Dennis Urbaniak, Joan Mikardos, and Laura Kolodjeski of Sanofi US Receive the 3rd PharmaGuy Social Media Pioneer Award

PharmaGuy (aka John Mack) presented the coveted bright yellow Hawaiian shirt/Pharmaguy Social Media Pioneer Award to Dennis Urbaniak, VP, Joan Mikardos, Senior Director, and Laura Kolodjesji, Senoir Manager, Patient Solutions, at Sanofi US Diabetes. The award was made at the 6th Annual Digital Pharma East conference in Philadelphia on October 17, 2012. Accepting the award on behalf of the winners -- who could not make it in person -- was Wendy Blackburn of Intouch Solutions.

The Pharmaguy Social Media Pioneer Award is meant to recognize pioneers who work (or have recently worked) within regulated drug and device companies. The award recognizes courage in the face of regulatory and corporate culture road blocks!


This is the first time the award was given to a team of people rather than a single person. The first award went to Alex Butler (see here) and the second award went to Tony Jewell (see here).

I felt that this team deserved recognition because they didn't give up on social media even after a "disgruntled" patient caused Sanofi to shut down a Facebook page that did not have comments turned off (read about that here). Urbaniak et al learned a lot from this experience and shared what they learned (listen to this podcast: "What Sanofi-Aventis Learned from Its FaceBook Experience").

Urbaniak and Kolodjeski also received the greatest number of nominations in a poll I ran (see summary of results here). In comments, respondents to the poll described Urbaniak as "the most innovative guy in pharma" and said he "opened new ways of engaging with patients in the diabetes field, with courage and consistency." Kolodjeski was praised because "she keeps the patient at the center of all her efforts. She is a great example of how we should go about our business in Pharma."

My bad that I did not include Mikardos as a contender in the poll. When I informed Laura, Dennis, and Wendy -- who has worked closely with the Sanofi US diabetes business unit -- about the award, they informed me that Joan was also deserving for her contribution to the team's social media efforts.

What's With the Hawaiian Shirt?
Let me explain the Hawaiian shirt motif of the award. Around the time that the FDA announced it would hold a public hearing regarding regulation of pharma’s use of the Internet and social media, I started appearing at conferences in a yellow Hawaiian shirt, which was left over from a Hunter S. Thompson Halloween costume (see “Pharma Social Media Crips vs. Legal/Regulatory Bloods: Call for a ‘Peace’ Conference” for a sighting of me in the shirt at the 3rd Annual Digital Pharma East Conference). I also considered wearing the shirt when I made my presentation to the FDA at the November, 2009 meeting (see “Fear and Loathing in Washington, DC”), but out of respect for the FDA and the audience, I opted for a traditional suit and tie.

Although I didn’t wear my Hawaiian shirt at the FDA hearing, it became an emblem for standing out from the crowd, which is a necessary trait for a social media marketing pioneer. I think a Hawaiian shirt motif befits, therefore, what the Pharmaguy Pharma Social Media Pioneer Award stands for. Read more about the award here.

Sanofi Launches Diabetapedia: "Google" for Diabetes

Laura Kolodjeski (@lkolodjeski), Community Manager for Sanofi US Diabetes, sent me a Twitter DM this morning announcing the launch of Diabetapedia (di-ah-bee-tah-pee-dee-ah), a new site "to help meet educational needs of diabetes community." According to Laura, the goal is to create "a single, comprehensive place where anyone can find and share definitions of diabetes-related terms and phrases." The site's tag line is "Diabetes doesn't define you... so define diabetes."

The name "Diabetapedia" invokes a comparison to "Wikipedia," the online encyclopedia comprised of user-generated content. Diabetapedia does accept contributions from visitors who can use a form on the site to suggest a new term. To use the site, however, you first search for a term as if you were using Google. In fact, the site's home page has the simple look of a "Google" for diabetes site: a single large box for entering a term located under a large logo:

The results of a search also resemble what you would get with Google. It remains to be seen if Diabetapedia will jazz up it's logo and modify it to celebrate certain holidays the way Google does.

The simplicity of the interface also makes the site easy to access from your mobile phone. However, it is NOT optimized for mobile use (eg, the search results, etc., do not line break to enable you to read the entire definition without scrolling side to side).

Of course, there are guidelines. Terms that are appropriate for inclusion in the site include:

• Terms that directly relate to diabetes (e.g. blood glucose meter)
• Diabetes jargon, slang, or abbreviations (e.g. DOC, d-mom, blue Fridays)
• Twitter hashtags that are specific to diabetes discussions (e.g. #dsma, #sweatbetes, #bgnow)
• Diabetes-focused advocacy groups (e.g. The American Diabetes Association, The Diabetes Hands Foundation)

The most important guideline as far as pharmaceutical companies are concerned is: "do not post terms that are specific to brand names of diabetes management products."

