One-to-one marketing	November 2007

William Whyte, the director of portfolio marketing for Ortho McNeil Neurologics, spoke with Med Ad News about the value of closed loop marketing to his organization, the new opportunities it offers, and steps his company took to get sales force buy-in for the new technology.

by Joshua Slatko

Med Ad News: Can you tell me a little bit about the scale of your closed-loop marketing implementation?

William Whyte: I am the director of portfolio marketing for Ortho McNeil Neurologics. And Ortho McNeil Neurologics is the company that has responsibility for J&J’s neurologic brands. We have about 570 reps in the U.S. This week (mid-September) we are rolling out tablet PCs and closed loop marketing to our entire U.S. sales force.

Med Ad News: So why now?

William Whyte: For us at Ortho McNeil Neurologics, our ultimate goal is to provide value to an individual customer based on their own unique needs. We feel like closed loop marketing gets us closer to that goal. Many of the materials that have been developed for the tablet PC will aid the sales force in positioning our products for the appropriate patients. Ultimately, we believe that our sales force will be able to provide health-care professionals with more information regarding the appropriate use of our products.

Med Ad News: Can you guide me through the new sales call using this new platform and how it is different than the old cookie cutter sales call?

William Whyte: With the tablet PC, our sales force has more flexibility in the approach they can take with each customer. Rather than taking a linear approach and telling a story from A to Z, each representative has the ability to choose a specific asset that addresses the unique needs of each customer. Of course they also have the responsibility to always ensure that healthcare professionals have the most current safety information for each of our products. Finally, the tablet allows us to equip the sales force with considerably more information in an easy-to-access, well-organized manner.

Med Ad News: So all this flexibility and information access leads to a more individualized presentation for each physician?

William Whyte: Exactly. The primary reason that we’ve decided to move forward with closed loop marketing is to try to create more value for the customer and get closer to that idea of one-to-one marketing. The pharma industry is a long way from that, but the more technology that we’re able to use, that’s a real possibility. Additionally, the use of closed loop marketing can help healthcare professionals utilize brands more appropriately for the correct patients.

Med Ad News: What efforts are you making in order to get sales force buy-in?

William Whyte: We’ve done an awful lot. We started this project about a year and a half ago. We’ve had a number of sales force advisory boards put together to identify what the concerns and perceptions of the sales force would be. We’ve had a number of people from the sales force involved in the development of the content. We’ve listened to the sales force and made changes to our content that was appropriate. So we’ve had a lot of initiatives designed to get sales force buy-in and feedback. And the result of that is that it’s really helped us, because here at the meeting there were a lot of people who were a little bit skeptical coming in, but I think that when they got here and they saw the representatives that had been involved in the actual development of this, they realized that it wasn’t just another marketing initiative that had been developed based off of some random market research. I think the key is to get early sales force buy-in at a very high level. The other issue is that this initiative takes a complete organizational buy-in, because it affects so many areas of the company. It can’t be just sponsored by one functional area or senior person. It’s got to be a belief within the organization that this is going to help change the way that we interact with our customers. Otherwise, it’s doomed to failure.