360DigitalInfluence

This week the New England Journal of Medicine included a “Perspective” piece on social media and healthcare. The piece, by Drs. Greene and Kesselheim from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, provides the author’s opinions on the use of social media in healthcare and raises three main concerns:

1.       A lack of research around the impact of information shared on the Web

2.       Issues around credibility and disclosure by sources

3.       A need for physicians and consumers to hold FDA and pharmaceutical manufacturers responsible for the information provided via social media

Our perspective, announced when testifying at the FDA hearing last year, is a the concept of the “3 C’s Rule” of accountability for brands and content online.

Similar to the concern the authors provide in their article, our perspective is that brands should be held accountable for content if they created it (such as by including the fair balance and “Med Watch” language the FDA currently mandates in branded DTC communications) or appropriate balance in unbranded materials.  Our rule also suggests being held accountable for content if they collaborated with or compensated the creator in some way (such as by briefing online influencers/bloggers or worked in tandem with a third party spokesperson to develop content that is shared online).

On Friday, Rita Rubin of USA Today posted a piece about companies of doctors who are willing to diagnose and treat common conditions online. The initiatives, such as “MDLiveCare” and “RingADoc,” are forcing state regulators to revisit rules about what constitutes a doctor/patient relationship (Monique Da Silva also discusses the piece on Ogilvy’s new blog on Marketing to Women, WomenOlogy).

With over a third of adults using social media to find health information, I’m curious the effect online doctor’s could have on pharmaceutical marketing. Do these new sites and platforms represent new direct to consumer (DTC) advertising opportunities? Will pharma start e-detailing these doctors as another avenue to educate prescribers? Or, does this new platform  represent new, uncharted territory that legal/regulatory will find too risky to engage upon?

It’s too soon to tell, but please share your thoughts and predictions.

Sources:

iHealthReports. The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media. April 2008

If you’re like me, the announcement of Facebook overhauling its clunky messaging service made your heart flutter. For my needs, many of the platform’s ancillary services – chat, video hosting, messages – leave a lot to be desired. The prospect of an @Facebook.com email client signaled a strong move toward effective messaging and only an appeal at that level would tempt me to take it seriously.

Leading up to the reveal, netizens unleashed prognostications such as a full-fledged war on e-communications and a lot of Gmail killing. Then came the big day – Monday, November 15. In the usual style of past Facebook reveals – unintentionally anticlimactic and awkward – Zuck gave us Facebook Messages, The Sequel. The touted benefits included seamlessness, immediacy, and relieving the heavy “cognitive load” of traditional email. And in that pitch, Zuckerberg showed us a tool that embraces what his company is great at: simplicity (seriously).

Believe it or not, Facebook is run by the tenets of simplicity and ease-of-use – they are two preeminent goals in every iteration the platform undergoes, every tweak that it makes. While some users find its tinkering a nuisance, Facebook aims to bring numerous Web functions under one roof, cut the fat, and find the efficiency in them all. Hence many features of the new Facebook Messages: no subject line, prioritized inbox, and consolidated email, chat, and SMS.

The reworked Facebook Messages promises efficiency, lame graphics

Sounds cool, right? But is it enough for you to take Facebook seriously as a mature messaging tool – one that you can use for business and pleasure? While I wager you would concede that a Facebook profile comprise much of your online identity, are you willing to put First.Last@Facebook.com on a résumé and compose sternly-worded missives beside LOLs, emoticons, and Farmville alerts? The Magic 8-Ball proclaims, “Outlook not so good.” Here are two reasons Facebook won’t take my email to its grave (and one reason why it might).

continue reading

A couple weeks back, a colleague of mine on the account side came to me with a question:

“We just scored this amazing media placement for one of our clients in [Tier-One Publication]. Do you have any ideas for how we can get some additional traction for the article?”

Harkening back to my days as a lowly Assistant Account Executive, presenting my SVP with a similar piece of media coverage that I no doubt, spent countless hours pursuing and securing, I remembered his response: “That’s great. But did you get the Journal yet?!!”

Subduing my urge to respond in a similar fashion and saving my colleague the dejection that I had felt, I provided a more constructive response.

The fact is, media column inches have been shrinking at an exponential rate. Newspapers are shutting their doors with a few viable ones moving their operations online. To compound the issue, marketing budgets are decreasing as companies look for efficiencies in generating awareness for their brands. What does this all mean? It means that that piece of coverage you secured in Wired or in Crain’s New York Business is ten times more valuable today than it was, say, five years ago.

So then how can we extend the life of that press coverage? Here are some tried-and-true methods, as well as some new thinking:

continue reading

We all know that women are an influential customer, but did you know that American women are currently the decision makers for 80% of U.S. household spending? This makes her a powerful force to reckon with and determining the best ways to reach her is paramount to our work.

Today, I’m delighted to announce the newest addition to the Ogilvy blog network… WomenOlogy. Through WomenOlogy, we hope to foster a dialogue around how to reach the world’s most influential customer – the woman.

