The "Lists" that Big Pharma Is and Isn't On

I like lists just about as much as I like statistics. That’s saying a lot.

This week we saw the release of two new “lists” – The Top 500 Most Valuable Brands and the 25 Companies with the Best Customer Service.

Do you think pharmaceutical companies or their brands were included on either list? Read on …

Brand Finance, a UK based brand valuation company, released this list of Top 500 most valuable global brands. Retail giant Walmart retained the top spot, with Google at #2. Several major pharmaceutical companies did indeed make the list, including:

• Johnson & Johnson (#85)
• Pfizer (#131)
• Merck (#150)
• Sanofi-aventis (#161)
• Abbott (#169)
• AstraZeneca (#222)
• Lilly (#264)
• Schering-Plough (#343)
• Bristol-Myers Squibb (#347)
• Baxter (#468)

You’ll notice that while many consumer product brands were listed, (Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Budweiser), no pharmaceutical product brands were. (Sorry, John Mack – not even Viagra!)

Only the parent, corporate entities were mentioned among the strongest of global brands. Certainly many of these pharmaceutical company names – or some iteration of them - go way back in the global history of science and medicine. But often pharma product brands don’t have the same name around the world, and due to patent laws, they just can’t enjoy that longevity. They also just don’t have the reach of a brand like McDonald’s or Disney. Because while just about everyone has eaten at McDonald’s at some point in their life or seen a Disney movie, not everyone is taking the same medication for the same illness.

For example, Claritin has been a consumer brand for years – it was one of the first to be advertised directly to consumers – and still lives today as an over-the-counter entity. But with apologies to Schering-Plough, Claritin will just never be a Coca-Cola.

By the way, here are the top 20 (global) brands that did make the list:

1. Walmart
2. Google
3. Coca-Cola
4. IBM
5. Microsoft
6. GE
7. Vodafone
8. HSBC
9. HP
10. Toyota
11. AT&T
12. Santander
13. Verizon
14. WELLS FARGO
15. Budweiser
16. Tesco
17. McDonald’s
18. Walt Disney
19. Apple
20. Nokia

Top Customer Service ChampsAlso released this week was BusinessWeek’s list of the Top-Ranked Customer Service Champs. Of note: one credit card company and two major airlines made the list. (Airlines? Really? Have you flown lately?)

Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, no pharma companies made this list. It is a little unfair because in the grand scheme of things, pharma companies have done a lot of good and “service” over the years, providing life-saving, pain-easing, symptom-relieving medications. That said, the past weeks’ news about Avandia and the asthma drugs hasn’t helped Big Pharma’s reputation.

Is it time pharmaceutical companies stepped up and truly focused on the customer and their needs beyond the popping of a pill? For example, there is an opportunity to:

• Open the door for feedback from customers – both patients and HCPs. Go ahead and put that open text box on the brand Web site. Open up the lines of a live chat window. No doubt patients will provide their accolades, their stories, their complaints, their questions, and yes – maybe an occasional adverse event or two. But opening up the lines of communications will work toward fixing the current dysfunctional relationship between consumers and pharma companies.
• Help consumers pay for their meds. I’ve posted in the past about how pharma companies can help consumers during the recession. See those suggestions here.
• Help consumers with their conditions, and help them stay on their meds. Many companies are already doing this through patient support and compliance/adherence programs. And many companies are spending TONS of money to develop these programs, and yet enrollment stays flat. Companies should swing the focus to what truly benefits the patient first– not the company – and work harder to let patients know about the availability and benefits of these programs,

So here’s the list of top 25 customer-service-focused companies, courtesy of BusinessWeek:

1. AMAZON.COM
2. USAA
3. JAGUAR
4. LEXUS
5. THE RITZ-CARLTON
6. PUBLIX SUPER MARKETS
7. ZAPPOS.COM
8. HEWLETT-PACKARD
9. T. ROWE PRICE
10. ACE HARDWARE
11. KEYBANK
12. FOUR SEASONS HOTELS & RESORTS
13. NORDSTROM
14. CADILLAC
15. AMICA
16. ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR
17. AMERICAN EXPRESS
18. TRADER JOE'S
19. JETBLUE AIRWAYS
20. APPLE
21. CHARLES SCHWAB
22. BMW
23. TRUE VALUE
24. L.L. BEAN
25. JW MARRIOTT

Sorry pharma. Maybe next time.

