Pharma Celebrity Spokespersons: Unrepentant, Secretive, and (Expletive Deleted)!

I have documented the rise and fall of several pharma celebrity spokespeople (see, for example, this list) . This past week two such celebrities made the news: Paula Deen and Danica Patrick. These are two examples of celebrities with "baggage" that may hurt the image of their pharma company partners. Paula Deen's baggage concerns secrecy and her unrepentant recipes whereas Danica Patrick's baggage includes swimsuit and bikini pictures and colorful language. I just imagined Paula and Danica "switching" their baggage (ewww!).

Paula Deen continues to express no regrets about delaying her announcement that she has Type 2 diabetes for nearly three years until she secured a lucrative deal as "a paid pitch person for drug maker Novo Nordisk's new online program, Diabetes in a New Light, and for its pricy (sic) drug, Victoza, which she takes" (see USA Today article, "Paula Deen: no regrets"). She will continue to cook sugary, fattening meals as she always has done, declaring "I'm Southern by roots. I was taught (to cook) by my grandmother and nothing I can do would change that."

However, she said that "when she begins shooting new episodes of her show this spring, the recipes will offer something for everyone, including people who want healthier recipes."

Unfortunately, there will also be a delay before those new recipes are available because "filming and production schedules are set well in advance, it could take up to two years before those episodes are aired," notes the USA Today article.

Meanwhile, Deen remains silent about how much she is being compensated by Novo Nordisk to be a paid spokesperson, citing an excuse as American as her own "Savannah High Apple Pie" (see recipe, which includes at least 2 and a half cups sugar, one whole stick of butter, and 2 cups butter-flavored solid shortening (recommended: Crisco)):

"Yes, I am being compensated," she said Friday. "It's the way of the world. It's the American way. But I am taking a portion of that compensation and giving it back to the (American) Diabetes Association."

Deen would not reveal what portion of her compensation she would donate to the American Diabetes Association. That too is the "American" way?

To learn more about Novo's reasons for choosing Paula Deen as a spokesperson, I invite you to read the Pharma Marketing News article "Novo Nordisk Defends Choice of Paula Deen as Diabetes Spokesperson". You can download this article after taking a short survey that asks two short questions:

1. When it is proper to use paid celebrities - e.g., movie stars, TV personalities, sports figures - as spokespeople for drug brands?
2. Should pharmaceutical companies reveal how much they pay celebrities?

You can Take the Survey here and see the results to date afterward as well as getting a FREE copy of the article.

"Was das F**k!"

That's what Danica Patrick, spokesperson for Boehringer Ingelheim's DRIVE4COPD™ awareness campaign said after teammate Cole Whitt "nudged" her rear in the Drive4COPD 300 race this past Saturday. Actually, Danica spoke in English, but that is what I imagine Boehringer Ingelheim executives were saying when they heard about this latest news about their "bad girl" spokesperson.

"The (expletive) 88 hit me while we were in a big pack! What the (expletive)?" Patrick screamed. ESPN has the video and audio from her in-car radio (here).

"I don't think it's ever great when teammates come together," Patrick said. "So we'll have to figure out what happened and move forward." Patrick didn't complain, however, in the beginning of the race when another racer, Dale Earnhardt Jr., "pushed" her to the lead position at the beginning of the race. She dropped way behind after that and grazed the wall once on her own before the second incident occurred.

Coincidentally -- or maybe NOT! -- the DRIVE4COPD Web site (here) is undergoing a revision (see below). I entered my email address to be "notified when the new site is live." Will Danica still be there?

[UPDATE. 29 Feb 2012]
I was contacted by a Public Relations person at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. who said:

"Just wanted to clarify an item in your recent post re pharma celebs. The DRIVE4COPD website has been "under construction" since December 28, 2011, as we work to revise it to reflect changes to the campaign going into its third year. Since 2010, Danica Patrick has helped drive education and awareness about COPD among NASCAR fans and has been a committed and passionate spokesperson for the cause due to her family’s personal connection to the disease. The status of the website has nothing to do with any specific recent events and is on track to be fully up and running by next month. "

Thanks for the update. I didn't really think one thing had anything to do with the other :-)

FDA's Drug Shortages Team: Why Are They Smiling?

"Hope on the Horizon," is the title of today's FDAVoice blog post by Margaret Hamburg, M.D., FDA Commissioner. The post (here) highlighted a presentation made by a patient at an FDA drug shortage briefing on Tuesday. The "FDA Drug Shortages" team -- pictured below -- "has been working day and night to address this problem," said Hamburg.