Sanofi previews all suggestions and Sanofi promises to contact users if it requires clarification about submissions.

The site currently comes with 119 common diabetes terms and corresponding definitions. "All of the terms include a general definition from the online version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary (when available), a more specific diabetes-related definition, and any alternate uses of the term that might apply. For some," says Laura in her post introducing Diabetapedia (here), "we even included an example of a tweet or a post that demonstrates how the term is commonly used."

I hope to have Laura as a guest on my Pharma Marketing Talk show and get some more details about the site and how Sanofi hopes it will grow. One question I would ask: "Do you plan to release a Diabetapedia mobile application?"

See the questionnaire at the end of this post where you can suggest improvements for Diabetapedia and ask your own questions for Laura to answer.

P.S. Laura points out that Diabetapedia visitors' "Likes and Tweets" "may help create" a program called Diabetes Advocates run by the Diabetes Hands Foundation (DHF). The purpose, says Laura, is to "connect individuals and small organizations that have taken a leadership role in improving the world for people touched by diabetes. In 2012, Sanofi US Diabetes is proud to sponsor the Diabetes Advocates program to help empower its members to have a greater impact by helping them improve their reach and effectiveness."

A discussion of this post on Twitter:

ddwebster: Little disappointed. All definitions from Merriam-Webster RT @pharmaguy: Sanofi Launches Diabetapedia http://t.co/8R3jjYbf #diabetes #hcmktg8:57am, Apr 02 from Visibli

pharmaguy: @ddwebster All? Including "d-mom"? Whatever, good way to start. #diabetes9:00am, Apr 02 from HootSuite

ddwebster: @pharmaguy Yet to find one w/a comprehensive definition. Even A1c doesn't explain ranges, just says a test performed every 2-3 mos#diabetes9:06am, Apr 02 from TweetDeck

pharmaguy: @ddwebster Admit strange to use defns frm MW instead of National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse http://t.co/HO1IMNSX #diabetes9:13am, Apr 02 from HootSuite

ddwebster: @pharmaguy Agreed! I love the idea of the site-find info to be too generic. Pts need more detail-diabetes is complicated9:21am, Apr 02 from TweetDeck

pharmaguy: @ddwebster This could develop into good resource - what happens, however, when it is no longer sponsored by S-A? #diabetes9:32am, Apr 02 from HootSuite

ddwebster: @pharmaguy Yes, that begs a good question. Impressed by efforts by @SanofiDiabetes@Roche_USA in reaching pts in digital space#diabetes9:53am, Apr 02 from TweetDeck

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Pharma Social Media Religion Versus Science

My goal in attending conferences like CBI's iPharmaCONNECT, which is currently in progress in Philadelphia, is to come away with at least one new topic worthy of discussion. Thanks to yesterday's session on "What Makes a Health App Effective?" presented by Jim Dayton (@JimDayton), Snr Dir Emerging Media at Intouch Solutions, I have a topic I think worthy: Are we getting too much religion (preaching to the faithful) versus science (useful data) at these conferences?

Dayton was reviewing the story and "success" of GoMeals, the iPhone/iPad/Android app developed by Sanofi Aventis that is intended to help people with diabetes count their calories whether at home or eating out at restaurants. I have reviewed this program in a previous post (read "The iPad as a Pharma Marketing Platform").

One piece of data that Dayton presented was the fact that the GoMeals app has been downloaded about 415,000 times since it was launched in November 2009. Of course, it is widely known that nearly 85% of the people who download apps use them maybe once or twice and then never use them again. I did that with GoMeals. I stopped using it when my favorite local restaurants were not included in the database.

Also, like me, maybe many people downloaded the GoMeals app to multiple devices (eg, iPhones and iPads).

Thus, the number of downloads of an app is NOT a useful KPI (Key Performance Indicator), IMHO.

Dayton did mention that GoMeals enjoyed an abandon rate slightly less than the 80-85% average I mentioned above. But he couldn't (or wouldn't) give the audience any hard data regarding that or practically anything else that might be considered a true KPI.

Dayton, of course, is limited in what he can reveal about his client's product. It's obvious, however, that Sanofi considers GoMeals a success because it has continued to update the program and supports it with a web site and a twitter account. All of this requires a certain commitment of resources. But is this commitment justified by relevant data or just because the faithful believe in the program? Do you justify money spent by science or by religion?

