Where does healthcare marketing go from here?
Where does healthcare marketing go from here?
By on Jan 30, 2010Where does healthcare marketing go from here? That's the question that's on everyones mind these days as the drug industry continues to shed jobs and approval of new drugs become more expensive and time consuming. Yet consider these facts:
A report by Emory University researchers projected last November that by 2018 the United States could expect to spend $344 billion on healthcare costs attributable to obesity. Obesity-related costs would account for 21% of healthcare spending, up from 9.1% today, said the report, sponsored in part by the United Health Foundation and the American Public Health Assn.
More than half of those with diabetes who take insulin which helps lower blood glucose levels say they have intentionally omitted shots, a study published this week inDiabetes Care says.
The number of U.S. Food and Drug Administration warnings to drugmakers and others for questionable drug promotion has nearly doubled since President Barack Obama took office a year ago, a top FDA official said on Friday.
So at a time when executives are asking for marketers to prove their value to the business some feel that they have to do with one hand tied behind their backs. However two areas where the drug industry seems to spend less money is on compliance and preventative healthcare.
One-third of patients with CML receiving Gleevec are noncompliant researchers from Belgium have reported. Consider that this a drug that is life-saving and patients are not complaint? Pessimists would say "see there's nothing we can do about compliance" but I would argue that the right approach has not been perfected as of yet. Too often drug makers come up with a cookie cutter approach to compliance rather than devote the time and money to ensure that patients receive personally relevant information. A 65 year old woman taking Boniva should not receive the same information as a woman in her late 40's. Not only is their a huge age difference but today traditional segmentation doesn't work. People today are clustered around beliefs and emotions not just demographics. It's common for someone to be closer to another person who lives thousand of miles away than their next store neighbor thanks to the Internet.
The other area where the drug industry and the FDA need to get together is preventative healthcare. Obesity is a problem here in the US with an aging population and fast food that enough calories and fat to sustain someone for a whole day. The attitude of "I'll have a burger than take my Lipitor" should not be promoted. Today too many physicians find it easier to write and Rx for Lipitor than talk to a patient about getting more exercise and watching what they eat. Sure there are tips on the Lipitor website about eating right and exercising but today's consumers here in the US are stressed enough about the economy and food has become a way to reward ourselves for working hard and keeping a roof over our heads.
I would argue that we can do a lot to lower healthcare costs through prevention educations and marketing. When I worked for a consumer electronics company we held a series of walking events to promote new portable stereo's. Here in California Amgen sponsors bike rides to raise awareness of cancer and a lot of people show up. Since we are so busy building communities online why not try and do the same off line? Sure it would take money and value to attract consumers but the drug industry needs to do all it can right now to restore trust in an industry that has paid a record amount of fines last year for bad marketing.
What is so puzzling about this paradigm is that the drug industry desperately needs original thinkers who can lead salespeople and make human connections with customers and patients. Pharma organizations in the meantime want replaceable employees like cogs in a machine. They form Six Sigma teams so they can develop a process than a monkey can follow and still produce the same results. Drug marketing today is no different from factory work because it's planned, controlled and measured. It's people doing what they need to do to check off boxes and move onto the next project without causing any waves.
It used to be that you were promoted for standing out from the heard. Now people who raise their voices are taken to task at annual performance reviews as "not a team player". Fitting in at meetings and with the team is more important than voicing a concern about the direction of marketing. MBA's should have been taught to solve problems with creativity and lead rather than research what they should already know. When people do stand out and do a great job and earn respect they often find that they have reached a dead end within their careers and have trouble finding jobs within organizations that are resistant to change. CEO's rather than address these problems chose to continue to court Wall Street and talk about pipelines rather than engaging customers and restoring trust.