"While there is no simple solution to resolving drug shortages," said hamburg, "we are doing all that we can to make sure patients have access to the critical medicines they need when they need them. I’d like to give a special thanks to the FDA Drug Shortages team and all the other staff throughout our agency for their hard work and leadership on this topic."

Here's the "FDA Drug Shortages" team:

Why are they smiling? Also, what's with the uniforms? Is it to give FDA agents an "aura" of authority -- as opposed to REAL authority -- when they meet with pharma execs to address this problem?

Advice to J&J's New CEO Alex Gorsky: Start Tweeting, Blogging, and YouTubing

Alex Gorsky will have to address trouble at J&J's consumer business when he becomes CEO, notes the Wall Street Journal (see here).

Sure, "those who know Mr. Gorsky laud his skills diagnosing problems by reviewing reams of data and visiting the company's front lines, motivating experts on staff to fix the issues and then holding the staffers responsible," but can he tweet? That's what I want to know.

Gorsky should learn from the mistakes of his predecessor, Bill Weldon, who flubbed handling the growing PR crisis by not adequately, IMHO, leveraging social media to assure consumers he was working to resolve the issue. More importantly, however, Weldon did not use social media to interact directly with consumers.

Gorsky should have his own Twitter account, Blog, and YouTube Channel. And ALL of them should allow comments. Open the social media floodgates and learn why J&J is now ranked #7 instead of #1 or #2 in the Harris Poll Reputation Quotient study.

You might object and say that a CEO of a huge corporation such a J&J simply does not have the time to engage in social media. That may be the case. But I advise Gorsky to learn from celebrities and political candidates -- have surrogates (ie, PR people) handle the day-to-day interactions and make sure you approve what they say in your name. But EVERY day make at least one personal tweet or reply to a tweet and every week write a blog post. Once a month, do a YouTube video update. Is that too much to ask of a CEO?

I cannot find a Twitter account for Gorsky, whereas at least 5 J&J junior executives have such accounts according to my "Pharma Social Media Pioneers" database (here).

The only social media account I can find for Gorsky is a LinkedIn page (here). It is out of date! Mr. Gorsky, how come you only have 160 links? Not only should you update your page and start linking to more people on LinkedIn, you should have a "vanity" URL. Mine is www.linkedin.com/in/pharmaguy. How about www.linkedin.com/in/Gorsky? Whoops! That's already taken! What about www.linkedin.com/in/AlexGorsky? That's taken as well. Too bad. You should have thought of this sooner.

Having a personal social media presence, however, is even more important when the NEXT crisis occurs -- and, Mr. Gorsky, it will occur, believe me.

During a previous JNJ PR crisis, I was asked what I would do in JNJ's shoes by Melissa Davies -- a mom and Social Media Practice Lead at Return on Focus, a company that helps companies market their brands. Melissa asked:

"John, could you share some thoughts on what you would advise JNJ to do as part of a more fully developed social media response strategy? Are you thinking the company should have more Tweets, engage on more sites, etc.? I'm curious what you think the ideal roadmap looks like."

My response:

"For what it's worth, I believe this situation calls for more information and conversation no matter what the channel or the road.

But since we are talking about social media, let's stick to that.

Because the CEO has been targeted, is expected to meet with Congress, and posted a message to JNJBTW, he should lead the discussion. In addition to a formal letter posted to the corporate blog, how about opening up a YouTube channel in which he and McNeil executives talk directly to their audience and provide updates. They should allow comments -- and respond to as many as necessary.

Twitter can work with this to keep people informed about what is going on and link to specific videos.

If the CEO talks to Congress, get the transcript and post it before anyone else does. Ask readers to comment on how well or not so well questions were answered by the CEO and what was missing.

Of course, there needs to be some progress if you are going to give updates. Actions speak louder than words. Social media won't solve the problems.

Right now, I feel that JNJ doesn't have a handle on what's causing the problems. At least that's what I suspect from the reports I have heard. Maybe there are complicated manufacturing issues that involve things JNJ doesn't want to be made public (eg, importation of tainted supplies from China)? Maybe this is a good opportunity to provide a virtual tour of a Good Manufacturing facility with interviews of employees.

I don't know if this is a roadmap or not, but when your company's reputation is at stake, the leaders have to be visible. You can't just say "one of our companies has let you down" and leave it at that. What are you going to do about it so that it doesn't happen again? is what people really want to hear from the people who are in charge, not the PR department."