Sanofi obviously collects useful data from GoMeals users. For example, the application includes a survey that asks questions such as:

1. Do you or anyone in your household who uses GoMeals have diabetes?
2. How often do you use GoMeals?

Answers to these critical questions would provide some true KPIs. Unfortunately, we don't know what the answers are unless Sanofi chooses to reveal them.

That lead me to ask an unusual question during the panel session yesterday; namely, why doesn't Sanofi reveal these data? The only answer I got was that GoMeals was considered an important part of the marketing plan and therefore that information was proprietary.

I understand that there is a lot of competition among pharma companies in the Type 2 diabetes arena and a lot of this has to do with diets, meals, and menus rather than the benefits of the drugs being marketed (see "Three Companies Compete for Diabetes Market Share Using Recipes Rather Than Product Efficacy"). If competing on helping diabetics with meal planning is the most important part of your marketing plan, then sure, you got to keep this stuff secret.

But how important are mobile apps in pharma's integrated marketing approach? It's got to be a very small part of the pie in terms of resources. If Sanofi revealed what percent of the GoMeals users actually had diabetes, would that be giving too much away?

Why should pharma companies reveal more hard data that can prove (or disprove) the effectiveness of social media and mobile apps? If the SM and mobile evangelists want to convince us that pharma should be doing more in this area, they need to give us some hard data in support of that. If they hide these data and just report "soft," meaningless numbers, I think they are preaching, not teaching.

Sanofi vs Novartis: Paul Sorvino vs. Paula Deen

It is rumored that celebrity southern-style chef Paula Deen will soon announce that she has diabetes (surprise) and that she is a spokesperson for Novartis's diabetes franchise (see "Rumors Say Paula Deen Has Diabetes, Will Work for Novartis"). She will compete with Paul Sorvino and daughter who are currently the diabetes spokespeople for Sanofi (see "Diabetes Costars").

How Novartis plans to position Deen as a spokesperson for diabetes awareness should really be interesting. She's not much of a proponent for healthy lifestyle changes, which PhRMA recommends should be part of every direct-to-consumer advertising campaign.

According to the article cited above, "Deen has faced withering criticism for the high amounts of fat, salt and sugar in her dishes. When Deen’s cookbook for kids, 'Lunch-Box Set,' was published in 2009, Barbara Walters asked her, 'You tell kids to have cheesecake for breakfast. You tell them to have chocolate cake and meatloaf for lunch. And french fries. Doesn’t it bother you that you’re adding to this?'"

In 2009, I took a road trip down south with my son (see photos here). A highlight was when we had lunch  at "The Lady & Sons" — the restaurant Deen owns in Savannah, Ga. We ate the "fried chicken, ribs, cheesy meatloaf and sweet potatoes" for which the restaurant is famous. Here's the scene that day outside the restaurant (TIP: you may not have to wait for a table if you are willing to eat upstairs in the bar; of course, you have to be thin enough to fit on the stools, which may not work for most of these people waiting on line):

While it's a good idea to have an overweight person as a diabetes spokesperson, it's quite another to have an UNAPOLOGETIC overweight person who recommends cheesecake for kids' breakfasts! It's sort of like having a "vulture capitalist" claim he creates jobs!


**********
UPDATE:
"The rumors that Novartis has signed a multi-million dollar spokesperson deal with Paula Deen for a diabetes treatment are not true," a Novartis rep told CBSNews.com. "Novartis is not working with Ms. Deen."  See "Novartis rep: There's no deal with Paula Deen."
**********

[See "My Bad! Paula Dean Shills for Novo Nordisk, Not Novartis" for a followup to this post.]

Pharma Tweets: Followers Trump Content. Pfizer vs. Sanofi Case Study

Everyone is tracking how the pharmaceutical industry uses Twitter and other social media. Jonathan Richman maintains the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki, which lists dozens of Twitter accounts (no rankings, although Jonathan does give out awards). EyeOnFDA Blog maintains its TWANK! Pharma Twitter Rankings, which is ALL about numbers, especially followers. And I maintain the Pharmaguy Twitter Pioneer list (see here).

None of these compilations says much about the quality of the content (ie, Tweets) pushed out by these sites. Some include 3rd-party measures such as Klout scores. But Klout is a poor barometer of how well pharma tweeters ENGAGE in conversation via social media. To demonstrate this, I compare recent tweets from @Pfizer_news ("The official site for Pfizer Inc., where we apply science and our global resources to improve health and well-being at every stage of life. I'm Jen Kokell, GMR") and @SanofiUS ("The official Twitter feed for Sanofi US. Tweets on news, updates, and other info come from Jack Cox and Stacy Burch. Intended for U.S. audiences only").

