Futurist: Anti-Viral Marketing (Big Pharma Facebook Advertising)

[Joanne98]

Pharmaceutical advertising can cause drowsiness, irritability, mild confusion and occasional hypochondria. People experiencing prolonged humming of jingles derived from old Elvis Presley songs should consult a doctor. After all, getting you to contact your doctor is one reason drugmakers spend billions on all those ads, anyway.

Like most marketers, pharmaceutical companies are slowly shifting their advertising focus to the Internet. Changing media habits contribute: Web activity now rivals radio and print, and by some measures is gaining on television’s reach, even when excluding at-work Internet use. Online marketing offers targeted audiences at a low cost, too.

But pharma’s growing interest in online also relates to the distinctly stringent way direct-to-consumer marketing messages for prescription drugs are regulated, especially on U.S. television. With Congress expected to consider even more restrictions, creative Internet advertising looks more appealing than ever — and poses challenges for the Food and Drug Administration, which already struggles with its responsibility to monitor the marketing of prescription medicines in all media.

This shifting media landscape helps explain how Debbie Phelps — mother of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps — ended up on Facebook last year, working as a paid spokeswoman for a new online group for parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The “ADHD Moms” page offers space to share stories, access articles and vote in online polls. It also shows up prominently when users search for information on the disorder on the hugely popular social networking site.

ADHD Moms’ sponsor is McNeil Pediatrics, a division of Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. Its role and logo are highlighted near the top of the page, but a user would need to click through to the company’s Web site to learn that it’s “a leader in the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” — a reference to Concerta, a commonly prescribed daily treatment for ADHD.

Parent company Johnson & Johnson has been in the vanguard of this kind of indirect, community-oriented online marketing for prescription medications — setting up blogs, Facebook pages and YouTube channels to help extend its brands. Some drugmaker marketers see campaigns like those as the industry’s future.

“The genie is out of the bottle,” said Peter Justason, a global marketing director for Johnson & Johnson, in a recent TNS Media Intelligence report on using “social media” for branding. “Now it doesn’t cost anything for a million people to get online and talk to each other. People are trusting people like themselves more and more, as opposed to some sort of third-party authoritative figure.”

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