The New Look of DTC: Digital-to-Consumer

Today's guest post comes from Mark Tosh, Medivo BTP In a post here late last week, Cutting Edge Information’s Nicole May addressed the topic of whether DTC ads are “falling out of favor” with consumer Rx marketers. As she correctly noted, the ad-spending data from tracking firms such as Nielsen certainly indicate that fewer marketing dollars are now earmarked for big-budget broadcast and print campaigns. Some skeptics cite the decline in the number of blockbuster products as the primary reason for this direct-to-consumer falloff (i.e., fewer big drugs mean few big marketing efforts), but we believe the reason is something else. It’s now blatantly obvious that more and more people (both patients and caregivers) are turning to the Internet when they need to find important health information. And this is where marketers are moving their budget dollars, trying to stay more closely in step with this health-information seeking audience. We don’t have ad-spending data to cite here as evidence of this shift to digital channels, because either the research firms aren’t tracking Internet/digital or the numbers are just plain out of synch with the market. But just look at some of the numbers coming out of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, particularly the data about where caregivers are turning for health information: • 72% of Internet users say they looked online for health information within the past year (based on a September 2012...
Source: ePharma Summit - Category: Medical Marketing and PR Tags: 2013 epharma summit Digital Marketing for Pharma medivo btp Source Type: blogs