April 2017: Marketing in a generics-rich environ

The above image from here: Yellow bulbs!

There is never a dull day in the pharma marketer’s life!  Respected Mr. N Modi, PM of India, has sent shivers down the spine of pharma marketers - on 17.4.17 at Surat during a hospital inauguration: Mr. Modi announced in his speech there that the central govt. will bring in a law to ensure doctors prescribe generic drugs (Ref.: The Times of India, page no. 1 headline, Ahmedabad edition).  The reference was that doctors should write unbranded generic drug names on prescriptions ie., for example, doctor will not prescribe Dolo 650, he has to prescribe paracetamol 650 mg! 

Now let us remember, almost entire of Indian pharma market is the branded generics market, which is promoted to doctors.  Pharma companies have built their fortunes and gained huge shareholder value on the basis of pen habit of doctors to prescribe branded medicines (me-too products) and earned profits.  This has helped pharma companies to recruit field personnel to expand operations, ensured market penetration of quality products to the nook and corner of Indian pharma market; this has helped pharma companies build manufacturing set-ups, and export products to almost every country of the world.  And pharma companies have also started R and D endeavours.

Overnight, with the PM's announcement, this pharma business model is under threat by the envisaged law.  No more will a doctor prescribe Taxim, he will write cefixime 500 mg, it is upto the patient and pharmacist to ensure the consumption of this drug, either unbranded generic or any one of the branded options available with the pharmacist.

Now, if the law that is to come, allows the doctor to prescribe both paracetamol 650 mg and his recommended brand in brackets eg., (Dolo 650), then there is some steam left in the branded generics pharma market space promoted to doctors.

Background

During 1950s, the medical representative (MR) visit was a most welcome entry for the doctor.  Probably he would get one medical representative visit every day in urban areas, and in semi-rural and rural visits, if at all a MR would visit, the doctor would get a MR visit may be once a week.  Hence, the MR with his product updates and samples was a welcome presence to the doctor.

From 1970s, with product patent regime being abandoned (thanks to the Indian Patents Act, 1970), (the product patent was re-introduced in 2005), me-too product manufacturers and marketers burgeoned.  More medical representatives started entering the doctor’s clinics, bonus offers earlier unheard off…became a rage, pharmacies also started pushing brands that offered better margins or free goods (sales promotional offers).  As the number of medical representatives started increasing, the leverage was with the doctor, and he started gratefully accepting various quid-pro-quo gifts from pharma marketers.  Those who were aggressive in gifting grew rapidly…this story continued into 1980s.  However, there were also some pharma marketers who were not gifting or providing sponsorships adventurously.

The late 1980s, and 1990s saw the earlier conservative companies, shed their shyness, throw their ethics out of the window, since they saw their counterpart companies who provided gifts and bonus offers growing humongous, and got into the gifting and sponsoring of doctors gameplan.  Various wannabe biggie companies also started playing with penetration pricing to garner market share.  CRM (customer relationship management) was the core of pharma marketing.  PCD (propaganda cum distribution) companies started taking root and gained traction in the first decade of 21^st century.  The party has become bigger and bigger.

Doctors are splurged; several unconfirmed legendary CRM activities make rounds during marketing “gupshup”:

a)   After the formal cocktail dinner launch of a breakthrough brand of antiulcerant, important doctors were given keys to a luxury car… and prescribers who were gifted their four wheels left broadly smiling

b)      Another leading doctor working for psycho-somatic health of patients, was given enough cars by various companies – one car for each day of the week!  And the day the doctor takes out a certain car, on that day the pharma brands belonging to the car gift-giver would roll out of the pen of the doctor

c)   Sponsored foreign tours for families and other indulgences in the foreign tours engrossed doctor fraternity and brands paraded in their minds

d)     Sponsorship of get-togethers, cocktail dinners and various other meetings masqueraded under the garb of CMEs (Continuing Medical Education)

And it goes on and on and on…each pharma marketer vying with each other to give and take…for mutual gains with the medical fraternity.

