The Importance of Marketing

Before joining Wyeth Pharmaceuticals as a Product Director, Julie Holcombe spent 15 years as an Advertising Director. Here she shares her thoughts with NGP on the impact of customer relationships, loyalty and the Internet on marketing in pharma.

NGP. How has your background influenced your current role? What are the main differences between agency/client marketing?
JH. My background has played an enormous role in influencing the work that I do as well as the way that I work. Coming from the agency side, you learn early on how quickly the market can change and how fickle customers can be. Therefore, you need to be ready to adapt – and quickly – which can mean long hours, unexpected changes, very tight deadlines, and shifts in the business of both your own company as well as your clients. Account teams need to be as prepared as possible for all potential scenarios, but also must be flexible and persistent when something unexpected happens. But there are pressures on either side of the fence. On the “client side,” for example, we have many more stakeholders to consider – both internally and externally. This expanded network of constituents means that the impact of our efforts can have a larger ripple effect, and thus, the pressure to produce high-impact results is extreme. That being said, I do think having spent significant time working in high-pressure agencies – where you are forced to multi-task and be simultaneously strategic – prepared me well to handle the challenge of my current environment.

NGP. In your opinion, what are the main challenges of the marketing function within the pharmaceutical industry?
JH. As with any industry that is highly regulated, the hurdles that often accompany pharmaceutical marketing are principally targeted towards ensuring a balance with promotional communications that are not only responsible and compliant but that can also stimulate desired behavior. The added challenge that our industry faces with its marketing plans, particularly in the US, is that we are marketing to both the patient and the physician. These two customers have very different needs, very different communication triggers, and very different pathways that lead to desired behaviors – be it prescribing or product request and compliance. This can often make the process of developing impacting marketing plans a bit tricky. Pharmaceutical marketers need to take a hard look at where, if at all, marketing plans for these distinct customers intersect. And if they don’t, how and where they will compliment and support each other.

NGP. You have previously spoken about the effect the internet has had on marketing in the pharma industry. Can you explain the effects it has had? And do you think it will continue to have an impact?
JH. Its no coincidence that direct-to-consumer promotion and internet marketing have had parallel timelines in terms of utilization by industry. Consumers are beyond internet savvy these days. Use of the web is simply a way of life, and is now firmly entrenched in the behavior path of the healthcare information seeker. The effect of the internet is simply that people have more control than ever over what information they choose to hear, digest, and use. The information they get online is customized to their needs simply because it is what a user has chosen to view. This alone yields a higher impact than any passive promotion that is provided to them without their request. Now, this is not to say that TV or print advertising is a dying marketing tool. In fact, I think quite the opposite is true. My belief is that the internet has forced us as marketers to use offline or even out-of-home channels to work harder for us. They still succeed in doing what they always have done best, and that is in peaking interest. Now, however, the internet can let us tell the whole story – the one that will hopefully influence a customer to not only be interested, but ready and motivated to act. And as the technology online continues to develop to provide information and entertainment simultaneously, so will the importance of the channel to serve as the conduit for behavior change.

NGP. Can you give me some examples of what Wyeth has done to embrace internet marketing?
JH. As a company, Wyeth realized several years ago that this channel needed some special attention. We continue to do so, with several areas of the company dedicated to this channel including a staff of internet marketing specialists, compliance and teams who oversee company web standards, and integrated web-based customer database management groups. These teams are an integral support system for marketing. Within the marketing teams specifically, Wyeth has been on the forefront of bringing patient education through innovative mechanisms to its customers so that learning opportunities are plentiful as well as pleasurable. For example, in 2006 we launched our award-winning web site KnowMenopause.com as the industry’s first “TV on the Web” approach to educating consumers about the physical and physiological changes associated with this time in a woman’s life. We also use this site as the hub for our overall consumer menopause education campaign, of which there are several offline components which lead back to the rich online site. Another example is our corporate web site, Wyeth.com. This corporate asset serves a myriad of important customers, including healthcare providers, patients, investors, media, and employees. Last year this site was completely redesigned to ensure that all of our customers needs were addressed, and as such has become the primary resource for information and services from our company to its constituents.

