This new POV from the Dii team details these changes and explores the opportunities and challenges they pose for marketers. Read it on Slideshare, or download it as a PDF here.

As part of its ongoing monitoring and reporting on FDA guidance, RTCRM has produced a two-page POV that  analyzes the issued guidance and provides condensed key information, top-level points, implications and actions item.

Download the entire POV: RTCRM POV FDA guidelines_mobile

Download the entire POV: ICANN TLD Options POV

Every marketer, it seems, wants to hit pay dirt with a viral campaign like Subservient Chicken or something as catchy as that. But as we’ve discovered these past few years, striking gold virally ain’t so easy. In fact, you could say it’s pretty hard.

Think of why. Viral is part PR. Part advertising. Part zeitgeist. And when they all miraculously come together as they did for the Alamo Drafthouse, then my friends, you’ve bottled lightning.

First, watch this. If you’ve seen it before, watch it again. (By the way, there’s a lot of profanity in this one. So wear headphones or keep the kiddies away.) As of mid-June, this has garnered over 1.5 million clicks.

This is so brilliant on so many levels.

• First off, it’s incredible positioning. The Alamo Drafthouse understands its audience – film geeks. These people know Strother Martin’s last movie. And they’re sick and tired of morons who don’t appreciate the art of cinema texting during movies.
• Second, this wasn’t made by a committee. It was probably made by a couple of folks in a room who decided that this was a pretty good idea. Boy, were they right.
• Third, they had fun with it. This isn’t a serious product you’re selling. It’s a movie theatre. The Alamo Drafthouse has a bit of an attitude. Check out the owner’s stance on texting. They’re independently owned. They sell beer. And they show whatever movies they want to.
• And finally, you don’t need a big budget. The key to a successful viral campaign is getting the clicks. Some people think you have to spend a lot of money to create something interesting. Oftentimes, that’s true, as with Smirnoff’s Tea Party. But it always goes that the best viral ads (as with any ad) all start with a good idea.

This little commercial didn’t need any icing or big production values. All they had to do was present the phone call from the irate customer in a clear and concise manner. It’s one instance when the ad literally wrote itself.

What’s your favorite viral campaign? I’d love to hear what’s impressed you. Send comments to jpolsinelli@rtcrm.com.

Topics include:

1. Best uses of social media for retailers.
2. Children’s educational tools for smart phones.
3. Font choices for web designers.
4. Building a Facebook following for non-profits.
5. A review of Google’s ‘priority mail offering.
6. A highlight of phone apps for museums.

Get it, read it and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

RTCRM Perspectives September 2010

We reviewed some key milestones in the past year, including the release of FDA warning letters to Pharma brands for non-compliant banners, search and websites. After discussing the new guidelines (released in May 2009) and the implications for how Important Safety Information is handled through creative and copy, we had a lively conversation about Fair Balance:

Theoretically, the words “Fair” and “Balance” imply a 50-50 split – 50% one thing, 50% another thing. In the case of Pharma marketing this relates to a 50-50 split of benefits versus risks. In the last year it has started to mean 50-50 split of risks and benefits, plus equality of creative and obviousness. We’ve found multiple reasons why Fair + Balance rarely = Fair Balance.

The expectation used to be that TV, print and digital would show a risk for every benefit – to be Fair. TV does it through voice-overs, Print does it by flipping the page, and digital used to do it by dropping Important Safety Information at the bottom of the website. But this really wasn’t that Fair. Why should a user have to flip a page or click around to find the risks, but the benefits get to be front and center and easy to find. That doesn’t seem Balanced. So now the FDA is saying we have to make it more Fair and Balanced by incorporating risks and benefits in the same place. Whenever you cite a benefit of a drug, you need to cite a risk – to be Fair and Balanced. The problem is that while the benefits are usually easy to understand (written by marketers), the risk are usually difficult to understand (written by legal and medical/taken from the prescribing information). So, when you combine something that is easy to understand with something difficult to understand, you end up with something not so Balanced. Not to mention not very Fair to the patient. The FDA also expects that risks and benefits will run in parallel and be related. For example, you might have to state something like, “This drug will help you sleep, but it will also keep you awake”. Well the problem with this approach is that these two may not actually be comparable. If the drug has a 90% chance of helping you sleep, but only a 10% chance of keeping you awake, it would not be Fair to compare them to one another. You would have to find something with a 90% chance of occurring to be truly Balanced.

Clearly the nuances of handling Fair Balance are unique to creative execution, drug indication and medium, but what is unclear is exactly how the new guidelines will improve a patient’s ability to Fairly understand the benefits and Balance the risks.