WHY DO PHARMA MARKETERS ‘GIVE’ TO THE DOCTOR?

Consumption of medicines is decided by the doctor, in the current situation, it is by prescribing the branded generic.  If a doctor prescribes brand X, the patient buys it.  The patient has implicit trust on the doctor (the medical professional earlier definitely had a demi-God status in Indian society) and obediently goes with the doctor’s brand recommendation.  The result is pharma marketers who take care of doctor’s needs enjoy better sales outcomes and profits.

In this business, the patient does not make any choice between brands with the same generic drug.  It is the doctor’s business to choose the pharma brand for the patient.  But the payer is the patient!

Ignorance of brand options with same generic drug, lack of will by patient to exercise brand options, and non-encouragement by the environment to choose alternative brands or unbranded generics are the main reasons why patients go along obediently with the doctor’s brand recommendation.

This pussy footing by the patient provides an opportunity for the doctor to use his influence with patients and encourage consumption of his favoured brands.  And this gives an opportunity for the doctor to strike quid-pro-quo relationships with pharma brand marketers!  And both the pharma company and doctor enjoy the benefits of pharma brand sales, thanks to a very co-operative attitude of the patient.

WHY DO PHARMA MARKETERS PROMOTE PRODUCTS TO DOCTORS?

Pharma brands are built by the doctors prescriptions, if a doctor gets 1000 to 2500 patient visits per month (average of 40 to 100 patient visits per day; 25 working days per month), and prescribes an average of four assorted pharma brands per patient, then, 4000 to 10000 pharma brand purchases have happened (it will not be 4000 to 10000 different brands, there will certainly be a number of repeated overlapping brands) - a doctor after all, may be able to remember maximum 100 to 200 different pharma brands? 

So the idea for the pharma marketer, is to be among the 100 to 200 brands or so,  which a doctor remembers (certainly some brands are etched permanently in the doctor's mind ‘non-volatile ROM brands’ and others are ‘volatile RAM brands’, the latter are the brands that float in and out of the doctor’s mind, depending on the regularity of product promotional activity). 

It is then vital to gain patronage of the doctor, and ensure the promoted pharma brands sell.  Thus, prescribing the pharma brand name is key to commercial success of a pharma company.

GENERIC PRESCRIPTIONS: death-knell for the pharma brand business

The ruling BJP party and Mr. N Modiji are focused on winning elections, the next big one is the Lok Sabha elections of 2019.  To gather votes, they need to say a story of doing good to their voters, mainly the middle class and poor sections of society.  Capping the prices of stents has endeared the govt. to the masses.  Now ensuring purchase of unbranded generic medicines, which are available at rock bottom rates will further make the government voter friendly.  There is a good talking point here for the ruling party.

Generic drugs (non-patented) are of three varieties (click here):

a)    Branded generics promoted to doctors (these carry maximum premium (high MRP) and are hugely prescribed by doctors)

b)      Branded generics not promoted to doctors, sold by pharmacies to patients, and also purchased by dispensing doctors who sell them to patients

c)  Unbranded generics not promoted to doctors sold by pharmacies to patients, and also purchased by doctors who sell them to patients.

In developed countries, the patient is not ignoramus.  The doctor has to justify his recommendation to patients.  Normally, prescriptions are for unbranded generics in developed countries.  Many of these unbranded generic medicines sold in developed countries are manufactured in India and marketed abroad.

However, in India, it is a time-honoured practice to manufacture and market, branded generics and the prescriber chooses to patronize certain brands of his choice based on the doctor’s experience with the technology and quality of the brand, and marketing inputs provided by the pharma marketer.  The Indian patient is ignorant of his ability to make a choice between branded and unbranded generics.

ARE PHARMA BRANDS EQUIVALENT?

The answer is yes and no!  Brands of the same category are chemically equivalent (contain the same quantity of the active ingredient).  However, there can be important differences.  This is with the excipients and the manufacturing process parameters of the brand.  For example, if you compare the dissolution profile of albendazole tablets, you may be surprised; Zentel from GSK is said to have the best profile.  Similarly, Advanced Crocin has certain excipients to improve dissolution and consequent absorption of paracetamol into the bloodstream, when ingested.

