The FDA Opens the Floor for Change

by Josh Pike, SVP Search
This past week I had the pleasure of attending the 2 day FDA hearing on the use of the Internet and social media for the marketing of pharmaceuticals. The purpose of the hearing was to open discussions about updating the current guidelines set forth by the FDA.The hearing format was interesting. Speakers, which included agencies, drug companies, public advocacy groups, site publishers and private citizens, addressed the FDA panel to provide feedback to 5 specified topics:

1. What parameters or criteria should be applied to determine when third-party communications occurring on the Internet and through social media technologies are subject to substantive influence by companies that market products related to the communication or discussion?
2. In particular, when should third-party discussions be treated as being performed by, or on behalf of, the companies that market the product, as opposed to being performed independent of the influence of the companies marketing the products?
3. How should companies disclose their involvement or influence over discussions or material, particularly discussions or material on third-party sites?
4. Are there different considerations that should be weighed depending on the specific social media platform that is used or based on the intended audience? If so, what are these considerations?
5. With regard to the potential for company communications to be altered by third parties, what is the experience to date with respect to the unauthorized dissemination of modified product information (originally created by a company) by noncompany users of the Internet?Many of the agencies and drug companies shared their findings from private and funded research.

There were several consistent themes that emerged from these studies:

• The Internet is a growing and significant source of information for people researching health information.
• The current lack of clear direction from the FDA is keeping legitimate pharma companies on the sidelines of getting involved with social media and many forms of online advertising. This leaves a void that is frequently being filled by less desirable and often illegal advertisers.
• Consumers and medical professionals want drug companies to participate in an open, non-promotional way to share their knowledge and research in the discussions that are happening across social media channels.

While not as prevalent, some of the most interesting discussions where those that questioned the efficacy of the FDA guidelines in general. It would seem that in many cases, the issues of including fair balance between risk/benefit and access to prescribing information in marketing materials, as mandated by the FDA, is not what is putting consumers at risk. The problem is that this ‘required’ information often exceeds the level of comprehension for most consumers. So including a link to important safety information from a Tweet or search ad may satisfy the requirements of the FDA, but it is completely failing the objective of the FDA, which is to protect the public health.

Likely the result of years of lawyering and policy making, the FDA approved language that makes up the small print in magazine and online ads and quick speak at the end of TV commercials has warped into something that exceeds the health literacy of the general public. The language needs to be simplified in order to be effective and the FDA needs to create a standard for displaying important safety information across health sites to aid in consumer recognition and accessibility.

These changes would not require the FDA to introduce new policy to address the challenges posed by the Internet and social media. The current policies are sufficiently obtuse and can be morphed to apply to new media. Instead, the FDA needs to work with drug companies to provide the guidance necessary for acceptable participation across social media. Without this, we will continue to see an onslaught of unregulated online pharmacies and snake oil salesman, a situation that is both confusing and hazardous for the general public. Without clear guidance from the FDA, legitimate drug companies will be forced to sit on their hands for fear of overstepping the murky lines of compliance and the wealth of information that they possess will remain unavailable to consumers.
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Mobile Marketing – Test and Learn

by Sonny Kim - VP, Interactive

We’ve been talking about mobile marketing for over a decade now, yet we still don’t see the mass adoption for marketers to include mobile in their marketing mix. The share of marketing dollars toward mobile is only 1.8% (MMA market survey 2009), yet it has established itself as a dominant communications channel. Over 200 million Americans own a mobile device and the adoption of smartphones has increased the opportunities for marketers to go beyond text messaging and ring tones to engage with consumers. Given these evolutions, coupled with a recent report showing rapid mobile internet adoption (Morgan Stanley 2009), the opportunity to jump in and learn now seems stronger than ever. So where do you start? Dipping your toes into mobile marketing can be very simple. Here are three easy ways you can get started.

SMS is still king - Text messaging by adults is outstripping the growth rate among younger generations. Adoption of text messaging between ages 45 to 54 has increased 130%. Favorite venues for texting are: The movies (58%); loud sports games or concerts (41%); lectures or classes (39%). Marketers can build a communication strategy around their target’s lifestyle interests.

Test and learn: Try a text to vote to get user input on your product or service.

How about a WAP, do you have one yet? Contrary to popular opinion, Americans use the mobile web in large numbers. Actually 15.5% of ALL MOBILE consumers use the internet –that equates to 40 million people (according to Nielsen). The growth rates are most notable among two segments, young adults 18 to 25 (as expected) and new smart phone buyers. Smartphone penetration in the US is 13.5% of all handsets.

Test and learn. Build a WAP page (1). Think about some key information bits you can provide the mobile consumer. Keep it simple.

