Sales and marketing in the digital age	December 2007

Principals from Med Ad News’ 2007 Manny Award winners and Agency of the Year finalists addressed a variety of questions regarding the healthcare industry in the Fourth Annual Advertising Agency Roundtable. Here, they share their thoughts on emerging sales-force technologies and offer advice to clients interested in exploring Web 2.0 technologies.

Executives that took part in this year’s roundtable: Dale Taylor, president and CEO of AbelsonTaylor Inc. (abelsontaylor.com); Allan Trent, principal of Natrel Communications Inc. (natrelusa.com); Marci Piasecki, CEO of Torre Lazur McCann (torrelazur.com); Darlene Dobry, president of Carbon (commonhealth.com/carbon); Ed Wise, chairman and CEO of Cline Davis & Mann Inc. (clinedavis.com); Steven Michaelson, founding partner and CEO of Wishbone/ITP Inc. (wishbone-itp.com); Dudnyk (dudnyk.com) President Lorna Weir, Executive VP and Creative Director Barry Schmader, Executive VP and Management Supervisor Frank Powers, Senior VP of scientific and strategic services Christopher Tobias, Ph.D., and Senior VP and Creative Director of art Chuck Jeffries; Phil Deschamps, CEO of GSW Worldwide (gsw-w.com); Fabio Gratton, chief innovation officer of Ignite Health (ignitehealth.com); Tony Goosmann, president of Williams-Labadie LLC (willab.com); Scott Cotherman, CEO of Corbett Accel Healthcare Group (corbettaccel.com), representing Corbett Accel business unit and Manny Award nominee Surge Worldwide Healthcare Communications; and Lynn O’Connor Vos, CEO and President of Grey Healthcare Group Inc. (ghgroup.com).

Med Ad News: What further changes do you foresee in the industry due to advancing sales-force technologies?

Tony Goosmann: All of these will have one overarching effect — the evolution of the sales force. It is not a case of evolve or die; rather, it is something that will empower them in ways that they will appreciate. Doctors clamor for information but want the opportunity to pick the messages they want to read, just as we choose our television programs using Tivo or On Demand. The technology advances are all tools that allow the doctors to see customized, measurable messages when and where they want them — and your reps are not forced to go door-to-door for an unwanted visit. It is a simplified system that makes targeted communication convenient for all.

Lynn O’Connor VOS: Pharmaceutical companies must become digitally driven. This means having the right expectations, training programs, and strategy in place, not just for a small group, but for all employees, and especially the sales force.

There are four generations in the workplace today, and the average age of a pharmaceutical sales rep is 25 years old, known as Gen Yers. Gen Y are entrepreneurial, tenacious, multi-taskers; value realism, socializing, extreme fun; they are totally digital … and they are moving in! Their main method of communication is text messaging.

Use of Web 2.0 technologies promote the informal and immediate learning expectations of Gen X and Y. Blogs, wikis, Podcasts, and reference libraries housed in online communities are collaborative learning tools that help transfer knowledge in microchunks. Recently, Reckitt Benckiser launched a MySpace page to teach youths about drug addiction, and J&J and GlaxoSmithKline opened blogs — both general and product specific.

What does all this mean? That the way people learn, teach, and sell is undergoing a transformation. There are interactive games, high-end scientific visualizations that explain complex science, online physician communities, targeted, opt-in cellular messaging, and an endless variety of new tools on the way. Sales reps demand a new kind of training, and they need to sell in a new way to a changing demographic of doctors, payors, and caregivers. The biggest challenge today: helping clients shift the sales model away from the traditional “binder” presentation to today’s more effective and up-to-date sales technologies.

Dale Taylor: One of the changes we are already seeing is the advent of fully computer-based sales materials. While the initial investment is significant, the technology offers many advantages in terms of making the presentation more dynamic, more responsive to each physician’s needs, and more impactful. The technology also allows the marketer to more closely track the use of the aid and update it quickly as new information becomes available.

Allan Trent: Electronic communications allows for more dynamic, more interactive meetings with physicians. Sales forces will need to catch this technology wave and use it to their advantage as it gets harder and harder to see physicians. Using laptops and/or handheld wireless devices, for example, sales reps can individualize sales messages or respond to inquiries on the spot. These more personalized communications can provide value to physicians (and indirectly to their patients) by educating them about individual products, the pharmacoeconomics of all the drugs in a particular class, improved patient-compliance models, and office efficiency strategies that can help physicians better manage their patients and their practices.

