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If you have been around the Internet for some time and saw the acronym “P2P” - that might conjure up images of Napster and the whole illegal peer-to-peer file downloading movement mostly focused on music. In the healthcare context, however, P2P may represent the next big wave of opportunity for organizations who can think beyond the traditional sales rep model for pharma brands or trade and direct marketing for others. But what is P2P marketing in a healthcare context? Two things:

Physician to Physician Marketing
Patient to Patient Marketing

Logically, this makes perfect sense. The one truth that most organizations already know is that word of mouth is king in all things related to healthcare. Doctors ask one another for advice and refer patients, and patients (even before the Internet) look to one another for advice and support as well. Once you add the Web and social networking into the mix, this truth becomes even more paramount.
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When SXSW, one of the largest gatherings of minds and enthusiasts in the digital world, didn’t feature more than a handful of panels on the intersection between health and social media - an “unconference” event called SXSH sprung up to fill the void. Yesterday that event came together in Austin and included speakers and pioneers in using social media to communicate for health issues in regional hospitals, government agencies, health insurers, nonprofits, epatients and pharma companies. Just about every part of the healthcare world had some sort of voice in the discussion as everyone gathered to share ideas on how the industry as a whole might use social media more effectively by building greater trust.

The day long discussion featured many highlights, starting with a talk from Doug Ulman, CEO of Livestrong about the power of health based communities online and how important real time information is to improving healthcare and the patient experience. Greg Matthews from Humana shared how a health insurer can innovate internally and use that to improve patient relationships and Jenn Texada from MD Anderson shared how she and her communications team use social media tools to interact directly with patients for customer service. David Hale from the National Library of Medicine presented an innovative new database to help identify unknown pills called Pillbox and Fabio Gratton shared how to build a movement through a case study of the success of the #FDASM movement in November of last year around the FDA hearings. In the “unconference” part of the day, companies such as ReachMD and WEGO Health talked about their communities and content and how they help bridge the gaps between patients, doctors and healthcare providers.
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Yesterday was a busy day of back to back presentations from the first day of the FDA hearings and there are many recaps now sharing some topline points from the conversations and presentations. I shared my own take on some big themes that emerged from the early part of the day here on this blog. Aside from the content presented during each of the speaker’s time on stage, I think there were several pivotal moments of significance throughout the day. Here’s a chronological recap of what I felt they were, and what they might mean for the next step of this process the FDA has just begun:

1. Pharma needs guidance (Eli Lilly) - Being the first real pharma brand to speak on the agenda, Michelle Sharp did an excellent job representing some of the main concerns that most pharma brands have. Her point that they were operating in a vacuum and therefore simply not willing to use the online channel was well presented. Ultimately, it was her presence and the comparative courage of Eli Lilly to have her on stage that truly stood out, particularly when you consider how many pharma brands were content to sit on the sidelines passively and simply watch the proceedings. continue reading

The much anticipated FDA hearings on how pharma and medical device companies should be able to use the Internet and social media for promotion kicked off today and the presentation room at the NTSB was packed with formally dressed people with expectant faces, ready to participate in what most people consider one of the most important moments in the history of online advertising and promotion in the medical space.

Based on the presentations this morning (including mine on behalf of Ogilvy) there were several themes that emerged as topics that will be interesting to track throughout the rest of the hearings and beyond. To a large degree, these were also the points that the FDA asked probing questions on after speakers were done presenting, which is an indication of what topics the agency considers to be most important as well. The speakers in the morning session included Ogilvy PR, Pew Prescription Project, Eli Lilly, PhRMA, Pharma Marketing News, IAB, VuMedi, WebMD and WEGO. Based on listening to those presentations, here are a few topline thoughts on implications and common themes that are emerging so far:

1. Good quality content for patients and HCPs from companies IS worthwhile and desired. Through the morning proceedings, everyone agreed that companies should have SOME ability to create and promote content online. This is an important agreement moving forward, as it assumes that the focus on future guidelines from the FDA will be about HOW companies can interact online and not on the broader question of IF they should even be allowed to. If there is one big conclusion that I hope the FDA takes away from today, it is that there is an important and meaningful place for pharma and medical device brands to share content and messages online, and this category of information should not be silenced completely or banned.

2. Doing nothing is not an option. A few speakers mentioned the same point this morning, that with the growing number of “unscrupulous” sources of medical information online from people such as “snake-oil salesman” promoting miracle cures, the necessity for the FDA to step forward and help to define what acceptable forms of marketing online are is vital.

3. Companies should not be responsible for policing the Internet. One of the most common questions that companies are asking is how deep they should need to go when it comes to finding and correcting bad information. While opinions on that point may vary, several people this morning mentioned the same point of view that companies should not have to police the entire Internet for bad information.

For the rest of today, you can watch the rest of the proceedings live at http://www.capitolconnection.net/capcon/fda/111209/FDAlive.htm.  Also, if you would like to read more about our POV that we presented today, including a summary of our “3 C’s” model for accountability, you can visit the following resources:

Ogilvy’s Presentations Today and Tomorrow at the FDA >>
Summary of Ogilvy’s 3 C’s Model For Accountability >>

Next week Ogilvy will be sharing our point of view when it comes to how pharmaceutical and medical device brands should be allowed to use the web and social media for marketing and promotion. This has been a significant gray area in the past and the FDA has begun the process towards having some updated guidelines set. We are one of over 60 organizations that will be speaking during the two day hearing next week, and the questions will range from everything to what information marketers should be allowed to link to, and how they should be held responsible for content online.