What do you think Mr. Gorsky? Is that good advice? Would you consider doing something along these lines yourself?

Pharma Marketing Vs. Insurance Marketing: What Pharma Can Learn from Geico

Often, when proponents of pharma eMarketing get together at industry conferences, or cry into their beers at receptions afterward, they lament the fact that the drug industry isn't doing as much as other industries in the "e" arena. Sometimes, they cite eMarketing campaigns of companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G) and ask, Why aren't drug companies doing that?

The responses to that question generally fall into the category of "It's Regulations, Stupid!" That is, FDA regulations are hampering what pharma marketers can do online. The packaged goods industry -- of which P&G is a member -- is not regulated like the drug industry is regulated. True that!

So, let's look at another industry that IS regulated: the insurance industry. Where do insurance marketers spend their dollars and how does that compare with pharma? It just so happens that I came across some data that might shed some light on that (see the chart below; click on the chart to enlarge).

The data come from Kantar Media. The Internet data does NOT include search advertising. The insurance data is for the first three quarters of 2011 (total spend = $3.56 Bn) whereas the data for pharma is for 2010  (total spend = $4.3 Bn). To compare apples to apples, in 2010 the insurance industry media spend pie looks like this: TV, 54%; Print, 6%; Internet, 21%.

No matter how you look at it, the insurance industry favors Internet over print whereas the opposite is true for pharma. Why?

Here's what I have learned from personal experience. In my family -- and probably in your family too -- health decisions and purchases are generally the domain of my wife, whereas insurance decisions and purchases are my responsibility. It's no secret that pharma marketers target mostly women. My wife reads magazines like Prevention, etc. that feature a lot of drug ads. I don't read these magazines. While I have seen print ads for insurance companies, they haven't made much of an impression on me, whereas TV ads have.

So, from my personal experience, it's logical that both industries allocate a big portion of their media spend on TV advertising, but only the drug industry spends a lot on print advertising.

What's surprising, however, is the insurance industry's 28% of total media spend on the Internet (versus 5% for the pharma industry).

Coincidentally, yesterday I received an e-mail message from Geico about their "Family Pricing Program" for my son Greg. (We are Geico customers, having both our car and home insurance with them.) The message said:

"If Gregory is getting ready to graduate, preparing for a new job, or looking to establish a little independence, our Family Pricing program allows you the freedom of moving Gregory to his own policy while he continues to receive the same great rates you're currently receiving."

That spooked me a bit because Greg just started his first full-time job after graduating and I mentioned to my wife that soon it will be time for Greg to get his own insurance policy! I tweeted:

"Got email from Geico about transferring my son 2 his own car insur plan now that he has a job. How'd they know I was just thinking that?"

Of course, they didn't know what I was thinking, but it was nice to know that they anticipated what I may be thinking! Geico knows a lot about me and my family. They know our ages, our sex, our driver's license numbers, our driving records, what kinds of cars we own, etc. I had to give them that information to get insurance. No big deal.

So, it would be easy for Geico to anticipate that Greg recently graduated and that he may have a new job. Further, they know from experience that parents want to get their kids off their insurance plans ASAP.

After I posted that tweet, I received this response from "Shay" tweeting from the @GEICO_Service Twitter account:

"We would be more than happy to give him a quote! He can go to geico.com or give us a call at 1-800-861-8380. -Shay"

That was a pleasant note that makes this whole experience even more personal than if I just got an e-mail message.

When I complained that Greg was likely to push back on the idea of paying his own insurance, Shay reassured me that "We will do everything we can!" and added: "Thank you so much for being part of the GEICO family!"

I don't think I can leverage this new found "family" relationship to get an even better deal from Geico, but the experience made me an even better fan of Geico -- I was already impressed with their online services. Hopefully, if we ever need to make a claim, I will be equally impressed.

Can the pharmaceutical industry do something similar? I'm not sure. The first hurdle for pharma is breaking away from print. As I said, pharma marketers may depend upon print to reach their core audience -- women. But they may be ignoring social media's ability to reach that core -- listen, for example, to this podcast: "How to Score With Women (as a Marketer) via Social Media."

Keep in mind, however, that social media marketing is virtually "free" compared to print advertising, which is something the packaged goods industry is learning (see "The Coming Pharma Digital Depression"). Given that, even if pharma moves big time into social media marketing, I'm not sure the spend pie would look much different. The insurance industry probably spends a lot more on internet display advertising and e-mail direct marketing than does the pharma industry. These activities are much more expensive than paying Shay to reach out to me via Twitter!

