Posted by Ellen Hoenig Carlson on Fri, Oct 30, 2009 @ 09:10 AM
Hats off to Kevin Kruse for kicking off an exciting new conference called e-Patient Connections 2009 that will no doubt be the start of a long tradition in e-Patient Marketing and Learning. It was a productive two days marked by a strong range of excellent speakers and content, a well run conference and focused leader, and a broad group of engaged attendees. Read posts by @ericbrody, BioJob Blog, PharmaExec Blog and Steve Woodruff for other good summaries of the two-day e-Patient Conference (You can also read the Twitter stream: #epatcon)
Why Team e-Patient?
Driving home from the conference, my head swirling with ideas, this is what emerged for me:
"It may take a village to raise a family, but it takes a team to heal a patient."
...A team of doctors and nurses, patients and their families, friends and others who share their condition, hospital care, pharma treatments, insurance companies, employers, pharmacists and so on...actively participating and working together.
Reflecting on the presentations, they seem to converge around five essential themes for working towards patient-centered, participative marketing and healthcare...Highlighted below are but a few:
Trust and Authenticity:
While the Mayo Clinic may be the poster child for building trust in the hospital environment, it continues social media expansion under the leadership of @LeeAase. Slides here. Another example of building and establishing trust, is the partnership of JDRF and Novo Nordisc in the creation of Juvenation, a type-1 diabetes community. There was also Dr. Val Jone's (@drval) heartfelt limerick: 'A Tale of Two e-Patients'. Jones used the limerick to raise the issue of what can happen to e-patients who trust the wrong people for the wrong information, which she delivered in 20 slides, each 20 seconds for a total of six minutes and forty seconds via the Pecha Kucha method. (More proof that doctors can also be amazingly creative!)
Dave deBronkart, also known as @epatientdave, gave a tremendous talk on Authentic Value: Being Known in e-Patient Communities, and the importance of being real and contributing value. Following his incredible story of cancer, Dave is now an evangelist for "participatory medicine" and founding director for The Society of Particpatory Medicine dedicated to bringing together e-patients and healthcare professionals. (I urge you to check out their work.)
To sum up trust, Kevin Kruse said it well, "Personality leads to authenticity which leads to TRUST"
Engage and Educate:
Good presentations here: Facebook ADHD Allies by Tricia Geoghegan, McNeil Pediatrics. Her advice: listen to the consumer...let them tell you what's working (or not). There was also Facebook Strong@Heart Lisa Tate, WomenHeart & Robert Schumm, from Bayer. Their presentation demonstrated the value of using a good mix of traditional and new media, and an interesting offer to both raise awareness and incite action among women for their heart health. Marc Monceau @JNJComm also spoke: To Twitter or Not To Twitter, and shared his tips for organizational success. Key takeaways: take the time to create a personality in social media, and establish 'guardrails' of what you can and can not do to help smooth the process internally while you build trust and experience. (More on the concept of guardrails and Marc's presentation here).
Yet another way to engage e-patients may be in the form of games for health. Jay Ong of EA Sports presented "Driving the Fitness Revolution: The Development and Launch of EA SPORTS Active." EA Sports uses a process that focuses on 4 pillars: 1) make them sweat with true exercise and workout, 2) provide a guided experience-make it easy, 3) deliver a personalized experience and 4) incite competition. They also bring in experts to add credibility.
Action: "Before I was an e-patient, I was e-impatient" (@sixuntilme)
Sixuntilme's Voice of the Patient presentation began, "I'm Kerri Morrone Sparling and I'm not the voice of THE patient. I'm just the voice of A patient"... "POL's (patient opinion leaders) like me don't blog because they have to, but because it helps us heal...Until there's a cure, there will be a blog..."
Or Joe Shields, Product Director at Pfizer, who spoke about Adherence. "The empowered patient will be a collaborator and an active participator...Adherence is starting to elevate the role of everyone in the community, and like health care, is a team sport."
Meaning: Adding value beyond the molecule
Branded Tweets for Levemir by Ambre Morley, Novo Nordisk and Charlie Kimball, showcased how a broader strategy can add meaning to a prescription product. While there has been much emphasis on the 'first' branded tweet, twitter is a small part of how Novo Nordisk is collaborating with Charlie to help educate and engage diabetic patients and their families. The goal moves beyond product to showing diabetic patients that they can continue to live a full and active life. (I also have to say, that meeting Charlie in person was a real treat--His enthusiasm is infectious, and he came across completely genuine and dedicated.)
There was also Jonathan Richman's Marketing With Meaning presentation which he delivered Pecha Kucha style, urging Pharma Marketers to ask themselves: "Is your marketing as good as your product?" (You can also read my review of the book here and how current DTC print stacks up)
"We need to stop thinking patient and we really need to start thinking people," said Urbaniak, vice president of innovation and new customer channels at Sanofi-aventis.
So I end where I started: "It may take a village to raise a family, but it takes a dedicated, collaborative and empowered team to heal a patient." Are your e-Patients part of the team? Really?
Posted by Ellen Hoenig Carlson on Thu, Oct 22, 2009 @ 12:54 PM
There's a reason why there was such a great turnout for the Digital Pharma Unconference this week...Hats off to Shwen Gwee, Jason Youner of eXL pharma, and all the speakers and participants. (#DigPharm)
Before I talk about Guard Rails, here are three other good reads from fellow bloggers: Steve Woodruff's I Was There (Digital Pharma 2009), Jonathan Richman's Dose of Digital How Pharma Overcomplicates Social Media, and John Mack's Pharma Marketing Blog: Pharma Social Media Crips vs. Legal/Regulatory Bloods. Also check out the tools that Fard Jonmar and Jonathan Richman used in their social media workshop. Or Digitas Health Social Media POV given by Sarah Larcker of Digitas.