7 Things I Learned at the ePharma Summit 2010

1. Measureable results are a major question – and a major concern – when it comes to social media. First, the question we heard at these conferences was “should pharma be involved in social media?” The next year, the question was “how can pharma be involved in social media within a regulated environment?”And now, the question has turned to “how can we best measure social media?” Hooray for progress!

Several presentations, including the “Advanced Social Media Boot Camp” of Day 1, revolved around the question of how best to measure social media results. Some called for a “redefinition” of ROI/return on investment when it comes to social media. That, for example, might mean looking at “return on engagement” or “return on participation,” but I have questions about how those metrics will be realistically received by the budget decision-makers. It became abundantly clear – if it hadn’t been already – that in order to prove the power of both digital marketing and social media, it is up to marketers and their agency partners to, as Paul Ivans (Evolution Road) put it, “deliver the ROI in order to change the game ... Use the numbers to show digital works.” He’s completely right.

I always enjoy sanofi-aventis’ Dennis Urbaniak’s caution to “avoid shiny object syndrome,” another dangerous affliction that affects marketers and agencies alike and tends to give social media a bad rap. In the wise words of Urbaniak: “Marketing is a finance exercise; you’re investing in different areas for a positive return.” And consultant Kevin Nalty advised, “It’s not the ‘R’ in ROI that is making it hard, it’s the ‘I’ … it’s these insane investments … Keep it cheap and the risk is lower.”

2. Not very many pharma companies have social media guidelines in place yet. It seems I attended a conference 2 years ago where a forward-thinking pharma company explained how they’d arrived at their own social media guidelines, and it had taken them several years. But we’re still hearing in Feb. 2010 that companies like Eli Lilly and others are still working on their policies. (For more on that, see Kevin Walsh’s recap of Eli Lilly’s Mel Halkyard presentation) It’s scary to think how long it’s taking them. I did like one suggestion, however, that companies not only develop their social media use policies, but publish them as they would their privacy policy. That’s a nice step toward transparency and full disclosure.

3. At least for now, everyone -- and no-one -- owns social media. I’d asked the question in the past about which marketing function owns social media. At this conference, we saw a number of case studies that were driven by marketing, some by product PR, and yet others by corporate communications. It really goes back to the objectives, and, as was pointed out, there is a big distinction between corporate communications and product marketing. Corporate communications is ahead in social media because they have fewer rules. As proof, just look at the number of pharmaceutical companies with a corporate presence on Twitter.

4. We all need to listen more to the patient. Really listen. There’s been much talk in the past six months or so about the need for pharma to get in touch with the ePatient, and this conference was no exception. Surprise guest “ePatient Dave” (see his blog at http://patientdave.blogspot.com/) was truly inspiring as a speaker, a survivor, and an extremely engaged ePatient. His best advice:

'Patient' is not a third-person word. Your time will come. You or someone in your family WILL experience a health crisis.

It is always a healthy wake-up call for a patient to tell us marketers like it is.

5. The time may be coming that pharmas will need to evolve beyond the pill. Nike+ was provided as an example of a “value-add” product that a non-pharma company is now offering, and it’s a lot more than running shoes. It was argued that pharmaceutical companies make products, and they also need to provide health information and support to the consumers and professionals that use these products. Apps and devices will begin to fill this void. I wonder, though, if the reputation of pharmaceutical companies doesn’t change quickly, will consumers accept this support? Or will providing these added services and support enable their acceptance?

