What if Every Marketer Had the Disease?

I've been thinking about something lately. It's actually been knocking around in my head for months. I've hesitated more than once to share it here. But I think it's compelling and important enough to do so. And being here at the 2011 ePatient Connections conference, the thought is both salient and timely: 

What if the prerequisite for being a pharma product manager was to have a chronic disease, the very condition which the marketed product treated?

What if all their marketing partners also lived with the condition?

These questions first came to me earlier this year at the DTC National Conference. The conference wasn’t focused on patients, per se, the way this week’s ePatient Connections conference is. But several speakers at DTC told their own “patient” stories at DTC:

• Myrtle Potter, former President and CEO of Genentech, shared her near-death experience of hospitalization, insisting on answers, and a self-diagnosis that led to recovery. Patient empowerment likely saved her life.
• Jerry Levin of AOL and Time, Inc. fame spoke at DTC about the social graph. But he made sure to share his story as a patient as well: he's been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.

We see this often. Speakers make the point that they, too, have been a patient in order to establish credibility and speak from perspective. Many of us have heard the always-insightful WeGo Health Activists provide advice to pharma (I heard them this year at the Social Media for Pharma conference and then again at Digital Pharma West.)

They are all powerful testimonies, straight from the heart. And straight from somebody who "has been there." Who has lived the struggles. Who understands what it's like to be "a patient" in today's healthcare environment. These stories are played out every day ... by our friends, family, neighbors, colleagues ... and customers who take our products. In thousands of forums and blogs online.

What if everyone that made decisions on how to market a product to consumers
actually had the disease?

How different would pharma marketing be?

Especially with the current buzz (and hopefully true trend) towards pharma having a more customer-centric approach (see more on that here), it is an interesting question to ponder. (Though let me make it clear I do not wish a health malady on anyone … even those few unkind clients from my early agency years ...really ... not even them ...)

Are pharma marketers who live with a chronic condition more likely to be better marketers? Are they more compassionate? Can they better communicate with patients because they are “one of them?” Do they approach things differently? Do they have more empathy? Do they truly look at things with a patient-centric viewpoint? Would they be more inclined to fight for things like two-way dialogue, for more meaningful connections? For providing value instead of sending out broadcast messages?

Perhaps. I've met some of these marketers along the way. They are out there, scattered across the pharma sphere. I’ve worked alongside some, and there does seem to be an added passion. But I’ve also worked with many compassionate, brilliant marketers whose only connection to the condition is their position at the company.

Does a personal connection to the condition create an unwanted bias?

If a product manager lives with the condition day in and day out, it certainly gives new meaning to understanding the audience. It certainly goes beyond focus groups, surveys, advisory boards, and social media monitoring.

Perhaps with the tools currently at our disposal, and with emerging disciplines like health psychology, as pharma marketers we will not only keep doing what we're doing, we'll aim to do better. We’ll strive to understand and respect each individual story. We will spend the effort, budget, and resources to understand our consumer audiences and understand them more as “people” and less as nameless “patients.”

And we won’t need to live with the condition to do an exceptional job of understanding perspective and provide value.

Author and patient advocate Dave deBronkart (@ePatientDave) tweeted today that “pts are the most underutilized resource in healthcare.”

I tend to agree. Do you?

In the end, it’s not possible, practical, and perhaps not even a good idea that every product manager have the condition for which he or she is entrenched. But the least we can do is to continue to learn as much as we can from – and listen carefully to – those that have been there by no choice of their own.