Pharma brands are also presented in unique differentiating ways that improves patient acceptance and brand salience.  The shape at the mouth of bottle in oral pharma formulations may aid pourability, use of certain permitted colours and flavouring agents also enhances patient acceptance, use of Alu-alu pack by certain pharma brands (may not be used by plain vanilla unbranded generic medicines) enhances patient compliance and patient acceptance.  Pharma brand marketers work on differentiating their products through value added excipients to improve organoleptic qualities (improved patient acceptance through mouth-feel, flavour, texture, odour, colour and taste); these are not a consideration in plain vanilla unbranded pharma products.

Though brands may be chemically equivalent, or even proven to be bio-equivalent, yet brand performance may not be same; and brand acceptance at patient level will not be same.  Furthermore, doctor’s confidence will not be same on each brand.  It depends on the doctor’s experience with the brand, technology used in the brand, and patient feedback to the doctor on the brand.

IS IT RIGHT TO DO ‘DEBRANDIZATION’ (brand-bandi in doctor's prescriptions) OF INDIAN PHARMA MARKET? 

Patient health, recovery and well-being are paramount for medicine marketers and doctors.  Quid-pro-quo relationships are at one level, but patient recovery & well-being (public health) is the non-negotiable foundation where pharma marketers, doctors and other stakeholders such as regulatory agencies agree to be on one page.

So the fundamental question to ask is, whether promotion of unbranded generic medicines - will improve public health?

The merits of ‘debrandization’ in pharma market:

a)      People will come to know of availability of unbranded generic and branded generic medicines (which are not promoted to doctors), so this option will gain traction; and patients can exercise this option if they wish

b)      Doctor-pharma marketer relationship will become “cleaner”

c)   PCD (propaganda cum distribution) companies who are known to offer robust services to doctors in exchange for their prescription or purchase support, will end

d)     Accessibility will improve

e)      Cost of therapy will come down.

The demerits of ‘debrandization’ in Indian pharma market:

a)      The current pharma marketing business model will collapse

b)    Shares of big pharma listed companies whose business depends on pharma brands will fall steeply

c)      Industry turnover will fall

d)     If the doctor stops prescribing branded medicines, medical representatives will not meet them, many medical representative jobs will be lost

e)      Companies will reduce jobs in marketing (particularly field jobs)

f)     Field personnel will focus on chemist retailers than doctors, offer incentives and freebies to retailers to stock and push their products (as per the Times of India, 19.4.17, page no. 19, Mumbai edition, retail margin on drugs may be as high as 1000%, this will stress pharma marketers, as they have to offer competitive margins and offers, this will erode financial strength of pharma companies)

g)   Innovation and technology improvements will not occur, all pharma companies will go for manufacturing the plain vanilla formulations (without any improvements), it will become a commodity game

h)      Quality will become a question issue.  For instance drugs (APIs) and excipients are available at various crystalline purities, and the manufacturer will go in for lowest acceptable crystal purity (only economy will weigh on the mind of manufacturer)

i)        Packaging will be passé and will not offer any improved benefits to patients

j)    With profit margin squeeze, companies will not have adequate surplus monies to invest on geographic expansion, export ventures, product development, R and D, new molecule research, social marketing etc

k)   Companies will reduce emphasis on launch and marketing of modern medicines, they will prefer to invest on nutraceuticals and Ayurvedic formulations.  These will not be affected by the proposed law (in fact, Himalaya Drug Company and other such companies will go laughing all the way to the bank, while rest of pharma will be stressed).  Besides Ayurvedic formulations and nutraceuticals can be advertised.  We will lose our standing, competence, global edge and knowledge of manufacturing and marketing of modern medicines

l)      In case of branded formulations containing multiple ingredients such as Becosules Z, it will be virtually impossible for the doctor to write names of generic drugs or vitamins/minerals included in the formulation on his prescription

m)  Monitoring the implementation of this ‘generic name only law’ for prescribers is nearly impossible…let us say there are about 10 lakh active prescribers (across India), and let us assume, every working day these 10 lakh active prescribers write about 50 prescriptions each.  This means 5 crore prescriptions per day!  And for 25 working days, it is 125 crore prescriptions per month!!  Are you going to monitor this?!!

