Vijay Goel, M.D.

Failure to Deliver Meaningful ROI Online for Pharma?

josh,
Interesting take. Pharma as the golden goose of ad spend does seem to be a losing proposition in the mid-term, as sales/marketing dollars drop with brands going generic and increasing infighting between branded me-toos/2nd generation products and generics in class.

Pharma profits are becoming increasingly clustered in specialty markets where mass marketing doesn't have the same bang for buck, and so disease vertical sites may make an interesting play.

As cost pressures move increasingly to consumers via tiered co-pays and other mechanisms to pressure brands, it would appear that many pharmacos will need to shift marketing spend to customer retention and brand differentiation strategies. To date, pharmacos have done a pretty poor job of having a real conversation about what their product does and engaging the consumer in a way that keeps them in compliance.

They've instead abdicated that responsibility to the same harried physicians who need to use their 6 minutes to sort through the next irrelevant question about a strangely named chemical they saw on TV (and isn't reimbursed for coordinating care).

I think we'll soon see smart drug spend moving from carpetbombing to targeted distribution in more engaging channels. Although engaging consumers in their health will require vehicles much more robust than mere publishing houses...