So what do we mean by Guard Rails? The Wikipedia definition reads something like this:
"Guard rail, sometimes referred to as guide rail or railing, is a system designed to keep people or vehicles from (in most cases unintentionally) straying into dangerous or off-limits areas."
So what does this have to do with Pharma and Social Media?
First, I'd be remiss not to credit Marc Monseau (JNJComm) who used this term in his presentation: "We're doing It and So Can You. J&J's Use of Twitter". Creating 'guard rails' was part of his 7 suggestions to Pharma: 1) Create your business case, 2) Connect SM with other initiatives, 3) Establish your personality--interesting people are followed, 4) Set guides around what you will and won't discuss...guard rails, 5) Gain legal/regulatory support for guard rails, 6) Create processes and tap into existing processes e.g. reporting AE's, 7) Tweet, tweet, tweet. Advice from JNJ; More lessons from JNJ (pictures courtesy of Steve Woodruff). (You may also want to read a great interview with Marc Monseau: J&J On Twitter)
Guard rails can help provide a 'safety net' to Pharma social media tactics and those running them by helping to insure that clear and simple guidelines are set up around certain areas to help frame conversation and engagement, and to keep social media efforts on safe regulatory and legal ground...
Other key takeaways and discussion points from #DigPharm:
Is your brand a lovemark? Is it irresistible to your consumer? Does it provide the right empathy to patients? At the core of every lovemark is RESPECT. How does a Lovemarks compare to a trademark? Trademarks are 'owned' by marketers--Lovemarks are 'owned' by their consumers. (Watch the T-mobile video: "Life's For Sharing")
What are consumers saying about your prescription product? Check out iGuard.org to read patient reviews. Monitor other social media venues.
"A patient is an unwilling customer". They are 'buying' your medication to help their condition, but they're not happy about the disease/condition that they have, often for life...(courtesy of patient blogger and tweeter: @amblass) This was part of 5 suggestions for Pharma: 1) listen 2) be honest 3) think big- beyond marketing a product 4) a patient is an unwilling customer. 5) be there for me.
"Just like soccer, Social Media is about moving the ball up the field....until we can put the ball in a strategic, favorable position" (courtesy of Fabio Gratton of Ignite Health and Xavier Petit)
BTW, if you're looking for a community to continue the Pharma Social Media conversation, join Shwen's Social Pharmer.
Other recent Pharma conference blogs that may be of interest:
Pharma: Dip Your Toes And Other Tips From DTC Perspectives Conference
Pharma Marketers: A Few Takeaways From the PharmaMed Conference
Posted by Ellen Hoenig Carlson on Wed, Oct 21, 2009 @ 05:24 AM
We're in the midst of conference-frenzy. Last week I was able to attend day two of DTC Perspective's Fall Conference: Reform & Refocus (For twitter followers: #dtcfall). Here are some of the key themes that I picked up:
Dip-your-toes approach. This was said over and over about social media. Get started, and evolve as you learn and your company becomes more comfortable with the effort. (This is also a common theme in Digital Pharma's conference taking place this week. #digpharm)- Remember your overall marketing strategy--Before you clarify objectives for social media and start running with tactics...
- Give the team TIME. Initiating new social media programs took many more hours and resources than originally planned. And there is always the unexpected...
- The Internet is for marketing-not just advertising. This also requires a shift in mindset. (Bill Drummy of Heartbeat Digital)
- Technology is moving oh soooo fast-Mobile, video, ‘smart' advertising using behavioral data, gaming and of course social media are musts to be more than experimenting with in 2010.
During day two, two presentations stood out to me:
Hologic and Greater Than One: How Social Media Can Become Real in Healthcare. Marnie Rosenberg, Partner, Greater Than One and Mary Pietrowski Director of Consumer and eMarketing of Hologic did a great job presenting four case studies, including a branded YouTube video. This is also where the infamous twitter tweet: "60% consumers don't care who sponsors health info- just want good info, community-value". (Turns out it's based on Infomedics Survey.) They also presented iCrossing data showing that of the online tools and websites, social media is used by 34% to locate healthcare information.
The On Demand Brand (book due out spring, 2010) by Rick Mathieson: Digital to Consumer-- The 5 Top Trends in 2010
- Social Networking of course...Regarding video, Rick presented data saying that nearly 50% of US adults say online video is a key way they research DTC drugs. His suggestions for pharma: use Social Media more for event based marketing, keep it social and targeted.
- Smart Advertising using behavioral data, but being careful not to target too well or to become invasive
- Mobile, especially texting, apps and use of QR codes
- Video Games For Health and Advergaming (See my blog covering 2009 Games For Health Conference and PharmExec article Video Games: Key To The Future of Healthcare?)
- Augmented Reality. The rules: Entertain, Educate and Engage
Wrapping up the conference, there was a good panel discussion with Pharma Marketers and Industry experts on The Use of Online Video in DTC Marketing led by Raj Amin, CEO, HealthiNation. Monique Levy @monasante also reviewed some recent Manhattan Research data. One of the points she made was that 25% of consumers view video on product.com sites.
Overall, the discussion centered around the big opportunity of video and suggestions to optimize its use e.g.: keep it moving (no more than 2-3 minutes) and tell an interesting story with great content. Saatchi Wellness talked to their successful rooster campaign and the move from unbranded to branded. Nike was also discussed as a great example of parceling out video info depending on a consumer's interest. They keep initial video short, but enable additional video watching for those who want more info etc.
Any other thoughts? Overall, day two was a good day!