Consumer Influence to Grow

The direct influence of consumers on drug selection is going to grow in coming years. There are several forces at work that will make this happen. DTC, defined broadly as all marketing and promotion programs across all media, will become more important in drug decisions. First, consumers will pay more for their drugs as co-pays increase... Read More

Start with Point-of-Care

The traditional media planning process for a $75 million plan starts with the big dollar allocations to television and print, followed by point-of-care, Internet, direct and demographic allocations. Unfortunately, some of the best targeted programs fall away because the budget is then cut back as companies look for earnings out of cost cutting. This is why we see non mass media get less than they deserve... Read More

A Market for Education

By Kim Ribbink. The pressure is on to provide as much salient and valuable information as possible during the time the patient is able to spend with his or her physician during an office visit. The time patients and physicians have together is short, and this is when patient education materials can play a role. These patient aids offer an opportunity for all parties to win: the doctor, who is able to respond to the needs of his or her patients; the patient, who receives the information he or she needs; and the pharmaceutical company, which can use the opportunity to provide a value-added service to its customers... Appeared in October 2006 issue of PharmaVoice. Used with Permission Download as PDF

Waste in DTC Advertising

A new book that is based on a five-year study of ad spending concludes that 37% of ad spending is wasted. The authors are very pragmatic in outlining how that waste can be reduced, not to zero, but much better than 37%...
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Point-of-Care DTC Will Surge

DTC is undergoing a transformation in how media is allocated. It is about as slow as human evolution, but it is happening. Marketers are questioning the 70% allocations for branded television, and instead trying to find alternate ways to spend some of their large DTC budgets. What is first on many of their wish lists is point-of-care media... Read More