Mobile App: News, weather and entertainment are top categories for frequency and loyalty of usage. This application doesn’t have to be an iPhone app. Your application can be created to be utilized by the majority of phones. It can be the coolest apps that enable consumers to search your inventory, create recipes, or your application du jour can be as simple as a game. It might be helpful to ask your consumers how they would engage with your brand and what kind of information your consumer is seeking. Mobile apps development costs can start as low as $5,000.

Test and learn. Build a Ping pong game.

Good luck, if you’re already ahead of the game, let’s discuss how we can collaborate to build a robust mobile marketing strategy.

Additional resource:

http://blog.flurry.com/bid/26376/Mobile-Apps-Models-Money-and-Loyalty

sources: Market-research firm, M:Metrics, 2009, CTIA, consumer survey 2008, Research report, Nielsen, 2009
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The Next Wave of User Generated Content?

by Allison Marsh - VP, Consumer Insights
In July, Japanese band sour released a new video for its song “Hibi no Neiro” (Tone of Everyday). As of today, the video has received over 1.6 million hits on YouTube and even for those of us that don’t understand Japanese it is something that you must see. The video was directed by Masashi Kawamur, Hal Kirkland, Magico Nakamura, and Masayoshi Nakamura and by (and of) the band’s fans only using their webcams.

Clearly there was a script or set of guidelines for the fans to follow, which allowed the band to maintain control over the finished product but still allowed fans to participate and experience the band in a new and exciting way.

Is this the next wave of user generated content? Could be… it seems to have worked for reality TV (i.e. The Hills, The City, etc) and it is a way for brands to maintain their integrity and essence while still inviting consumers participate in creating a brand experience. What do you think? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfBlUQguvyw&fmt=18


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Twitter to the Rescue

By Jason Rivera, Director, Consumer Insights and Ally Moehring, Integrated PR Strategist

We’re not sure if you’re aware, but on Tuesday of last week, T-Mobile had another major snafu. This time, it was a 6-hour service outage that was nationwide. Some users had no voice or data service for all 6 hours, some had loss of either data or voice, some lost one or both services for less than 6 hours and some were not affected at all. T-Mobile says it only affected 5% of their customers, but was certainly noticed by every one of their customers (and potential customers) on Twitter.

The outage dominated 4 of the 10 trending topics that day and therefore a large percentage of the conversations on Twitter. During all the hullabaloo, customers were trying to figure out what was going on and some major things happened:

• Both of T-Mobile’s telephone support lines were jammed with callers, making the lines stop functioning (customers would try to call, only to have the number become inoperable)
  
• Their online customer service crashed due to the amount of people trying to talk to a customer service rep
  
• Their entire website crashed intermittently with the amount of traffic received
  

So with no classical means of customer communications, how did they alert these folks, you ask? Twitter. Yes, Twitter. They posted a tweet about the issue and it quickly disseminated through the masses, spreading like wildfire. This is huge deal for social media, particularly in the wireless space. Relying on Twitter to spread the message illustrates several things:

• T-Mobile has a social media strategy
  
• T-Mobile has a strong following on Twitter
  
• T-Mobile believes in Twitter enough that it was the medium they used to outreach to consumers

Like many other brands on Twitter and other social media channels like Facebook, having a presence in these popular social media channels allows them to leverage these spaces to deliver customer service – whether it’s part of their daily strategy or a “when all else fails” tactic. Having a voice on Twitter allowed T-Mobile to inform their customers and helped them put out the firestorm.

It will be interesting to see how brands like T-Mobile continue to intermix social media into their repertoires to interact with consumers in times of need. This is surely a sign of things to come.



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Crossing Moats and Scaling Castles

by Gary Colen, President
Here is something to think about. Consider two brands in the electronics category. Brand A has clearly defined technical superiority, a 30 year + history, as well as dominant brand awareness and distribution at retail. Brand B has an entrepreneurial bent, clear brand positioning as a ‘cool’ challenger brand, secondary retail placement and is a smaller business.

Brand A spends 10x what Brand B spends in marketing. Brand A focuses on traditional media; print, broadcast and newspaper. Brand A spends on digital; display and PPC. Brand A spends $0 on social. Brand A spends zero time on social. Brand A has not one person assigned to social. Brand B spends $0 on traditional. Brand B has six full-time employees dedicated to social. Brand B is measuring the efficacy of their investment in dollar based ROI.

As I approached the display at retail featuring both brands with questions regarding respective effictiveness and quality, I couldn’t find an employee to discuss (brief note to thank our nation’s wonderful electronic’s retailers 2010 – topic for another time). So with no in-store sales assistance, I took out my mobile, queried vark, and asked each brand’s respective social presence, Facebook and Twitter specifically, and got perspectives from my own social network. I immediately received feedback from each of the brands. One gave me their feedback through lack of response. One responded back immediately. The feedback was clear, appeared honest and open to me and most importantly, was provided in my specific time of need. And that, was the difference maker. 10 minutes from start to finish, I left with Brand B.

