"While few people would fill out a detailed questionnaire about their health and hand it over to a drug company looking for suggestions for new medications, that is essentially what RealAge is doing."
Really? Are you sure "few" people would fill out a detailed questionnaire about their health and hand it over to a drug company?
It just so happens that a recent study by Epsilon concludes that 38% of patients they surveyed prefer to learn about pharmaceutical products via e-mail from a brand or a pharmaceutical company (see chart below and this excellent Dose of Digital Blog review by ePharma Pioneer Club member Jonathan Richman). That beats out offline (ie, TV) advertising.
Although Pharmaceutical companies like to maintain physician email databases, they do NOT want to own databases of patient information. Not after Lilly got its you-know-what in an FTC wringer several years ago for sending out email to 600 or so patients with all their e-mail addresses visible in the BBC line. Let sites like RealAge assume the risk.
There is, however, one catch. RealAge may know how to collect patient e-mail addresses, but do they know how to protect those addresses and other personally-identifiable health information?
I've worked with several agencies and web sites that collect consumer data on behalf of pharmaceutical companies and found that their internal policies and procedures often do not match the promises they make in their public privacy policies. That's how the FTC got Lilly to sign a 20-year settlement that requires the company to have ALL their agencies that handle consumer data on its behalf go through a rigorous privacy/security self-assessment. For more on this see "Good Privacy Practices."
If reports show that most consumers want to hear about drugs from their physician, then why do you think pharma companies choose to spend most of their advertising budget on TV and Print and not on things like point of care marketing initiatives?
ReplyDeleteNicole,
ReplyDeletePatints want information form their PHYSICIAN, not from a TV or Kiosk in the waiting room!
Of course, a lot of pharmaceutical marketing (the VAST majority of it) to physicians is designed to get THEM to talk to their patients about specific drugs.
Interesting questions/comments from both Nicole and John. JM, how does the Blog opine on point-of-care TVs and Kiosks in doctors offices. DTC advertising versus DTC education. I want to see the blogsphere weigh in.
ReplyDelete