Should Pharma Do Tumblr?

Peter Houston (@Flipping_Pages) asked "Could Pharma Do Tumblr?" in a guest post to PharmExecBlog (here).

"I’m not suggesting that anyone switch their social media budget to Tumblr today on the strength of Yahoo’s involvement," said Houston. "But it’s worth keeping an eye on what Yahoo does and how the Tumblr audience reponds. If they get the content marketing part of the play right and the user base keeps active, Tumblr might just make it into your social media marketing plan."

My question replaces "could" with "should," which is probably what Houston meant to say -- it just got lost in translation from UK English to US English :-)

Of course, pharma "could" do Tumblr, but as Houston himself points out, there are many reasons why it "shouldn't."

First, the Tumblr demographics are not right for pharma. Tumblr, says Houston, is used "mainly by a 13 to 25 age group attracted by its 'social looseness'."

Second, "social looseness" is not an appropriate format for pharma, which cannot even abide comments on its Facebook and YouTube offerings.

Of course, Yahoo!, which now owns Tumblr, may change that and make Tumblr more "stodgy" and more palatable for pharma marketers even though its CEO said "Don't worry we won't screw it up." Yeah, sure. Us (former) New Yorkers have a saying: "If you believe that, I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya."

Houston says there are "a lot of potential patients" on Tumblr. Sure, when Tumblr teenagers grow up in 20 years most WILL be patients and of pharma marketing age.

Houston suggested taking a look at the #diabeticproblems tag on Tumblr to find some "patients." I was too lazy to type all that into the Tumblr search engine and just went for #diabetes. The first hit I found intrigued me because it was an edgy series of cartoons by by Colin Upton (colinupton@telus.net), an older Canadian diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. He has a series of R Crumb type comics focused on his daily life since diagnosis entitled "Diabetes Funnies." Take a look at issue #8 here, the first pane of which is reproduced below:

Colin is obviously an older guy and a good "target" for type 2 drug marketers. I can't see Novo Nordisk, however, sponsoring "Diabetes Funnies," which often drops the "f bomb."

I've just opened a Tumblr account and started exploring. Unfortunately, the "pharmaguy" user name was already taken and I  had to sign on as "realpharmaguy." No problem for me, but maybe pharma companies should open accounts just to claim their corporate names -- just in case they think that someday they "could" do Tumblr. Just sayin'

Using Social Media as an Early Predictor of a New Drug's Market Share

According to Gideon Mantel, co-founder and CEO of Treato, social media can predict the success of a new drug launch much faster than traditional methods.

"Many pharmaceutical companies try to measure the success of their launch based on weekly script trends," said Mantel in a blog post (here). "The difference between social media data and data derived from prescriptions is significant: social media data can predict the future, while script data record the past."

To illustrate this, Treato looked at patient-written social media posts on over 2,000 health blogs and forums to find mentions of Tecfidera (formerly called BG-12 during clinical trials), a new multiple sclerosis drug that Biogen launched on April 13. Since the launch of Tecfidera in mid-April, the most talked about MS drug in social media has been Tecfidera, bypassing all other MS medications and growing on a daily basis (see chart below):

The following is an edited conversation I had with Mantel:

listen to ‘Using Social Media as an Early Predictor of a New Drug's Market Share’ on Audioboo

"Our early prediction is that – assuming no significant side effects during the launch cycle – Tecfidera will gain significant market share, primarily taking it away from Tysabri, Copaxone, and Aubagio," said Mantel.

I await the results of real-world, traditional script data to see if Mantel's social-media-based predictions hold up. Although many patients may say they wish to switch to Tecfidera, as Gideon says, they may not do so if there are negative side effects -- including price! "The growing price sensitivity among patients will be an important factor," says Mantel, "and the current price may not be optimal (14% of the posts talk about price/insurance)."