NGP. In your opinion, how important is it to have a good customer relationship? How do you go about forming that relationship? Do you have any examples?
JH. The customer relationship is everything. But forming this relationship is often difficult. For our healthcare providers, our field force is the primary conduit to relationship development. They represent the company in every way, and hopefully are continuously demonstrating the importance of each customer to our company. For consumers, the relationship has to be formed in a variety of ways. Certainly the communications we proactively provide are the first opportunity to engage with them. General awareness advertising can start this conversation, but it’s one-sided. The best way to engage and maintain the relationship is to provide a means to deliver deep and relevant information or services that are valuable to customers’ needs – not only about their health but also about their life. For example, we have a relationship marketing program within the woman’s healthcare franchise that is designed to support a woman throughout her menopausal journey. Beginning with the Know Menopause program, a woman just starting to experience menopause can engage with us to receive information that is tailored to her information needs at that point in time. Once she has begun to seek treatment for symptoms she may be experiencing as part of menopause, we have condition and brand-specific information designed to help her decide if a treatment discussion with her healthcare provider is appropriate, and if so, if our brands are right for her needs. Finally, if she is already taking one of our products, we provide a series of information – via multiple channels – all of which are designed to validate her treatment decision while supporting an overall healthy lifestyle approach.

NGP. How important are brand and customer loyalty? In your opinion, how can pharma companies improve their brand and customer loyalty?
JH. Patient compliance is probably the biggest challenge facing the healthcare industry today. It goes way beyond a pharmaceutical manufacturer’s issue, but one of significant importance to insurance groups, healthcare providers, government, etc. So when you discuss customer loyalty you really have to think in terms of not only repeated use of a brand but also about compliant and persistent use of medications when they are prescribed. This second use is a far harder nut to crack. When considering any brand – healthcare or otherwise – people are going to respond to a product that does what they need it to do. For healthcare products, the brand needs to work consistently within an acceptable benefit/risk profile. But while consumers want those same attributes, they are not as likely to need or want to remember a brand name, unless perhaps it is for a chronic situation. Therefore, if a brand or a company can provide value, say, for overall disease or lifestyle management, the value of their product increases. Bottom line, we can improve brand and customer loyalty by always keeping the focus on overall patient health, with medication being a part of that process The result, hopefully, is repeated or continued and persistent use of appropriate medications and overall improved health outcomes.

NGP. What does it take to produce a winning branding campaign? Can you give examples of you favorite campaign?
JH. If I knew the definitive answer I’d be running the industry! There, of course, is no magic answer, but there are some basic characteristics that in my opinion can help lead to campaigns that are both responsible and impactful. My bias, for example, is that humor is the one emotion that is universally accepted. Balancing this with respect for a patient suffering with that disease state or a product’s risk profile that is serious in nature does become tricky, and as such, for these situations, use of humor may be completely inappropriate in marketing campaigns. But for some of the most difficult and chronic conditions to treat, it can be very effective. I’ve often said that the Vytorin campaign has been one of my favorites. Its use of humor creates a more difficult to translate mechanism of action into one that is simple and understandable. Simultaneously, it diffuses the notion that high cholesterol is a result of solely bad behaviors and thus gives “permission” for the condition and a need to treat. In this same category, Lipitor had a campaign a few years ago in which they compared two seemingly like individuals and highlighted one with an out-of-control cholesterol number. It was both memorable and digestible.

NGP. How do you see marketing and advertising changing in the next couple of years?
JH. I think more and more we will be forced into category marketing versus brand specific marketing, at least from a DTC perspective. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I’m disheartened that DTC has not been recognized as a driver to better and more proactive healthcare choices on the part of patients. To that end, the use of the online channel will more and more become an engine to drive healthcare decisions. As a healthcare provider’s time becomes increasingly limited, the online channel will be a key driver to communicate the latest clinical findings and a product’s differentiating attributes. Likewise, consumers will continue to investigate their healthcare treatment options through this channel. Given these changes with our customers, I’m looking forward to seeing the industry shift to best meet these needs in a more proactive and supportive manner.