n)      If a doctor writes some brand names, and in India where there is a situation of less number of doctors, and more patients, what punishment are you going to administer?  Prevent them from practising?

o) If medical representatives and field personnel lose jobs, in a country where under/unemployment is high, is this initiative worth it?  Please remember marketing creates more jobs than manufacturing or R and D (in pharma field)

p)    Doctors may give oral recommendations for brands, or unsigned slips containing brand names, or pharmacies will push certain brands on oral recommendation of doctors … there are ways to beat this law…

q)  There could be legal challenges to this ‘debrandization’ as it takes away the freedom to promote branded products and recommend them

r)   Patients may be unhappy with the generic name prescriptions since the doctor is not prescribing “quality brands” (it is a matter of freedom of choice and many patients want quality brands…brands are the covenants of trust)

s)    Patients and patient attenders may be upset with the tongue twister and complex generic names of medicines, in comparison to cute, easy to recall, easy to pronounce and easy to remember brand names of medicinal products.

HOW MAY PHARMA COMPANIES MANAGE THE NEW CHALLENGES?

PESTEL standing for political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal environment is always in a state of flux, depending on the various happenings on the PESTEL front, pharma organisations will respond in various ways: 

a)  Some will adopt the wait and watch, others will lead a counter response through various forums like IDMA and KDPMA; few others will use their good offices with various authorities and present their viewpoints.  Some others will present their take on social media and talk to the media

b)    Companies will start investing on new marketing technology to strengthen their patient-centric communication, and strengthen CORPORATE EQUITY and PRODUCT EQUITY at patient-level.

c)      There will be a rise in OTX (over-the-counter and prescription) route of marketing (including communication/advertising/digital messaging to patients) to strengthen sales outcomes; also OTX products will be launched in a rush: ayurvedic, dental, nutritional powders, nutritional supplements, health soaps, and other nutraceutical products (including in unique packaging like Tetra Pak based products or products with unique concepts like virgin coconut oil)

d)  A chemist-focused and dispensing-doctor focused working will be emphasised to ensure product availability

e)   Companies will go in for umbrella branding, umbrella brand colour concept, and uniform packaging for creating market identity for their products; so that chemist/pharmacy retail-push/pull will start; pharma marketers will also go in for launch and pushing unbranded generics and branded generics (low cost, that are not promoted to doctors)

f)     Companies will increase no. of medical representative calls to pharmacies (eg., 15 per day) and reduce doctor calls (to say 5 per day)

g)      Companies will probably rationalize field personnel count and coverage, and consolidation of divisions/SBUs etc., to reduce costs

h)    Companies will invest more on chemist coverage, example: paying chemists/pharmacies to book shelf space for their products, offer freebies to chemists, & having field personnel to cover more chemists/pharmacies and dispensing doctors

i)   Some companies with deep pockets may start their chain of pharmacies (for eg., Cipla pharmacy), and will also emphasize online pharmacy marketing toos
j)   Companies will invest more to make patented medicines, products with novel drug delivery systems or products that do not have many me-too products...

What may the Govt. do?

a)      Govt., may tighten doctor-pharma marketer relationships with new laws

b)      Govt., may ask doctors to write generic names only on prescriptions

c)   Govt., may ask doctors to write the generic names and the brand name alternative (in brackets), so that the patient will have an option to buy the generic name product if he wants or go ahead with the doctor’s choice of a branded product or the patient may choose another branded product, a company of his choice.

It would be prudent to go the option C, since it meets governmental requirements, patient psychology, doctor’s confidence and liberty, and Indian pharma industry traditions.