The biggest question that the entire process will raise is how to define the content, messages and conversations online that marketers should be held accountable by the FDA for. To answer this top question, we will be presenting our point of view through “The 3 C’s Rule” …

What do you think - does this “rule” go too far, or far enough towards helping define what messages marketers should be accountable for online? For more context, check our our full FDA presentations on Slideshare:

http://www.slideshare.net/ogilvypharma

Most marketers who have anything to do with promoting pharmaceutical products or medical devices have the upcoming FDA hearings at the top of this minds heading into next week.  With less than 7 days to go until the hearings, all the presentations have been submitted to the FDA, the anticipation is rising and conversation online about the hearings from speakers, attendees and online watchers (the hearings will be live webcast) is rising.

Ogilvy is among the organizations slated to speak at the hearings, and we have several activities planned around them beyond speaking - including hosting a “tweetup” the evening after the first hearing in our Washington DC office for anyone interested in coming and having an informal chat about how the day went and implications for our industry. In preparation for this moment, here are 5 things anyone in the industry should expect to come from the hearings, as well as some initial information you should know:

1. What is the format of the hearing? The entire hearing consists of short introductory remarks by the FDA followed by a series of 15 or 10 minute presentations by approved speakers. There are about 60 approved speakers and on Thursday they will all focus on answering the first four questions from the FDA hearing notice, and Friday morning will solely focus on “question #5′ which is about adverse event reporting online. Friday afternoon will continue general comments. Each presentation will be specifically cut off at the time alloted and the FDA panel hearing these presentations may choose to ask questions during a speaker’s alloted time. continue reading

In the second of our series of medical blogger interviews from Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas we talk to two of the most popular nursing bloggers on the Internet - Kim McAllister from Emergiblog and Gina Rybolt from Codeblog. Both have followers in the tens of thousands for their blogs and were kind enough to do a “tag team” interview for the first time ever sharing their thoughts on everything from why they blog, to how they manage to do it without divulging any confidential patient information, to how they would like pharma brands and marketers from those brands to approach them through social media.  It’s an enlightening 5 minute video interview:

At Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas this is an important year for the evolution of medical blogging. Thanks to an effort by Kim McAllister, the ER nurse and blogger behind Emergiblog - this year is the first year that there is an entire day focused on “Medblogging,” a term that includes patients, nurses and physicians blogging. After the first panel of the day on the state of the medical blogosphere I had the chance to connect with Kevin Pho, arguably the most prominent physician blogger online today at www.kevinmd.com. Here are some of his thoughts on why he chooses to blog and where he see the future of the medical blogosphere headed:

It is often said in the world of healthcare that nurses are the underappreciated heroes. They are the ones that often spend the most time with patients, have a huge direct influence on the care that a patient gets, and sit at the center of the health care world influencing both the physicians and the patients.

To underscore this importance, Manhattan Research recently released a report about nurses online noting that approximately three out of four U.S. nurses recommend health websites to patients. The study notes that the average nurse spends eight hours per week online for professional purposes, which is just as much time as physicians, and almost all of them use the Internet in between patient consultations. Nurses are also proactive in researching medical product information specifically online - over eighty percent have visited a pharma, biotech, or device company website in the past year.

In addition to the prevalence of the Internet as a research and patient communication tool, nurses are continuing to find their unique voices online through a growing number of prominent nursing blogs such as Codeblog and Emergiblog which both share powerful stories of healthcare from the nurses’ point of view. These nursing blogs are very popular in the nursing community and are humanizing the profession (and healthcare in general) to a much wider audience of patients.   The rapid growth of online nursing communities such as AllNurses and NurseConnect is yet another sign of the growing use of the web.
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By now it is certainly not news to note that YouTube is already the largest on-demand broadcast medium for anyone with an internet connection, boasting over 71 million unique users each month and the 6th largest audience on the Internet. 75% of all Americans have watched at least one video clip online in the last month. These staggering numbers coupled with the rise of broadband adoption in the US (over 80% of Internet users in the US have broadband as of March 2009) mean that online video is no longer a niche activity and has squarely hit the mainstream.

When you consider the opportunities from a Pharma marketing point of view, YouTube is certainly tempting. The FDA has yet to create significant regulations governing YouTube and there have been many marketing efforts in the Pharma space over the past several years which have seen fairly good results. Novartis’ FluFlix video contest from 2007, for example, had nearly 800,000 views of the intro video. In 2008, Sanofi-Aventis launched their GoInsulin campaign video channel which now has more than 300,000 views. More recently, earlier this year AstraZeneca saw success with their branded MyAsthmaStory video campaign sharing real stories of Symbicort patients and how the product had transformed their lives.

Concurrently, many pharma brands including Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim and Novartis (to name a few) have launched their own branded official YouTube channels to share a compilation of videos about various products, patient testimonials, research and development highlights and other corporate produced information. These channels represent an ongoing commitment to the YouTube channel and signal an intention to make this a longer term part of their overall corporate communications.
WHY DOES IT MATTER? continue reading