A listing of the top prescription brands by 2016 DTC spend according to Nielsen data.

A listing of the top prescription brands by DTC spend in 2016 according to Kantar Media data.

A listing of the top companies by total DTC spend in 2016 according to Nielsen data.

A listing of the top brands by DTC television spend in 2016 according to iSpot.tv data.

Lurking behind all the sound and fury in the political realm, 2017 is bringing new opportunities to marketers that have nothing at all to do with orange hair. A whole generation of technologies are growing to maturity together – predictive targeting, virtual reality, behavioral science, interactive video, big data, and more – all of which are transforming the ways in which brands can communicate with their audiences. But of course politics will matter too in this Year One of the Trump administration, as the continuing debate over drug pricing and the impact of the new president’s policies on the pharma industry remain very much up in the ai

Taking advantage of the moment – whether it’s a seasonal opportunity, such as allergies or the flu, or a moment of awareness, such as Breast Cancer Awareness Moment – challenges marketers to consider the marketing mix and the best ways to reach target audiences with brand messaging. Increasingly, with a spend approaching 10 percent of the $5 billion DTC market, pharmaceutical marketers are including POC as a key marketing strategy because they know that it works.

The Coalition for Healthcare Communication (CHC) summit in Washington, D.C., in late November provided an interesting postmortem of the 2016 election, and a look into the crystal ball by some of our industry’s most knowledgeable leaders. Fast-forward to February 2017, and the crystal ball is still pretty cloudy.

“The DTC Attitudes, Behaviors, and Preferences Survey” shows that patients are becoming increasing disengaged with DTC advertising despite spend by pharma increasing.

Digital Health solutions are still mostly driven by marketing departments, whether they be novel devices that alter the way we treat rare diseases or commonplace wearable bands that track our activity.

Management from 2016 Manny Award winners and finalists weigh in on various industry topics presented to them by Med Ad News.