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Messaging and relationship management

Pharma Marketing has two major limbs: messaging and relationship management.  With technology having a profound impact on marketing process, new dimensions and possibilities emerge on the pharma marketing horizon.  Consider the following graphic of pharma messaging and relationship management:

The above graphic describes the conventional messaging architecture; however, technology enables us to provide messaging penetration.

Let us imagine, a MR (Medical Representative) manages 100 doctors, and each doctor prescribes the promoted brands to 10 patients/month (it can be any number of products).  Thus, in a month the MR gets about 1000 patients who consume the promoted brands.

In reality, it will not as perfect as above.  Alternatively, there can be 80 doctors giving 60% of the business or even the classical Pareto’s rule: 80:20.  But this point is only as a caveat.

In today’s scenario, most messaging and relationship management efforts are directed to the doctor (prescriber or influencer) for pharmaceutical products. 

In the messaging arena, the MR indulges in detailing of three types:

a)      Visual aid detailing (or using some other collateral)

b)      Extempore detailing

c)      Dialogue detailing with Yes momentum.

The realities and challenges to the MR in using the face-to-face in-clinic messaging routine are many: the well-established doctor gets atleast 300 different MRs every month.  This is about 12 MRs per day (and if repeat calls by MRs are factored in, it could be more than 300 MR calls per month to the doctor). 

If each MR is given 5 minutes by the doctor, then, it works out to: 12 MRs X 5 minutes = 60 minutes per day!  Now if a doctor is seeing 50 to 100 patients per day, you can well imagine whether he can afford to provide the 60 minutes to MRs, the doctor probably will offer only 60 seconds on a routine day (elevator pitch and no more!).  It is not an exaggeration to state that it is a great challenge for a routine MR to obtain adequate time and mind-space of the doctor!!

In fact, if the doctor gives 5 minutes per MR (and he has 12 MRs visiting per day, it is 60 minutes per day), then for 25 working days, the time for MRs would become 25 hours!  It is doubtful if a doctor can afford so much time to MRs.

Pharma companies are attempting to work round this problem, these days pharma companies give their MRs only about 100 to 150 or less than 100 doctors to manage in a month, and there is emphasis on servicing, client management and repeat calls.  In the 1990s and earlier, each MR would have to call on 250 to 300 different doctors per month.

To compound the problem of a hasty doctor call made by the typical MR, is the fact that he does not normally use this limited time effectively - due to lack of application of communication skills, discouragement by doctors to apply his detailing skills, and to top it all there is an overall dip in basic work skills of MRs, in today’s pharma world.

NEW METHODS AND MARKETING MESSAGE PENETRATION

To overcome, such challenges, pharma marketers are on the earnest and constant look-out to use as many means of messaging and relationship management.  This includes in-booth or in-stall activity, sponsoring CMEs, advertising on websites, and print and e- medical journals…all to get valuable mindspace for brand messaging and relationship management.

Application of digital and other modern technologies to doctor-centric messaging and relationship management have limited scope, since doctors are hard – pressed for time.  Doctors find it difficult to balance their professional pressures, need for constant updation of knowledge and their personal lives.  Hence, application of tech enabled marketing messaging is difficult when it comes to doctors. 

One approach would be to gift a doctor a digital assistant that provides drug information (such as safety in pregnancy, drug-drug interactions etc on a portable palm top…and when a doctor checks up a drug the brand messaging can be done on the screen shot or at other points).  Nevertheless, these devices may not be patronized by the doctor constantly, since most of the patient cases are handled by his expertise and doctors may not need a digital knowledge or prompter crutch.  Young doctors may however find it a fancy for sometime atleast.

For relationship management with doctors, the time-honoured methods are appreciating and providing positive strokes, giving samples, knowledge and brand updates (through literatures, reminder cards, CDs etc), small gifts, sponsorships, and ensuring medical representation is pleasing and regular.  Such a MR call will ensure goodwill and catalyse doctors to favour the promoted brands.

All in all, it boils down to a very challenging script to implement modern digital non-MR formats of messaging and relationship management.

MODERN TECHNOLOGY CAN OPEN DOORS TO MESSAGING PENETRATION

The marvels of information technology are such that it can catalyse messaging penetration to all other stakeholders! 