I picked these two because my friend @AndrewSpong posted this in today's #hcsmeu Twitter chat:

"despite only having been active since Jan '11, @SanofiUS has published nearly twice as many tweets as @pfizer_news"

To which @rohal responded:

"number of tweets is not a measure for effectivity of comm, quality of perception and understanding is!"

Sometimes marketers say "communication" when they really mean "messaging" or "marketing," which is one-way communication. By now social media should have changed what we all mean by communication; ie, two-way conversations. It would be interesting to measure this aspect of Pfizer's and Sanofi's Twitter accounts.

Before I do that, let's look at the numbers:

@Pfizer_news

• Followers: 17,705


• Follows: 2,078


• Tweets: 487


• Klout score: 51

@SanofiUS

• Followers: 1,728


• Follows: 1,676


• Tweets: 891


• Klout score: 46

Except for tweets sent, Pfizer beats Sanofi hands down in this numbers game -- although I am amazed that the Klout scores are relatively close considering that Pfizer has TEN TIMES the number of followers than does Sanofi. I am on record questioning how Pfizer obtained all these followers. It boosted its number of followers by about 3-4,000 in just a few days around Christmas 2009 How Did Pfizer Get So Many Twitter Followers?.

Since then, I've heard that Newt Gingrich has been paying to get fake Twitter followers (Gawker received a tip from a former staffer, saying that Gingrich had paid firms to create fake Twitter followers; search company PeekYou analysed his follower list, and found that 92% of them were dummy accounts. Adding insult to injury, PeekYou added that Gingrich's percentage of real followers was "the lowest we had ever seen"; see story here).

I'm not saying that Pfizer did this, but it would interesting if someone analyzed its Twitter follower list and other pharmaco Twitter follower lists.

For my case study, I merely compared 20 of the latest tweets from @Pfizer_news and @SanofiUS to see what was different about them (find my list here).

Here's what I learned:

Self-serving Tweets: 60% of Pfizer's Tweets (12 out 20) were self-serving in that they referred back to Pfizer press releases, blog posts, etc. The tone is overtly NON-CONVERSATIONAL; eg, "Pfizer did this...", "Pfizer did that.." as in "Positive top-line results for Pfizer’s Lyrica in Phase 3 study of patients with fibromyalgia in Japan on.pfizer.com/ntYymj" (there's a tweet FDA should take a look at!). In contrast, I found only 1 self-serving Tweet among Sanofi's last 20 Tweets (5%). If I met Pfizer_news at a cocktail party, I would find any excuse to run away! (Note: Whenever I meet Jen Kokell at conference receptions, however, I look for excuses to stay put!)

Retweets: Retweeting is usually a good measure of "conversation" vs. "communication" in Twitterdom. @Pfizer_news's Tweet stream did not include a SINGLE RT, whereas Sanofi's included 13 (65%). I did not include one RT that retweeted from another Sanofi account. An example of a Sanofi RT: "RT @andrewspong How do we achieve equality for patients with rare diseases? http://bit.ly/pA4bdb | pharmaphorum #rarecare #hcsmeu #hcsm" Not only does Sanofi RT, but it adds hash tags, another indication that it engages in conversation rather than one-way communications.

Hash Tags: Use of hash tags is another good indicator of how well a company engages in conversations via Twitter. Eight out of 20 (40%) of Sanofi's tweets included one or more hash tags, whereas only 2 (10%) of Pfizer's tweets included a hash tag.

Klout may or may not look at these things when computing a score for Twitter accounts. If it does, then IMHO Sanofi's score should be MUCH higher than Pfizer's. But I think the numbers still outweigh the relevance for Klout and even for industry pundits; ie, Followers trump Content!

In the old days of Web 1.0 the the adage was "content, content, content". Today, in the social media Web era, it appears the NEW adage is "numbers, numbers, numbers." It's a shame.

Sanofi's "Strategic Use" (ie, Bribery) of "Third Parties" (ie, Physicians) to Influence the FDA

In a report titled "Sanofi's Strategic Use of Third Parties to Influence the FDA," the Senate Finance Committee said Sanofi SA "contributed more than $5 million to two medical groups and a medical researcher that encouraged U.S. regulators to delay approval" of the generic version of Levenox, a bloodthinner that had global sales exceeding $4 billion in 2009.