Marci Piasecki: The most obvious change will be in the quality of the sales call versus the quantity of the sales call. While technology may afford a pharma company the ability to downsize their sales force, we should consider that the strongest “force” may actually be the medium that is managed by the rep. Mobile detail solutions enable clients to enhance the sales call far beyond the printed piece; reps can communicate with customers in a more tailored, relationship-based fashion, and marketing can access real-time progress reports from their desk. What is most valuable about advancing technologies such as the mobile detail aid is that it serves to support rather than supplant the sales force, which could be the key to successful adaptation.

Steve Michaelson: Clearly, audience segmentation is a growing necessity within our clients. This enhances the message delivery, receptivity, and efficiency necessary to remain competitive.

Ed Wise: I think the user-generated sales call and content is inevitable. Having the information digitally stored is the first step. Giving physicians the power to manipulate it and receive it when and how they want to receive it is next. As we see with airline terminal check-in kiosks and ATM’s, do not underestimate the power of technology to deliver a high-touch customer experience, in appropriate situations.

Darlene Dobry: Mobile and wireless technologies are improving rapidly, which has created some amazing opportunities. Crisp, full-motion video now streams directly to handheld devices. Prices are falling as processing power increases. Tablet PCs are becoming more mainstream within pharma, and I definitely see tremendous opportunity to customize and ultimately refine the presentations sales representatives are able to deliver based on the feedback they receive from their audiences. The coming technologies will allow sales reps to beam rich media files, tools, and data to a doctor’s preferred platform. They will get instant access to deep information relevant to the treatment of their patients. It’s all about “pull marketing,” as doctors will be able to pull whatever information they want in whatever format works best for them. As a result, doctors will have the information they want and need when it comes time to prescribe.

Obviously, with these new technologies, pharma companies will have to closely examine their sales-training programs to ensure a rep’s skill in using and developing a deeper understanding of how to optimize the technology with customers. Additionally, they will also have to be ready to respond to the customer feedback and revise their communication strategy accordingly. You cannot collect all of this great data and then not respond appropriately. Those pharma companies (and their partners) who do will become smarter about their customer and successfully influence the prescribing decision.

Med Ad News: What advice would you give to a client interested in exploring Web 2.0 technologies?

Marci Piasecki: From the start, we encourage our clients to spend some time in the “space,” and we partner with them to monitor activity in order to assess the flow of information and level of control they may have over the communication. Truth is, word of mouth has been the most powerful advertising tool we’ve had since the dawn of time. And as consumers have become one of our greatest stakeholders in creating demand for our brands, it could be beneficial for us to leverage this seemingly rudimentary principle of marketing. Consumers and patients are engaging in this medium already, and our culture encourages it. Our advice, therefore, is to leverage it with caution and control it wherever possible because it is often inevitable.

Darlene Dobry: It’s vital to first start with research. Not all new media is going to appeal to all audiences. And that does not mean that you should rule out social networking sites like MySpace, since people over 35 are actually flocking to these sites. But like any media campaign, it’s important to make sure this is the right tactic for your audience. Web 2.0 channels are deep verticals that attract highly segmented, self-identified users. The next step is to build a team that understands the nuances of the medium. That team can help you determine what messages and formats will work best and why. CommonHealth put the first official pharmaceutical brand up on MySpace this year. This has given us some amazing insight into what works, how to measure ROI, and how to take a brand to the next level. We are tapped into all of the new media channels, including blogs, viral videos, social networks, mobile media, and more, so we know which tactics to apply to a particular brand.

Ed Wise: I would say “do it, you’re a genius.” There are some new media that are just waiting for agencies and their clients to find a way to make the most of them. Social networking is an extremely powerful environment. But in order to create viable promotional opportunities, we as marketers have to respect the user ownership of the media and ask permission to be a guest through opt-ins that are creatively integrated into their experience. All promotion has to have a reward for viewing, that’s the role we see that creativity plays. The necessity for that reward comes front and center when the customer controls the content, or at least the viewing experience.

Steve Michaelson: We have clients interested in those communication forms already. Depending on the type of drug, the role of the patient and/or caregiver, and the amount of lay press involvement, they can be very effective in communicating information. The primary issue is the lack of ability to control from a regulatory perspective, so it can be difficult to get the ideas approved.