Consider the following hypothetical example:

Let us say in above graphic, 1000 patients are prescribed either an anti-diabetic brand or an antihypertensive or an antibiotic.  Now most of the pharmacies are nearby/adjoining the clinic, or at the hospital where the doctor prescribes.  And when the patient presents the prescription, a software “sitting atop the billing software” collects the patient’s mobile number and email/postal address (this is entered by the pharmacist who feeds the information after obtaining permission from the patient/patient attender.  For this effort the pharmacist can be given points, which can then be converted to a gift from the pharma company). 

The information thus collected from the pharmacist, is then sent by the pharmacist through autoemail or uploading (through wifi) onto the pharma company’s server. 

Using this information, the pharma company then sends regular brand sponsored messages that motivate the patient to take care of his or her health, or health tips through sms, or dosage reminders through sms, or reminders to take the medication before food and so on. 

This patient-centric messaging activity that is technology enabled, thus takes the pharma company’s messaging activity to the next level, adding depth to the messaging format of the company.  Brand registration, brand goodwill and brand loyalty are also built through this messaging format at the patient level. 

This database can also be used for inviting patients for health related events conducted by the pharma company either by themselves or in collaboration with health NGOs.  Example, a free yoga course for diabetics or a talk on millets and sampling dishes made from millets for diabetics…the possibilities are only limited by resources and imagination!

This is not an additional marketing cost to the pharma company, it is brand building through ethical marketing messaging penetration upto the patient level.  This approach will help secure the patients who are on the company’s brands.  Further, this avenue of patient-centric messaging and relationship management will help make up for the challenges in pharma marketing to doctors.  This will earn pharma brand owners great goodwill and brand loyalty (and strengthen corporate equity too).

One can loop the doctor in above communication strategies and events.

Cross-selling opportunity:  If an antibiotic is prescribed to patient X and if this registers on the pharma company site through the pharmacy, there is an opportunity to touch base with the patient to cross-promote a safe nutritional supplement (eg., a B complex vitamin tablet or a health drink containing a pro/prebiotic to strengthen the gut, overall well-being and energy of the patient, since antibiotics do cause weakness and other side-effects.).  The database verily opens up an opportunity for cross-selling of various nutritionals or allied products (eg., a specially formulated toothpaste for diabetics (mouth is the index of the body!)), or aids (such as diabetes friendly slippers etc), or even special foods such as VCO (virgin coconut oil)!  If an antifungal is prescribed, a special antiseptic soap can be promoted!!

While mapping data of patient purchase behaviour from the pharmacy is a fool-proof approach, since the sale of a target brand has actually occurred, patient – centric communication can also be generated from the doctor, if he is persuaded to upload patient data on company website. 

Certainly, there can be more than one approach to collecting patient – centric data and then adopting brand messaging approaches.

A unique challenge in India, is the language … one must find a method to message patients in the preferred language of the patient!

The central idea of marketing is to devise methods to create, communicate and deliver value so that customers are created, retained, and the exchange process is catalysed, benefiting all stakeholders.  Marketing is also about product penetration and increasing through-put from a customer.  The soul of marketing is creating customer delight.  Patient – centric communication as described above is another foray into the ever dynamic world of creating confidence and satiety in patients.  Thus, in the above hypothetical model we see a certainly ‘doable’ patient-centric brand communication and brand bonding exercise.  It is an example of marketing message penetration, taking the brand message next level, to patients through modern technology.

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The way forward...medical videos/graphics for story telling!

Look at the science of storytelling here!

Pharmaceutical marketers are always on the look out to tell the product story in a novel and riveting way - rightly so!  The print form of visual aid, literatures, reminder cards, and supporting small gifts like pens and stationary items, seem to hold the fort forever as collaterals to the story telling done by pharma marketers.  It has been so, for many decades.  And we have this ostrich-like attitude that this method will continue to do so!  Truly, most pharma marketers have buried their heads, like the proverbial ostrich, into the sand!  While the world is surfing ahead on a digital tide, pharma marketing seems inured to the radical social changes happening through bits and bytes.  The time of a concerted change in pharma marketing through digital route has come of age!  Pharma marketing is insidiously being drawn into the spectre of digitisation, before long digital storytelling will be the way forward and the current crop of pharma marketers will lose the plot!  The way forward is digital oriented pharma marketing.  It is about making use of graphics, videos, pictures, infographics, and other digital memes to create a digital culture of pharma marketing and storytelling!

