DTC, DTC Pharmaceutical Marketing, Direct to Consumer, Pharma Marketer

The week in review in pharma marketing & healthcare news

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Here is a summary of some of the stories that made news this week in pharma and healthcare: Ex-FDA Official: Don’t expect too much guidance when to comes to the FDA and social media .

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Two days of meeting on social media for….

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

I was skeptical when the FDA held two days of meetings on social media last year and was even more skeptical when I saw that a majority of the presenters were from agencies who stand to benefit from more relaxed social media marketing oversight. After all that we know that: A former FDA official is saying “If the industry thinks the FDA is going to come out with thoughtful and complete guidance on how to use social media in 110 different circumstances, it’s going be very disappointed. ” via eMarketer That over 60% of consumers do not want to hear from pharma companies on social media (via Rodale DTC study ) The FDA, if it follows the safe road that Mr Pitts suggests, can regulate DTC marketing but the issue at hand is that DTC marketing is evolving and changing beyond the FDA’s ability to regulate it

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Former FDA official: don’t expect much guidance on social media

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

“If the industry thinks the FDA is going to come out with thoughtful and complete guidance on how to use social media in 110 different circumstances, it’s going be very disappointed.” This quote is from Peter Pitts who was associate commissioner for external relations at the Food and Drug Administration between 2002 and 2004 and helped draft the most current guidance on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. He also testified at the FDA’s hearings on social media in the fall of 2009

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Caregivers looking for support and answers online

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Nearly 16M adults in the US are caregivers. 80% of them are caring for another adult (18+), 67% are caring for a relative. When I was marketing to Type 1 diabetics I learned, through research, that a lot of moms and dads were concerned about how to monitor their child’s blood glucose, especially when they at school or playing with friends.

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Web first place people go for health information. But you knew that already didn’t you?

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

Some interesting data from eMarketer this morning. The first tidbit was that the first place people go for health information is the Internet.

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“People don’t want to interact with our site they just want the basic information”

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

In case of some of you were living in Siberia for the past 10 years: the Web is about interactivity not stagnant content. This is especially true for drug.com websites and if you’re just going to launch a site that is pretty much stagnant than save your money and buy a pizza for the team instead because you’re not going to make a difference in patients and consumers who visit your site. Earlier this year I received a call from a client who hired an interactive agency to build a great website for over $1 million

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Don’t take all the data at face value..use common sense

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Over the last few weeks there has been a lot of data in the form of research reports circulating on my website as well as others. A lot of the research is trying to make sense over social media so that marketers can quantify it like they do everything else to determine the ROI and whether it warrants investment. While the Rodale DTC study said that 62% of consumers did not want to hear from pharma in social media (no that does NOT mean that 38% do !) you can’t and shouldn’t assume this applies to all products and brands

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Reality: You’re fighting for a smaller and smaller audience

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

The Rodale DTC study may have been an eye opener to a lot of people but those of us in the industry know that DTC ads are becoming less and less effective.

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62% of consumers not interested in hearing from pharma on social media

Monday, July 19th, 2010

There’s a lot of good information in the Rodale DTD Study and it validates the research that I have been doing for a client for a better part of the year.

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