6. The power of Twitter is real. This is more of a personal confirmation than one that actually was presented at the conference. I attended ePharma Summit last year, and it was the first conference from which I “live tweeted” the event (See this Feb. 2009 photo to see how small the Twitterati universe was just a year ago!). It was at that 2009 conference that I realized the potential of Twitter to inform and connect in ways I’d not seen before. I realized this not from a presentation or from a recommendation, but from my own personal experience of tweeting, meeting, and connecting with others in ways both virtual and real. Now, a year later, I often say Twitter means the difference between a handshake and a hug at these conferences … if I already knew your little face from your little Twitter avatar, I’m much more likely to give you a hug the first time I meet you!

As marketers work to convince others of the power of social media, we would all do well to remember the power of personal experience. How can we get regulatory, legal, and medical folks more involved in social media at a personal level so they better understand it and increase their comfort level?

7. Believe the weathermen when they use words like “Snowpocalypse” and “Snow-mageddon.” Yeah – it snowed. A LOT. That said, it’s not always best to skip out of a conference early to make it home, as many did. There were probably about 100 people out of 400 that stuck it out that last day, and we learned a lot. So though I did get stuck in Philadelphia an extra couple of days, all in all, the presentations and the people at ePharma Summit 2010 made it well worth it.

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Additional ePharma Roundups Worth Reading:
There was plenty of great stuff shared at the ePharma Summit that I wasn’t able to capture here, so I invite you to read some of the other excellent roundups available throughout the pharma blogosphere:

1. Sally Church, from Icarus Consultants, zeroes in on the trends of video, mobile, and innovation on her blog.

2. Steve Woodruff of Impactiviti provides a well-rounded recap here.
3. Kevin Walsh highlights the Lilly presentation in on the Spectrum blog here.
4. Daphne Swancutt of IMRE invites us to put patients in the pharma context here.

At Last! Pharma eMarketing Comes of Age

I’ve actually heard of someone saying “2010 is going to be the year of digital,” and I kind of laughed inside my head a little. Wasn’t the breakout year of digital marketing a few years back? Okay, in the world of pharma, perhaps not. I guess it depends on how you define “the year of…”

• Does it mean it’s the year marketers fully embrace digital?
• Does it mean it’s the year FDA provides added guidance on digital and social marketing?
• Or does it mean it’s the year digital marketing peaks and begins to decline?

But won’t 2010 be the year of social media marketing? And who are the people that proclaim these things anyway???

(By the way, Google had proclaimed 2009 would be "the year of online;" do you think they were right? But I digress...)

I prefer to look at 2010 as the year that pharmaceutical marketers are looking at digital marketing with a focus equal to or greater than other marketing and advertising means. Evidence of this shift can be found in several places:

• Industry pub MedAdNews/PharmaLive has recently launched a digital email newsletter called DotPharma, purely focused on pharma eMarketing. The first issue explained "DotPharma will focus on tactics pharmaceutical marketers are using to reach patients and healthcare professionals, including closed-loop marketing, social media, e-mail marketing, and mobile marketing." A publication I consider to be one more steeped in a traditional advertising focus (as evidenced by advertisers, articles, and Manny Awards categories), it seems MedAdNews is discovering the digital age. Well done! Visit their opt-in page to check it out.


• Another industry publication for pharma marketers, PM360, has decided that instead of doing a separate eMarketing supplement this year, they will combine it into the rest of the publication. Anna Stashower, President and Publisher of the magazine, explained, "E-marketing, Digital Marketing, and Mobile Marketing are way too important to separate from the main issue and compete with it.”


• And, if you've noticed, all of the pharma marketing media are asking deeper questions and writing articles about the marketing mix within the digital channel, instead of the past focus of digital as separate from everything else.


• Social media marketing (which, of course, all happens within the digital space) for Pharma is in full-swing. With the recent explosion of pharmaceutical companies on Twitter, and new social media campaigns launching every week, it’s practically gone mainstream. And following FDA’s hearing on digital and social marketing last year, we hope to get some guidance by the end of this one.


