Pharma needs to take hold of new media and start closely monitoring consumer behavior to survive in a changing advertising climate, panelists said at a recent DTC conference.

"Where pharma used to be arguably the loudest voice in informing people about health-related issues, there is now a big conversation going on with many voices and not necessarily with pharma being part of that," Digitas SVP Media Carl Fremont said at the DTC in the Era of Consumer Choice conference. "In aggregate, those voices are now considerably louder and more influential than any traditional mass media or any marketer. And from dominating the conversation as we once did, pharma marketers are now a faint and peripheral voice in it."

The need for pharma to embrace new media as an alternative to TV and, especially to print, was a recurring topic at the DTC Perspectives-sponsored conference in New Jersey Oct. 29-30.

Consumers trust information they find on the Internet more than they do mass media, in part because it offers tools that can be used in unique, individualized ways, Fremont said. The Internet itself is evolving as a social network. A few years ago, people used it largely to offer each other emotional and social support, today it is a highly-regarded way for peers to exchange hard information.

Consumer-generated searches enable Web users to weed through "exceptionally high" volumes of information and to take advantage of the variety of heath information available on the Internet.

"User-generated content, especially things like Wikipedia, get very high search prominence today and we are seeing the emergence of widely-read bloggers and social media participants that can, without any exaggeration at all, be called patient key opinion leaders," Fremont said.

However, pharma has been slow to jump on the new media bandwagon, though companies are gradually warming up to the idea.

Merging Into The Fast Lane

"DTC as we know it now ... is going to greatly change over the next three years and the pharmaceutical marketing is frankly not going to be recognizable in its present form three years from now," Fleishman-Hillard SVP Mark Senak told participants at the conference.

"I'm so frustrated by the inability of industry to embrace social media because they're afraid of finding out about adverse events while monitoring the blog-o-sphere ... folks, the train has left the station," Senak said.

He stressed that firms need to take a more "proactive" stance to acknowledge adverse events from a consumer viewpoint while still complying with FDA standards for regulation, saying that otherwise there will be "forced methods" to do so.

New media also is potentially more cost effective, an important attribute as firms no longer want to or can afford to spend money for ads that do not have a direct or measurable return on investment. Pharmaceutical companies, facing economic challenges and a lack of new products, are looking for ways to be more efficient with their budgets. Measuring DTC's influence is tough, particularly for broadcasting, but measuring benefits and interest in ad messages distributed via the Internet is easier. Companies can count clicks on a Web site, as well as length of time spent on a site.

In the face of a changing advertising environment, firms are looking to integrate mediums - adding links to Web sites in broadcast ads as well as references to companion magazines to send viewers seeking additional information.

"We can treat the 60-second DTC television as a first step to useful information, rather than the only step... we've got to use our time more wisely in these ads to achieve more healthcare cost bang for the buck," Sanofi-Aventis VP and Head of Market Access and Business Development Hugh O'Neill said.

People want meaningful, fact-based messages but "there's not a lot you can do in 60 seconds [on TV] so focus on evidence, focus on numbers, show how many people survive or experience relief because of your medication, show the evidence and then tell viewers where to go from there," he continued.

Make Way For Podcasts

AstraZeneca acknowledges the need for pharma to keep pace with other industries in the digital ad space.

The firm increased ad spending in the digital space to 20 percent of its total ad budget this year, up from 15-16 percent in 2007 - in part by decreasing its print spending by $30 million year-over-year.

The firm said increasing use of new media as a promotional space is "an acknowledgment of the fact that we need to use a variety of channels to achieve patient education on disease states and the prevention available." New media efforts by AstraZeneca include an educational campaign on YouTube focused on its gastrointestinal drug Nexium and participation in the MommyCast podcast, aimed at parents, to discuss child asthma and possible treatments.

The Nexium campaign was launched following an article that highlighted "misleading safety concerns," the firm said, noting that one of the company's medical directors appears on the YouTube clip to speak about the medicine.

AstraZeneca is proceeding with caution, though, and keeping watch on negative attention from competitors so as not to repeat their violations. Acknowledging the regulatory challenges, the firm is "looking at what that media has to offer ... what would be the right thing for us to do if the industry has not spoken out specifically on how to behave in that medium," a spokesperson said. Recently, FDA issued warning and untitled letters for five attention deficient disorder products, one of which singled out a YouTube clip for Shire's Adderall XR (¹ Also see "FDA’s Advertising Enforcement Turns Its Focus To YouTube, ADHD Drugs" - Pink Sheet, 6 October, 2008. p. 12).

Regulatory Hurdles

FDA will likely have to grapple with regulation of new media or face pressure from industry to regulate the space, as firms view podcasts and the Internet as an increasingly coveted promotional area.

The agency has yet to issue guidance on Internet advertising, though FDA continues to monitor posted promotional material there. The constantly changing technologies make drafting regulatory guidelines difficult (² Also see "Wiki-How: FDLI Panel Cautions Firms On New Media Use" - Pink Sheet, 15 September, 2008. p. 24).

FDA "is taking the same position on Internet communications it's been taking on print communication ... even though there is no guidance," observed Arnold Friede, counsel to Washington, D.C.-based firm McDermott Will & Emery.

Friede said the slew of letters regarding the ADHD treatments "really talked about how far can you go in taking disease awareness information." The agency cautioned several of the five companies it sent letters to for ADHD product promotion against making claims that if left untreated, the condition will affect a child's performance in school and increase chances of automobile accidents, among other unsubstantiated risks.

"Better be really careful about what linkages you draw between the disease and product in question, even minute linkages are going to be looked at," Friede cautioned.

Use of new media is also raising questions about the role of educational awareness campaigns versus promotions supporting specific drugs. The agency issued a 2004 guidance that outlines the difference between educational disease awareness campaigns, which companies are beginning to explore using the Internet, and promotional ads.

The guidance states: "If a disease awareness or help-seeking piece and a reminder advertisement are presented in a manner that causes their messages to be linked together by the audience, the failure of the combined communication to include the risk and other information required under the act and FDA regulations would cause the advertised product to be misbranded."

Unbranded Campaigns

Sanofi-Aventis sparked media attention earlier this year with its silenceyourrooster.com unbranded campaign for the sleep therapy Ambien CR . The firm ran 15-second unbranded ads drawing visitors to a Web site that promotes the drug, complete with an interactive rooster game. The campaign bridged the gap between television and Internet promotion, paving a potential path forward for similar campaigns.

More recently, the firm is working with the National Committee for Quality Assurance to develop tools for unbranded patient education, O'Neill said at the conference.

"We reached an agreement with a large national insurer to have an unbranded disease program for Type II diabetes treatment ... just because it does not have a brand name on it doesn't mean it doesn't have a value in the market place," he added.

- Carlene Olsen (c.olsen@elsevier.com)

New Media Is The New Frontier For Drug Promotion

More from Archive

More from Pink Sheet