Our diverse perspectives reflect our work across multiple locations and practice areas including Healthcare, Consumer, Social Marketing, Digital and Corporate Affairs. However, there is one common denominator among our work – the woman is a key customer and determining the best way to reach her is paramount to our work.

Our hope is that this blog will serve as a forum for discussion and provide a platform for sharing insights and diverse points of view on how to reach different groups of women with compelling communication strategies.

Here are a couple of our first posts:

Trends and Developments that Will Affect Communications in 2011

Looking to Reach Women about Healthcare? Don’t underestimate the Power of Blogs

So stop by and join the conversation, share your insights, feedback and questions and help us explore the anatomy of marketing to women: http://womenology.ogilvypr.com

If you haven’t noticed, the healthcare industry, whether pharmaceuticals, doctors, hospitals, etc., is experimenting quite a bit in the social media space and with all the changes occurring, it is worth highlighting some recent trends from the past month.

continue reading

Join us from 8-9:30 am on Tuesday November 16th at Ogilvy (Washington), 1111 19th Street NW, Washington, DC for a panel discussion and release of a new white paper on social media and public health, summarizing key best practices in social media engagement and measurement.

You’ll learn about key developments in public health and social media, best practices for engagement, demographic trends relevant to public health and social media, and a new framework for measuring impact that goes well beyond just impressions.

Panelists will include:
– Susannah Fox, Associate Director, Digital Strategy, Pew Research Center
– Irfan Kamal, Social Media Evaluation Expert, Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence Group
– Marie Cocco, Director, National Communications, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
– Jessica Kutch, Website Coordinator, Service Employees International Union
– Joel Selzer, CEO and Co-Founder, Ozmosis

The white paper to be introduced was developed under the Social Marketing Fellowship created by Ogilvy and the Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown University.

Multicultural is the anti-thesis of the become like us phenomena. It turns assimilation on its head, upside down.

Multicultural: According to Webster of, relating to, reflecting, or adapted to diverse cultures.

Diverse: According to Webster, the condition of having or being composed of differing elements : variety; especially * : the inclusion of different types of people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization.

By its very definition Multicultural Social Media looks at difference and acknowledges, we are not all the same. There are cultural, linguistic and identity politics that drive us. They inform our purchasing behaviors and preference. They have an impact on how we relate to each other and the world.

In a few hours, I’m going to be joining some amazing folks at Social Media Atlanta in what promises to be a fascinating conversation about Multicultural Social Media.

There are so many layers to this conversation, I almost don’t know where to begin. So, I’ve decided to begin at the beginning (like Julio Iglesias says) with three reasons why folks should care about multicultural social media.

#1- Population:

US Census Bureau US Population Graph

In May of 2009, money.CNN.com published a piece called Minority Populations on the Rise.

“The nation is becoming even more diverse: More than one third of its population belongs to a minority group, and Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday that the minority population reached an estimated 104.6 million - or 34% of the nation’s total population - on July 1, 2008, compared to 31% when the Census was taken in 2000. Nearly one in six residents, or 46.9 million people, are Hispanic, the agency reported.”

According to that report, the break down of the U.S. population was as follows: Hispanics 15.4%, Blacks 13.5%, Asians 5%.

These were the numbers in 2008. A few months ago we just completed the 2010 census. Although the results of the census are not yet tabulated, many anticipate that the results will show an even greater increase in the minority population.

#2- Money: The second reason that you should care about multicultural social media is money. The demographics alone are striking. However, add to that the estimated spending power for these groups and you have a very compelling case that any brand would be foolish to ignore. According to a post in Mashable by Jessica Faye Carter earlier this year, that 34% has an estimated spending power of over $2 trillion. That’s nothing to scoff at. It represents a tremendous economy opportunity for brands.
continue reading

Yesterday I spent the day at the eyeforpharma eCommunications Summit where brands including Novartis, Bayer, Pfizer, J&J and many others shared thoughts and perspectives on using digital communications to reach patients and healthcare professionals. As someone who has spent a significant part of my career working in pharma marketing - but also has worked outside that industry, my topic was one that I have often wished that more pharma-oriented events would include: lessons from other industries.

Generally when I consider sharing a case study from another industry outside of pharma, it leads to a debate within our internal teams and also with clients about whether those examples could ever be relevant enough to offer value to a marketer working in the pharma industry. As I shared at the event yesterday, this usually comes down to what I call the “pharma case study excuse matrix” - a collection of four points that most marketers in pharma use as rationale for why their situation is unique.

continue reading

Attendance is up this year at the upcoming WOMMA Summit. I attribute that to a great agenda and teh coming of age of social media in major brands. I serve on the board as past president and you would expect me to be bullish about the organization and its events. I am. No apologies there. But I could not endorse something that had a good chance of disappointing people. That would be bad.

You can see the full agenda here (IBM, Harrah’s, Motorola, HP, Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever and more).

There are two conversatiuons that will happen at the Summit that I am looking forward to sparking and participating in…

continue reading