Phil DeSchamps: The interest in marketing via Web 2.0 in 2007 reminds me a lot of the initial interest in the Internet back in 1998. Everyone was very excited about using a new avenue, but the decisions to use the medium were guided more by the desire to have a Website because “everyone else has one” rather than a rationale that was tied to marketing strategy. The understanding of how to use the Web and how to measure it only came later. With the era of Web 2.0, we should learn from that experience. Pharmaceutical companies and their agencies are really just starting to dabble in this world. While these technologies promise exciting new ways to interact with customers, the most exciting aspect of Web 2.0 is that it is yet to fully materialize.

So my advice to clients on Web 2.0 is that they should participate, but they should do so deliberately and strategically. Pick a few key initiatives where you can experiment with Web 2.0 on a small-scale basis, and then measure the results. Based on the learnings from experimentation with this new media, clients can then build fuller-scale programs to reach a larger customer base. Once we become more disciplined in evaluating how to measure these technologies, we can more aptly leverage this new media as a catalyst to our communication plans.

Fabio Gratton: First, clients should not approach these strategies in isolation. Meaning, strategies that leverage 2.0 technologies are by their very nature strategies that leverage user-participation. Implementing these strategies poses challenges that go beyond the traditional marketing guard rails that most companies have become accustomed to navigating. As such, it is critical that other stakeholders such as legal, medical, and regulatory have a seat at the table early on when a company begins to explore any emerging technology initiatives. First, a company needs to formulate a point of view on why it feels it’s important to participate in Web 2.0, and how it plans to deal with the feedback loop that Web 2.0 creates. This point of view must be bought-in from the very top of the organization and then must inform the development of specific procedures and protocols for how a company plans to conduct itself. These systems can then become the organizing principles for any initiative a company takes that leverages Web 2.0. A company that does not fully understand the implications of participating in the conversation will almost certainly fail in its efforts. However, companies that look at Web 2.0 as more than simply a set of tactics or channels and make the leap into the next generation of marketing stand to reap countless rewards.

Tony Goosmann: We still see storytelling as the killer app. With that in mind, dive in and use these tactics to extend that story for the brand. At Williams-Labadie, we embrace these methods. They are all excellent ways to increase efficiency and even work to effectively manage regulatory concerns.

Advances in digital technologies have created a paradigm shift in how we receive our content — and all of them are measurable. It is a no-brainer. Our clients face an increasing demand to demonstrate a return on investment, and all the Web 2.0 offerings have analysis built in.

Scott Cotherman: Web 2.0 is here to stay, so marketers should begin — if not already — exploring its potential. Social media has the ability to shape perception and influence behavior. In an effort to explore how healthcare brand marketing may benefit from the new technology, clients should be encouraged to read blogs, peruse YouTube in their spare time, participate in social networking, and live in relevant online communities. Through these interactions, clients can begin to understand which type of social media can be best applied in pharmaceutical marketing.

Dale Taylor: Our advice would be to talk to your lawyers. The final story on liability in these media has not been written, and we would want to be sure that our client is not one of the leading characters.

Allan Trent: Have realistic expectations and don’t rush to employ expensive, unproven tactics. Technology continues to expand promotional options for our industry, but that does not mean that every new venue is a useful, cost-effective one for every pharma client. To manage client expectations appropriately, everything we suggest must be grounded with a rationale for growing their business. When one of these newer venues does offer some proven marketing potential, it’s important to realize that e-marketers are not necessarily familiar with some of the basic tenets of marketing pharma products — providing ROI, database development/management, and maintaining consistency with the brand’s identity/Website are just some of the small but important things some E-marketers miss. That’s why it’s important for clients to work closely with their agencies when planning and executing e-marketing.

Lynn O’Connor VOS: Online influence is also shifting, fuelled in large part by the rise of consumer-generated content. One-and-a-half times every day, a patient starts a conversation by posting a comment on the Internet. And with 80 million blogs and counting, your company’s messages and brand exist not just in the materials and ads you create, but in the voices of the customers, employees, and physicians who talk about you online.

What is a pharmaceutical company to do? Get smart … and fast. We advise our clients that they should understand how their customers (both healthcare professionals and consumers) are communicating about their brand online, and then come up with a plan to become part of the conversation, whether it is through social networking, blogs, or viral video.