Jerome "The Bus" Bettis Promotes Auvi-Q With and Without the Important Safety Information

Celebrity spokespeople seem to be all the rage in pharma marketing circles these days. I wonder, however, how closely the FDA is watching celebrity endorsements such as former NFLer Jerome Jerome “The Bus” Bettis's promotion of Sanofi's talking epinephrine injection, Auvi-Q, which is marketed for the treatment of life-threatening allergic reactions (anaphylaxis) in people who are at risk for or have a history of these reactions.

Bettis is not just promoting anaphylaxis awareness on TV shows such as the The Doctors. On TV, Bettis is actively demonstrating how the product works and naming brand names. But he

1. does not disclose that he is being paid by Sanofi to endorse Auvi-Q, and 
2. does not mention the "important safety information" (ISI), which is required by FDA regulations whenever a pharma company or its agents promote brand name products and the conditions they treat.

Here's how Bettis hawks Auvi-Q on The Doctors:



Now, compare this to the following 3.5-minute video from the official Auvi-Q Playbook Site:

Whoops! Unfortunately, there is no option to embed this video, so I am just showing you a screen shot. You can see some ISI around the frame, but note that fully ONE-HALF of this video is devoted to communicating ISI via scrolling text and voiceover! I recorded the voiceover:

listen to ‘Auvi-Q ISI’ on Audioboo

Ah! The advantages of celebrities and unregulated TV endorsements!

Will 2013 Be the Year of "Digital Pharma?"

Today, I posted on Twitter "HCP digital spend by pharma to equal that of print this year, forecast says." That tweet is getting a lot of retweets and Mike Young (@Brandshaping) responded "The times they are a changing."

I am afraid my tweet may be misleading. I should have said "HCP digital MEASURED MEDIA spend by pharma to equal that of print this year, forecast says."

My tweet points to a chart I created from data published in a whitepaper from Compas: "Follow the Money-- a Point of View on HCP Media Trends in Pharma" (find it attached to this post). Here's my chart:

This looks pretty impressive. But let's make sure we understand what we are talking about here.

First, this is about "measured media" spending focused on healthcare professionals (HCPs). "Print Media" refers to ads in medical journals, "Reprints" refer to reprints of medical journal articles that sales reps hand out to physicians, and "Digital Media" refers to online ads placed on sites frequented by physicians (e.g., WebMD). "All Other" includes Convention Media (ads at medical conventions), In-Office Media (I'm not sure what's included in this; whatever it is, it's less than 1% of the total spend), Point of Care Media (patient record forms, prescription pads and the like), and Direct Mail.

This analysis does NOT including detailing spend, which is the biggest promotional spend by pharma.

As discussed in a previous post to Pharma Marketing Blog, the pharma industry spends about $17 billion on TOTAL physician promotion: $15 billion on detailing and $2 billion on meetings (see "U.S. e-Detailing Spending Up 74% in 2012. Yet Pharma Still NOT "'Digitally Mature'"). I assume these numbers include digital, but NOT measured media spending, digital or otherwise. Digital promotion is only 5.2% of the $17 billion total. This means that the U.S. pharma industry, which spends nearly $1 billion on professional digital promotion, has a long way to go before it reaches "digital maturity" on a par with other industries. I estimate that "par" to be 20%.

The Compas whitepaper does not indicate the dollar amount of measured media spending focused on HCPs, but I am certain that it is minuscule compared to the $17 billion mentioned above. That means, therefore, that even if HCP-focused digital measured media spending is "on a par" with print measured media spending in 2013, it is still just a drop in the overall HCP promotional bucket.

Measure Differently for Healthier Returns

This week my friend Shwen Gwee, Chief Digital Officer at Chandler Chicco, volunteered me to lead the ROI "Group Roundtable Discussions" at the Social Media for Pharma Conference in Princeton, NJ. This conference was organized by Advanced Learning Institute, one of my clients.

As always, discussions of "return on investment" in pharma marketing are fraught with difficulties, especially when talking about consumer and patient focused marketing efforts and even more especially when these efforts involve social media.

