process, however we realize this isn’t always possible. When you find yourself making a strategic ‘booty call’, ask yourself who was supposed to provide the ‘benefit’ that isn’t. Addressing them should be your first order of business.

And… if you become a habitual booty caller, don’t be surprised if we eventually say, “We’re just not that into you.”

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July 22, 2012

Where is the Feedback Loop in Your Adherence Plan?

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Patient Marketing,What We Think — dreinhardt @ 10:02 pm

Results from our research indicate that the number of adherence-enhancing interventions that pharmaceutical and biotechnology marketers have put together to ‘help’ overwhelms both physicians and patients alike. The issue is more pronounced when you look at the fact that the average baby boomer is taking more than five chronic medications a day, which translates into the potential of five different adherence programs trying to gain mindshare with one patient at the same time.

As one physician interviewed in market research recently aptly put it – “Every prescription product has an adherence program, but not every prescription product needs one.” So if you have a brand that really needs a program, how do you ensure it gets the appropriate attention? It has to start with the healthcare prescriber, but how do you get them to engage with and recommend your program for their patients?

The main complaint that physicians express with adherence programs is that there isn’t a feedback loop to let them know how their patients are doing. Many physicians understand the issues with HIPAA and would be satiated with an aggregate view of the program’s utility, and incorporating a feedback loop into your adherence plan could differentiate your adherence program for both the prescriber and the patient.

Would you really recommend someone participate in a program without ever finding out what people thought about it? Why should you expect doctors to do the same?

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July 17, 2012

CPQA Should Have a New Meaning

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Patient Marketing,What We Think — dreinhardt @ 11:30 am

The addition of the ‘Q’ in CPQA often refers to qualified, but based on quantitative evidence garnered by ROF for a large biopharma . . . it should probably stand for “questionable”. A disturbing trend in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry is the lack of independent assessment of the quality of the CPA leads that are delivered to our clients.

The promise of CPA is that you’re paying for a ‘qualified’ lead at a fixed price and therefore some higher level of engagement and verification is presumed with this qualification. Our evidence has demonstrated just the opposite. Many clients are seeing the bulk of their leads come from CPA, which leads to inflated database sizes and management costs, but primarily delivers patients who are barely, if at all, qualified and not all that likely to take the desired action.

Like all initiatives, doesn’t it make sense to objectively and periodically evaluate the evidence supporting the assertion that CPA investments are a safe bet for your patient acquisition strategy?

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July 9, 2012

Are You Crowdsourcing Your Brand Strategy?

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,What We Think — dreinhardt @ 9:41 pm

According to Wikipedia, crowdsourcing is a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people. The most common type of crowdsourcing assignment that you might be familiar with is running a logo design contest. This is where you share a common creative brief with a diverse, distributed set of graphic designers that provide potential solutions for payment.

At ROF, we are starting to see pharmaceutical and biotechnology marketers embrace crowdsourcing with their most sensitive element – strategy. The approach boils down to gaining input on the brand strategy from all corners of the organization and deriving the final strategy based on this ‘disciplined’ approach.

However, the disadvantages of this approach are many, including*:

Poor quality feedback – unlike the logo design example where you’re soliciting feedback from trained graphic designers, the respondents are not necessarily trained or well practiced in developing strategy
Popularity Misleads – the number of votes cast for a particular strategy has nothing to do with whether or not it’s the most impactful for the brand
Wrong Direction – amateur strategists too often lack the nuisances of the marketing and regulatory environment to provide thoughtful direction
Derailment – by soliciting feedback, you automatically put yourself on the hook to provide a detailed response and frequent updates to those providing input, ultimately derailing or delaying the process
Disengagement by Best Talent – high performers, well-versed in strategy development and steeped in market dynamics may withdraw from participation in a popularity contest requiring no credentials for participation

Crowdsourcing your strategy may certainly seem fast, appear to be cheap, and feel quantitative, however the results yield a bloated, unfocused strategy derived from group-think, not marketing science.

*Crowdsourcing: 9 Hidden Disadvantages of Crowdsourcing as a Method of Generating a Great New Business Name by Marcia Yudkin

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