Many laymen feel 'stories or storytelling' is about untrue or exaggerated accounts!  However, please note, dear reader, in marketing parlance, a 'story' stands to the way a brand is presented through various anecdotes, facts, figures, similes, idioms, phrases, visuals, examples, collaterals, storyboard... so on ... to captivate the listeners or viewers of the story on the brand promise or benefits!!  Stories are the oldest way of knowledge transference and help in consumption of ideas/goods/services/experiences, creating new lifestyle patterns.  Apple the iconic brand is a success through word-of-mouth passage of experiences.  In fact, digital means Apple, and the rites of passage into the digital world for all is being smart, with a smart phone in hand.  Whatsapp and sms, browsing, social media and other smartphone enabled messaging are the most influential vehicles for influencing perception change. Storytelling the clinical successes of pharma products is no more ONLY through print media - digital tools are here to create immersive experiences of storytelling!

When I did field work in Mumbai recently, I saw a poster of a pharma company, in a clinic (at the patient waiting area).  It invited me/patients to register their mobile number by sending a sms to a given number.  I did the same...today in the name of the doctor (in whose clinic the poster and number was given), I get weekly health tips!  Now that is smart digital marketing - the sponsor pharma company provides a health messaging service in the name of the doctor to patients, and this is not only strengthening the doctor patient bond, it will nurture the pharma company and doctor relationship too!

Pharma marketers, now have to work on digital push and pull processes.  Digital content richness will create the change.  Let us assume, a product marketing specialist makes a 60 second video on how his brand of etoricoxib has greater affinity to COX 2, and thus reduce pro-inflammatory prostaglandins in the inflamed or damaged tissue, in a colourful and vivid manner using cutting edge graphics, and if this video is subscribed/shown on the tab by the medical representative during in-clinic or in-booth activities, there is excellent traction for the brand.  The doctor also appreciates the video based knowledge transfer.  In fact, in coming months and years, it is such skills - to help produce  infographics, graphics, short movies, memes and other digitally created material that will enhance the pharma marketer's value.

Imagine a pharma marketer creates a 10 minute video content on how a certain antibiotic reduces the in-vitro growth of pathogenic bacteria on growth media in petri-dishes, and co-relates this evocatively to a patient's journey from infectious disease to recovery from infection, the doctor who spends watching this on his smartphone or tab or through the tab being shown by the medical representative, will have greater confidence on the marketed brand showing this video!

While the digitization trend will gain strength in pharma marketing messaging to create unusually attractive stories, it will be fuelled by the fact, that quality medical representatives are hard to come by today.  The medical representatives of the 1960s and 1970s era are just not made today!  It was their traditional role of being the pharma company's messenger and relationship builder with doctors. However, today, less contact time with doctors and low quality of communication by field personnel will increase the digitization trend irreversibly.

So the firm trend to put forth pharmaceutical storytelling in a digitally eloquent manner is creating change in pharma messaging.  No one can be insulated from major trends in society, unless we are ivory tower marketing specialists!  So happy digitally inspired pharma marketing!

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Limerick:

STORYTELLING

A pharmamarketer dedicated many stories

To sell products that removed human worries

But patients needed to know

You need positive attitude - for diseases to go

In today's world, disease like to stay, for we are full of hurries!

Take a breath, slow down your pace, learn to let go things you cannot grasp...be at peace too!  You owe it to yourself.

Haiku:

SUMMER STORIES BY MRs

The sky so blue hot

Doctors smilin' and healin'

Hot work MRs do!

MRs = Medical Representatives who are the storytellers to the medical profession.