According a WSJ article (see "Sanofi Pays Doctors to Dis Generic Version of Lovenox"), "between 2007 and 2010, the company contributed more than $2.6 million to the Society of Hospital Medicine; more than $2.3 million to the North American Thrombosis Foundation, which studies blood clots; and more than $260,000" to Dr. Victor Tapson, thrombosis specialist and faculty member in the Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine division of Duke Medicine (see "Duke medical researcher named in Senate report").

Dr. Tapson and the North American Thrombosis Foundation wrote letters to the FDA that claimed generic versions of the anti-clotting medication may not be as safe as the brand-name drug. Nowhere in these letters did Tapson or the Foundation disclose financial connection to Sanofi.

In an internal email, a Sanofi public-relations representative characterized the Society of Hospital Medicine letter as a "key accomplishment."

"If we were writing the FDA now," said Larry Wellikson, society's director, "we would be very clear about our relationship with any partner, including financial support."

DUH!

Social Media and Celebrities: A Winning Combination for Pharma Marketers

Attendees at yesterday's session of the Social Media for Pharma Conference were treated to two case studies that combined social media with celebrities.

The first was the "Kaleidoscope Case Study" (aka, "How To Extend The Value And Reach Of Your Organization’s Campaign To Increase Engagement And Program Results") presented by Jim Dayton (@JimDayton), Director of Emerging Media at InTouch Solutions.

According to the FaceBook "Kaleidoscope On Ice" fan page: “Kaleidoscope presented by sanofi-aventis” was a holiday entertainment variety special [presented on Thanksgiving Day, 2009] that featured Olympic skating champions and GRAMMY Award-winning music artists [as well as American Idol singers]. The show featured the historic return to the ice of the legendary Scott Hamilton and Dorothy Hamill who will skate to the music of fellow cancer survivor Olivia Newton-John. The event was in support of women who survived cancer.

This event was promoted in part via Twitter, a campaign that Dayton said was very successful based upon key performance measures -- followers, tweets, etc. Dayton noted that this success was based in part on the active tweeting of the event done by the celebrities who were not paid to tweet but who benefited form the self-promotion.

It's a shame that I did not hear about this event either via Twitter or otherwise. Or at least I don't remember it. Unfortunately for Sanofi, what I do remember is the incident of the woman cancer survivor who laid siege to sanofi-aventis VOICES Facebook Page (read this post: "Patient "Unadvocate" Lays Siege to sanofi-aventis VOICES Facebook Page. Where's S-A's Social Media VOICE?" and listen to this podcast: "What Sanofi-Aventis Learned from Its FaceBook Experience & What the Experts Recommend It Do Now").

The second social media/celebrity case study was "Race with Insulin" presented by Ambre Morley (@ambremorley), Associate Director of Product Communications and Lois Kotkoskie, Director of Promotional Review. Both work for Novo Nordisk. Morley and Kotkoskie made a good tag team, presenting some behind-the-scenes information about how the program was launched with careful regulatory oversight. Their presentation was entitled "How To Use Twitter To Deliver Measurable Results For Your Organization."

You might recall that Race with Insulin is also a campaign that combines a celebrity (racecare driver Charlie Kimball), social media, and real world events (listen to this podcast: "Novo Nordisk's Race With Insulin Campaign: It's Not Just About Twitter"). The twitter account (@racewithinsulin) is famous for being the first branded Twitter account and for posting the first branded tweet, which I labeled "sleazy Twitter spam (see here).

I tried to keep a low profile during both these presentations and did not raise the "fail" sides of these campaigns that I have blogged about in the past. Morley, however, incorporated my comments as part of her presentation to explain how to "Assess Your Promotional Challenges" and to answer the question "Does the reward outweigh the risk?"

During both these presentations, I wondered what was the tactic that actually brought the "rewards?" Was it the social media campaign or was it the celebrities? Could these overall campaigns have been successful without the celebrities? No way! Could they have been successful without the social media component, which most presenters said was just a tactic? Yes, definitely!

The day when real, non-celebrity patients are the celebrities in pharma social media campaigns is the day when pharma breaks away from the mold.

A point I made during Morley's presentation was that although @racewithinsulin has about 1000 followers, Novo Nordisk knows nothing about these followers other than what Morley gleaned from manually reviewing their Twitter profiles. I suggested that Novo Nordisk do what I do: ask followers to fill out a survey. Pharma marketers do this all the time on their web sites and via BRCs. Why don't they do it with their Twitter followers? Either they don't value their Twitter audience enough to learn more about it, or they do not have the resources to do anything with the information.

Inadequate resources was mentioned often at this conference. To move social media beyond merely being a promotional tactic to a strategy to learn more about consumers and patients, pharma has to devote more resouirces to the effort.