I came away with two insights from the discussions I led:

1. Other than scripts written, practically everything pharma marketers measure for ROI analyses are surrogates for scripts written, and 
2. pharma brand managers move in and out of brands too frequently to consider alternatives to ROI, such as ROR ("return on relationship"), which some experts propose to measure social media effectiveness.

The only way around #2 and to leverage social media effectively, is to have high-level leaders who oversee many brand teams, who "get" social media, and who encourage the adoption of social media in all patient-oriented communications.

While I have criticized many pharma executives of being "social media dummies" (see "Pharma C-Suite Social Media Dummies: Can They Be Trained?") there are a few pioneers out there. Laura Kolodjeski and Dennis Urbaniak at Sanofi US Diabetes were mentioned by several people at the conference -- and they were recipients of the 3rd Annual Pharmaguy Social Media Pioneer Award (see "Dennis Urbaniak, Joan Mikardos, and Laura Kolodjeski of Sanofi US Receive the 3rd PharmaGuy Social Media Pioneer Award"). Urnaiak is a VP and is the role model to which pharma "social media dummies" should aspire. (Urbaniak, I know, is not in the C-suite... yet!)

Today, Dyan Bryson, Managing Director, Inspired Health, was my guest on Pharma Marketing Talk. The topic was "Why is Putting the Patient at the Center So Difficult?" One point Bryson made at the end of that interview had relevance for #1. Bryson urged pharma marketers to "measure differently" by going beyond IMS NRx (new prescription) data and following what happens AFTER the prescription is filled to better understand the patient and implement "patient-centric" marketing. Here's the relevant snippet of that interview:

listen to ‘Dyan Bryson on Measuring Differently’ on Audioboo

You can hear the entire conversation by listening to the following podcast:

Listen to internet radio with Pharmaguy on BlogTalkRadio

Pharmaguy to Present at the Roche Digital Academy

PharmaGuy (aka John Mack, me) will present at the Roche "Digital Academy" in June, 2013. The Digital Academy is a project that has enrolled over 80 Roche employees who will participate in a 6-month Master Course of study created in collaboration with the School of Communication IULM in Milan, Italy. Here's my pitch:

Davide Bottalico, MD, Marketing Manager Digital Area, Roche Italy, heads the Roche Digital Academy team shown in the photo on left (Davide, center).

"One of the most common mistakes," says the Roche Digital team, "is to believe that anyone within a company can take care of digital communication. This is a particularly bad mistake for pharmaceutical companies that operate under specific legal and regulatory restrictions."

"Aware of the strategic role as well as of the delicate processes behind digital marketing, Roche has kicked off the 'Digital Academy' in Milan, Italy. The Academy aims to provide the skills needed to translate the 'revolutionary logic of network relations into business opportunities.'"

The course includes more than 100 hours of classroom lessons, project works and case studies. It also provides lessons on the main tools, dynamics of the web and skills needed to manage digital communications and marketing.

"The initiative welcomes the presence and experience of various companies, external partners, agencies, and individuals such as PharmaGuy, who will share their expertise and case studies of excellence."

The Master Course ends with "Graduation Day" at the IULM University, Milan.

"Study and analysis of the world of web and social media are prerequisites to pave the way for the potential that the new media represent for companies who know how to seize opportunities," says the Roche team. "With this important investment in the education of its employees, Roche wants to be a pioneer in the digital marketing space."

Roche Digital Academy - Key Numbers:

• 81 Learners
• 11 Lecturers (among Academics and Professionals) 
• 15 Partners: Educom - Axenso - Vidiemme - Synesis-Mccann - Argon - Cegedim-zanox - AboutPharma - AdnKronos-Altran - ZS - Elsevier-Energy
• 1 University of excellence partner: School of Communication IULM, Milan
• 1 Prestige consultant: the Digital Strategist Paola Peretti, author of the book "DIGITAL MARKETING"
• 127 hours: 60 hours of classroom lessons + 9 hours of Project Work (for 5 groups) + 22 hours of case study
• and...

One Pharmaguy :-)

Disclosure: I have received a fee from the organizers to make a presentation as part of the Roche Digital Academy.