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*For marketing success, build proof of value not clever campaigns*

For marketing success, build proof of value not clever campaigns

Evidence-based medicine revolutionized medical research and decision-making. The premise is to ensure that practice reflects the aggregate results of research rather than of anecdotal evidence. In other words, to ensure that practice reflects what we know rather than what we think. The result will be that procedures, philosophies, and practices will converge around the known truth. But how will this affect our industry? Is this good news for us? Factual assessments of drugs, devices, and diagnostic tools sound good. However, it does raise the question: Is this the beginning of the end for healthcare marketers? In an ideal scenario, we are told, marketers are at their best when the idea of the best product or procedure is somewhat fuzzy. In the midst of this ambiguity, marketers thrive by contriving messages, programs, and plan to emphasize minute differences and play down significant downsides. What is the best cola-flavored soft drink? It is a difficult and complex topic to break down, so marketers can use branding, emotional attachment, and other tools and techniques to accelerate sales. However, the Web has led to a raft of comparison sites substituting subjectivity for objectivity. Comparethemarket.com is a prime example of the drive to get an objective view of value. What does all this have to do with pharma?

Market value departments

The field we are playing on is getting smaller by the day; the room for maneuver through communication is slim. Evidence-based medicine is the source of our market access pains, as authorities punish us for past sins. So when will we have our own comparethemarket.com? The response from some is the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK; there, comparethepills.com is a reality. No more room to spin without falling of our perch. Tomorrows winners will be the ones that actually deliver the best-proven value. So we need to shift our resources from communication to creation and delivery of differentiated value propositions. To win, we need to build proof into the value we deliver. All the bells and whistles are gone. What we are left with is an invitation to join the value drive. No surprise then that so-called medical marketers are growing alongside the health economists who often occupy market access departmentsat the expense of traditional brand and marketing managers. The trend will continue for some time yet as traditional marketing roles are restructured and redesigned. The legacy of the evidence/value drive is that market access departments will evolve into market value departments and confrontational interactions with authorities will soften. The evidence-based approach will be good for allonce we get our house in order.