Newell Rubbermaid: Social Media from a Multi-Brand Perspective, by Bert DuMars; presented by GasPedal and the SMBC from GasPedal on Vimeo.

Key things to really hear:

• The importance of understanding the culture of Twitter, Facebook or other platforms
• Don’t start with the technology.  Facebook might not be right for your goals.
• You have to immerse yourself, not just publish.
• Don’t just talk about business, have fun.
• It’s an eco-system – how does social media fit with your entire PR & Marketing plan?
• Scale it! Test and Learn
• Monetize when the time or place is right

Cross Posted on www.carlenlea.com

It’s not a question any longer whether pharma has a need – bordering on moral obligation – to provide value and service through listening and responding via social media. We’ll build a playbook just like we did when we on boarded e-business initiatives 10 years ago. The real question emerging is WHO within the pharma enterprise will own this roll, and HOW will this new ‘Chief Social Media Officer’ relate to other internal partners and their agencies.

So far, numerous leaders are emerging from the pharma organization from legal, regulatory, brand teams and consumer/HCP centers of excellence. Time for a new COE to centralize this role? Maybe.

From one perspective within our advertising agency, this isn’t far from the decision in the 1960’s when agencies carved out ‘brand planner’ role – the one person who would own the market research (listening) and the planning tool box and ensure pull through to execution. This looks and feels like exactly the same need.

To that end, we’re working on a white paper this week with focus on this new COE role, a potential job description, connectivity to key internal and external partners, and some thoughts on the toolbox – stay tuned..

1. There are numerous definitions of RM that generally aim at achieving business results through ongoing dialogue and mutual value exchange. What matters, though, is “how you trust” – and this depends on your vantage point and the value you perceive. While RM depends on the building of mutual value through a planned series of marketing interactions, the majority of tactics discussed still remain within the realm of “direct.”

Direct marketing is an initial outbound marketing activity that seeks to capture customer data, deliver a choreographed communications stream, and drive a conversion or retention objective. But it has proved hard for pharma to generate cycle times fast enough to truly provide a second or third follow-up marketing contact of increasing and customized value. Are we showing the customer we know them? Not as much. In other words, marketers are in the operating mode of short-term direct pilots that seek to maximize reach and frequency with plenty of “acceptable” spillover.

I believe the jury is still out on whether outbound direct marketing goes far enough in showing we have heard the customer, and likewise have earned greater trust points through ongoing dialogue.

2. Furthermore, on the subject of short-term marketing, the conference group discussed how larger-portfolio companies are known for fast rotations of key marketing managers (1.3 years’ tenure on average). How does this impact a team or organization’s true commitment to long-term community relationship building? Short-term marketers, held to short-term results, are compelled to expect an immediate return. So what are the implications for staying “direct” and not closing the relationship loop? These marketers might overlook investments in relationships for the longer term. Smaller, more condition-specific companies (Novo Nordisk and diabetes, UCB and epilepsy, to name two) seem to have a better alignment, with a top-down mission to truly partner with the specific disease community for the long term – therefore, their corporate and brand reputation-building activities, even social networking, take on a special passion – as everyone in the organization becomes intensely passionate about their condition holders.

While the link of protecting authentic community building and sales/marketing is a tenuous line, the truly passionate teams that bring real patients closer in to the process seem to have a better chance at finding that trust and not overlooking long-term category development activities.

3. For big and little pharma to truly place the customer at the center of their planning process, healthy pipelines, including franchises with multiple medicines in the same category, can help strengthen the commitment to communities of condition holders, and nurture the passion, empathy, and trust that are required for true relationship building with condition holders. This will require brand teams to look up, look beyond, and see how their particular brand fits within their own pipelines and line extension life-cycle strategies. A broad view of brand architecture modeling is a new key step that shouldn’t be overlooked going forward.

It’s the duty of all RM planners to help their clients see the forest and the trees – and build in the right marketing process steps for both category and brand development. After all, isn’t this just code for elevating an own-able brand attribute and investing in it, and defending a unique, differentiated positioning? Now that the social media playbook is maturing and gaining adoption, greater alignment is essential to achieving the next level in patient value creation.

These are exciting times, and looking up and around frequently will be key as our health landscape changes over the next few years. If pharma wants to aim at new measurements (like “trust” or health outcomes), looking beyond short-term revenue and ROI maximization is essential for finding new value propositions that will keep R&D manufacturers relevant within the changing health system landscape.

• How to develop and manage FDA-compliant pharmaceutical SEO and SEM efforts
• What Goodle should do to facilitate a better patient search experience
• How to use rich media to maximize digital pharmaceutical campaigns

You can download it for free at RTCRM’s whitepapers site, and while you’re there check out some additional RTCRM thinking.