• The advertising industry as a whole has suffered immensely during these past recession years. Cross-industry old-school publications such as Advertising Age have tracked ad industry layoffs and budget cuts as if the end was nigh. But in our experience (as a reminder, our experience is (1) Pharma and (2) Digital), 2009 meant that print and TV budgets may have been cut, but many digital budgets actually grew.

Of course, TV, print, radio, direct mail, etc. are not going away, and they will always be part of a balanced marketing mix depending on your brand and your audience. And yes, we still have some work to do to get pharma where it's using the digital channel to its full potential to reach both consumers and professionals.

But I am happy to see the industry shift toward digital spend and focus, at long last matching up to digital consumption by its stakeholders. How about you?

More Vintage Ads - Just For Fun

I had a great week at the ePharma Summit, despite getting caught in the middle of Snowpocalypse 2010 and getting trapped an extra couple of days. As always, I enjoyed meeting a lot of new people and exchanging ideas, as well as many good presentations. Kudos to the organizers on a successful conference.

I took notes! And I'm brewing up some posts that I hope to get to soon. Because attending these conferences always gets my brain juices flowing.

Meantime, I'll keep it light, and wanted to share a couple of fun new resources for vintage advertising that I ran across on Twitter:

• Huffington Post: Outrageous Vintage Ads: This collection includes some health-related ones, such as the Camel ad that proclaims "More Doctors Smoke CAMELS Than Any Other Cigarette!" A shout-out goes to @Zero7KC for the link.
• Vintage Ad Browser/Medicine: Organized by decade, these go all the way back to the 1830's and include both Rx and OTC products. Our pharma friends Pfizer, J&J, and Wyeth all make appearances. Thanks for the tip, @Shimcode.

I'd posted on vintage pharma ads before, and got a great response, so I hope you guys enjoy these as well.

Do You Suffer From SMHF (Social Media Hype Fatigue)?

I received some great feedback from readers on the recent post The Pharma-sponsored Online Communities of 10 Years Ago. Specifically, several people reached out via Twitter and said they appreciated my identificiation of a phenomenon they, too had experienced: SMHF, or Social Media Hype Fatigue. From the post:

All of this social media hype can backfire. People get excited and sensational statements are made. Marketers get overzealous and over-sell social media to their managers and regulatory folks. At some point, "social media hype fatigue" will set in, if it hasn't already. It is our responsibility to control the hype so social media can be looked upon with level heads by all.

I guess some people are just kinda tired of talking about or hearing about social media. Who can blame them? I think if we had a graph of the peak of social media hype in the pharma industry, it would have plateaued last November around the time of the FDA Hearings. With the next round of spring conferences coming up (I'll be at ePharma Summit next week. You?), I expect the discussion to continue. I always appreciate real case studies and real examples of how the pharmaceutical industry has effectively used social media to reach its customers (patients and HCPs).

We've been talking about social media to our clients literally for years, but recently we've seen a positive shift in the level of interest. That is, many of our current and prospective clients (and their legal/reg. teams) are turning a corner and realizing the opportunity could be a reality. And maybe that's a result of always trying to approach the social media discussion in the context of strategy, integration, and measurable results -- not hype. Hype's just not our style.

We've been talking internally at Intouch, too, about the future of social media in the context of our pharma marketing services. Our agency's growing Emerging Media Practice consults with clients and the rest of our agency on social and other emerging media, such as mobile.

Eventually, will social move "out" of the emerging media classification and become a mainstream core competency of everyone in marketing? It might take awhile, but it's possible. Still, I believe we'll continue to need deep-dive specialists like we currently have in search, online media, usability, applications, mobile, analytics, CRM, etc. Everyone can't know everything.

Will the hype die down and social media become just another key component of integrated marketing and public affairs campaigns? I sure hope so.

Much of that depends on what FDA will have to say.

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Past posts on the relationship between social media and the hype factor:

Is it really all about social?

Giving your brands lots of legs online

The pharma-sponsonsered online communities of 10 years ago