Pfizer Mobile Public Toilet App Rated Top 25 by George Costanza

I just love following Fabio Gratton on Twitter. Yesterday he posted this tweet:

"Has anyone download this Pfizer app? (only available in Israel). Terrific idea! http://t.co/JAMzbIa4 #mhealth"

When Fabio says something is terrific, I have to see it.

The app he was talking about is Pfizer’s ‘public restroom’ iPhone app, which targets consumers in Israel. BTW, there are in fact no public toilets in Israel!

So, how do you find a public toilet where there is none?

"We launched a GPS app that locates the nearest toilet – restaurants included!”, said Tali Rosin, public affairs and policy manager with Pfizer Israel. According to a reviewer (here), "users can add toilets not already in the app’s database, and can also grade toilets they visit for criteria such as cleanliness, availability of toilet tissue, or whether they needed to ask for a key."

Now THAT's a mobile app that George Costanza would rate among his TOP 25! Actually, Pfizer's app was among Apple App Store’s coveted “Top 25” most-downloaded apps and was downloaded over 15,000 times in about 3 months after it was launched in September 2011.

You could refer to this app as the Mobile George Costanza Public Toilet Finder:



The app is designed to raise awareness about Overactive Bladder (OAB). People with OAB would find this app useful because the condition is characterized by frequent urges to urinate. I bet it's also useful for tourists.

NOTE: It's only useful if the database includes good coverage of a city with lots of ratings from other users. Otherwise, it's a simple matter to walk into any restaurant and ask to use the toilet. You don't need an app for that! I suspect there are a lot of "George Costanzas" out there who may not have OAB, but like to know where the best toilets are located, just in case.

The app also includes an RSS function that automatically sends news feeds to the app. I am not sure what kind of news -- maybe tweets from Pfizer. Interestingly, it also facilitates calls from within the app to Pfizer's hotline.

Pfizer claims that the app has a positive ROI and has lead to an increase in product sales (I suppose for Toviaz, its OAB drug; see here).

Mass Media DTC Trumps Mobile Marketing
So why don't we see such "innovative" smartphone pharma apps here in the U.S.?

Simple. We have direct-to-consumer (DTC) BRAND advertising via mass media and the Internet here in the U.S. That EASILY trumps NON-BRANDED disease awareness social media and mobile apps in terms of awareness. That is one reason why pharma's spending on social media and mobile marketing is so minuscule.

Another reason why the availability of DTC marketing in the U.S. leads to minuscule eMarketing is that brand managers spend so much on mass media DTC there is very little left in the budget for "e" of any sort and a big chunk of that goes to building web sites and buying search engine ads to drive traffic to those web sites, IMHO.

How the Placebo Effect & Marketing Can Improve Health & Increase Pharma Profits

Big pharmaceutical companies are drastically cutting back on research and development. The economics just do not support the model that has been the driving force of the drug industry over the past 15 years.

According to a Forbes analysis reported by Matthew Herper, "The average drug developed by a major pharmaceutical company costs at least $4 billion, and it can be as much as $11 billion" (see "The Truly Staggering Cost Of Inventing New Drugs").

Some pundits suggest that lowering the cost of performing clinical trials will help get more drugs to market faster. Andrew von Eschenbach, former FDA Commissioner and now employed as chairman of conservative think tank Manhattan Institute's Project FDA initiative, suggested that instead of the FDA asking pharma companies to complete "laborious clinical trials proving efficacy, after proof of concept and safety testing, the product could be approved for marketing with every eligible patient entered in a registry so the company and the FDA can establish efficacy through post-market studies" (see here).

However, Herper points out that the "main expense is failure. AstraZeneca (AZ) does badly by this measure because it has had so few new drugs hit the market." AZ spent about $59 billion on R&D between 1997 and 2011, but only managed to get 5 new drugs approved. According to simple arithmetic, that means each of these 5 drugs cost about $11.8 billion to develop.

That's an interesting number. A very similar number came up during last night's 60 Minutes segment on "Treating Depression: Is there a placebo effect?" (see it here). It turns out that antidepressants sales in the U.S. bring in $11.3 billion a year to pharmaceutical companies that sell them -- including AstraZeneca!

Could it be that the drug industry is merely "breaking even" in the anti-depressant market?

I suspect they are probably making a pretty good profit -- but that profit may be diminishing as more and more anti-depressants go off patent. In fact, it has been suggested that 60 Minutes dared to air this expose -- four years after the research was first published -- because the "news" can no longer harm the drug companies that CBS depends upon for advertising -- most of the drugs mentioned are off patent (see “You’re telling me this now?” Why the news is suddenly critical of statins and antidepressants).

