Bring patients together but it has to be on their terms

I just received some data from an online survey on social media and pharma that we are conducting for a client.

By Richard Meyer on May 1, 2009

I just received some data from an online survey on social media and pharma that we are conducting for a client. The pop-up survey ran this week and as of last night we had 2,345 responses from people aged 24-67. The objective of the survey was to find out if patients/consumers wanted to have a social conversation with pharma and the answer to that was a resounding "no" unless they could ask "medical questions" such as "can I take this medication with my others" & "what can I do to minimize the side effects"? The most requested feature? Hook us up with others who have similar health problems and taking medication so we can ask them questions and learn from their experiences.

For me there were not that many surprises in the results to the survey. Consumers said they would be willing to help marketers design brochures and packaging but that they were afraid that such an encounter would lead to a "selling relationship". There also is a clear need to better understand side effects when it comes to the product vs. placebo. In short consumers want to be able to judge for themselves the risks vs. benefits of taking prescription medications.

We are currently going through the data to gain some more insights and cut the data by demographic segment but the message is clear "we don't want to talk with pharma unless it's on our terms".