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The Ethicon marketing team for the gastric band said it does not have specific ROI goals for the YouTube effort; it is part of an entire educational and marketing campaign.

The Ethicon marketing team for the gastric band said it does not have specific ROI goals for the YouTube effort; it is part of an entire educational and marketing campaign. Translation: We dont how any idea how to measure ROI for video online ! If Ethicon had done this right they would have had ROI measurement tools in place so they in fact could have measured the impact of the program on You Tube and determine if the program should be expanded or put to bed. Drug and medical device companies will measure the ROI of getting morning coffee but when it comes to measuring online marketing efforts they are usually clueless.

So Ethicon launched a You Tube channel for the gastric band which can cost $17,000-$26,000 on average, according to the ASMBS. Insurance coverage varies by carrier and I am sure that more and more insurers are going to deny this surgery unless it is a last resort that can effect the patients health. In the video, Viki, a middle-age blonde, tears up recounting her moment of truth: A couple of years ago she was so obese that she could not chase after her toddler to keep him from running into the street. This is indeed impactful but in an era of increasing health costs and people who dont have health coverage I am sure that there are going to be a lot of people who have little sympathy for what they feel is a lifestyle condition.

An integrated DTC campaign, when developed, should have not only great execution it needs to have great measurement parameters in place. Can you imagine going into senior management and saying that we spent X amount of dollars for a campaign but we dont know how to measure the ROI at a time when marketing budgets are being cut? The problem seems to be that either they did not want to spend more money for an integrated program that included ROI tools or that they had this video and just wanted to get it up on You Tube. The reality is that best in class marketing organization know before hand how they are going to measure ROI and build it into the program. If you want to know how I would measure ROI eMail me and Ill let in you in but I am not going to teach the people at Ethicon how to measure web ROI as it seems that they are clueless. 


Marketers are being asked to do a hell of lot more with less today. Every dollar we spend has to show an ROI and even educational programs can be set to measure the direct ROI. Web marketing is not something that can be done quickly, it has to be well thought out and executed but it also has to have the correct support in place so you can measure results...something that a lot of companies are not willing to do.