I did a blog post about antidepressants and the placebo effect two years ago in January 2010 (read "A Common Goal of Research and Marketing: Fool the Doctor"). In that post, it was noted that clinical evidence suggests these drugs are not any more effective than a placebo in patients with less severe depression. But drug company marketing to physicians does not mention this. Thus, physicians are led to believe that the drugs ARE effective for all patients with depression.

As pointed out in the 60 Minutes piece, "a clinician who cares, who takes the time, who listens to you, who asks questions about your condition and pays attention to what you say, that's the kind of care that can help facilitate a placebo effect." That goes double if the clinician actually believes what he or she is prescribing is a drug with proven efficacy.

Consequently, marketing to physicians along with direct marketing to consumers can play a huge role in "facilitating" a placebo effect. Which leads me to this idea: pharmaceutical companies should be in the business of developing placebos rather than dangerous, ineffective chemical compounds. There would be no need for expensive clinical trials and it would be easy for FDA to adopt von Eschenbach's idea to approve these new "drugs" before they are proven effective. It will be up to marketing to make them effective by facilitating the placebo effect!

Of course, to be successful, this new approach to drug development must be done surreptitiously and the FDA must conspire with the drug industry (not too much of a stretch there). After all, if everyone knows that the drug industry is manufacturing placebos, the game is up -- doctors will know that they are prescribing placebos and so would patients. That knowledge will render the placebo ineffective. This is a case where a knowledgeable patient is at a disadvantage.

It should be noted, however, that many physicians in some countries knowingly prescribe placebos. Results of a survey published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) indicate that "about half of the surveyed internists and rheumatologists reported prescribing placebo treatments on a regular basis. Furthermore," say the researchers, "physicians who use placebo treatments most commonly describe them to patients as a potentially beneficial medicine or treatment not typically used for their condition; only rarely do they explicitly describe them as placebos" (read this).

J&J Recalls Grape-flavored Children's Tylenol: Another Missed Opportunity for Social Media

[Great minds think alike! Be sure to read Update at end of this post.]

Here's another case where CHEAP social media -- ie, YouTube -- could have been used by a pharmaceutical company to support patients using its products, but was not.

Johnson & Johnson DID use social media -- Twitter -- to inform followers of its decision to recall of U.S., Infants’ TYLENOL® Oral Suspension, 1 oz. Grape. According to a letter sent to J&J employees' Denice Torres, who’s the President of McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, said:

"We’re recalling the product at the retail level after receiving a small number of complaints from consumers who reported difficulty using the product’s SimpleMeasure™ dosing system. SimpleMeasure™ includes a dosing syringe, which a parent or caregiver inserts into a protective cover, or “flow restrictor,” at the top of the bottle to measure the proper dose. In some cases, the flow restrictor was pushed into the bottle when inserting the dosing syringe. No adverse events associated with this issue have been reported to date and the risk of a serious adverse medical event is remote."

The letter was posted on the JNJBTW Blog (see here), to which the Twitter post mentioned above linked. J&J will offer people a refund, which is good. But are they abandoning the new dosing system, which is also a good idea? Perhaps it needs a new design, but even so, it should include instructions for use -- and not just written instructions, which many people won't understand. Video would be better.

So, I immediately thought: "Why didn't J&J post a video on YouTube that showed people how to use the dosing syringe?"

Such a video would be almost as easy and cheap for J&J to create as the post to JNJBTW. And it would be more likely to be seen by consumers because YouTube is the second -- maybe now the first -- most used search engine on the Internet! The video could also be embedded within the product web site. [Or even at the end of blog posts such as this one!]

I did a quick search of the product web site and found no information on how to use the SimpleMeasure™ dosing system and no video.

Last week I attended the ePharma Summit, which included a popular presentation titled "I wish I'd Done That! Social Media." Presenters would review competitors' social media campaigns that they liked.

What we really need is a session on "The Social Media We Should Have Done, But Didn't!." I think I will gather my contenders for this session and post them here!

Meanwhile, I hope this gives J&J an idea.

UpDate:
I just learned learned via a Twitter post from @JNJComm at 10:05 AM that there is a YouTube video on How To Use Infants' TYLENOL® SimpleMeasure™: Watch a video about how to use Infants’ TYLENOL Simple Measure > http://www.youtube.com/tylenol