So, Brand A spends 0% of their budget on social and Brand B spends almost 100% of their budget on social. Someone is making a poor decision…I have a thought on which. Brand A is in a castle under attack worrying about keeping the castle, while Brand B is building a bigger castle right next door. Welcome to the neighborhood.

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Twitter gets younger, Facebook gets older

by Ally Moehring - Integrated PR Strategist
According to the latest Pew Internet & American Life research results, contrary to recent reports Twitter is quickly being adopted by a younger demographic with the average age of Twitter users at 31, compared to Facebook’s average user age of 33, up from 26. The average age of a MySpace user is 26 and LinkedIn, 39.

A shift was bound to happen at some point this year with both Facebook and Twitter expanding its user base rapidly, but Facebook from being a college-specific social networking site to something that parents and grandparents use to stay connected and Twitter from a microblogging service that was initially adopted by an older 30-something demographic, but trending to grow a younger demographic base.

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Economy Down, Education Up

by Ellen Rienzi - Associate Planner, Insights
I’m sure you’re getting sick of hearing about the draining effects of the recession – the layoffs, the ups and downs of the market… it’s exhausting! But, since we’re still in the midst of it, here’s an interesting fact that may be a positive result of a messy economy. According to Pew Research, college enrollment has hit an all-time high. In October 2008, about 40% of 18-24 year olds (11.5 million) in the U.S. were enrolled. Driving this upward trend? Two-year college enrollment levels.

With unemployment reaching its highest levels in decades, people are turning to these cost-efficient education venues as an alternative to the more expensive 4-year options, and as a way to advance (or change) their now-stalled careers. Traditionally, enrollment in 2-year colleges rise as the economy dwindles, but as more students try to balance some work with their schooling, this trend may continue to grow even after the economy stabilizes.

Another condition that is affecting these enrollment levels is the fact that the pool of college-eligible students has expanded. More young adults are finishing high school than ever before. High school dropout rates fell to a record 9.3% in 2008. In fact, by October 2008 almost 85% of all 18-24 year olds had completed high school.

So while the country may seem to be in an endless cycle of budget cuts, job losses, and down markets, rest assured we’ll come out on the other side a more educated society.

Source: http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/747/college-enrollment-hits-all-time-high-fueled-by-community-college-surge#prc-jump


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The Full Social Media Story: A Return on Relationships

by Victoria Shaw - VP, Integrated Public Relations

In social media, traditional result measurement tools often leave holes and we are left with a set of quantitative metrics (such as impression numbers and advertising equivalency value) that help tell a story but often skirt around the main plot point. Such ROI metrics can fail to take into account the true value of social media – the relationship value. We were recently challenged with such a case – a campaign that heavily leveraged a group of bloggers, a particularly tightly-knit niche, with the goal of reaching this group and creating relationships between them and our client (a brand specializing in products that also fall into this niche category). Like all true relationships, this one took time to cultivate and grow. Through the course of many months filled with emails and exchanges we knew we met the goal and had successfully developed a group of brand advocates that would pay off with many years of loyalty, purchasing and recommendations to others.

Now the next challenge: measuring the value of these relationships! Our traditional ROI model looked good – indeed the campaign had impressive numbers on the quant side with total impressions, engagements and ad equivalency value all tallying strongly. But the heart of the matter was the story told in the emails from bloggers that raved about their newfound love for the brand, and the posts from their readers that confirmed these blogger/influencers were powerful advocates. To tell this story we had to use a ROR (return on relationship) model.

To do so we turned to our new advocates, the bloggers, and asked them to complete a short survey on their brand perceptions before and after we made contact with them and on the likelihood of their advocacy down the road. While we expected favorable comments back, we couldn’t have predicted how strong their response was! All confirmed that as a result of our relationship-building campaign they now felt they knew the brand well and would be much more likely to purchase it in the future. And as an added bonus: they had all told others about the brand - many others in fact, as many as several hundred word-of-mouth recommendations per blogger!! (And all this in addition to what they had written publicly on their blogs!)

So what was our ROR? Well, we found that our outreach to these influencers had yielded several hundred positive brand mentions per blogger. And we also know that the recommendations of influencers (like friends, social network peers, and ‘experts’) are a powerful and direct driver in the purchase cycle. Measuring ROR isn’t an exact science, it’s an essential aspect of telling the full story about the performance of any social media campaign.

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The Pulse - Tech Savvy Consumers

Every month we survey our Pulse Network, a network of over 10,000 milllennials. We had responses from over 100 students (high school and college) and here is what we learned this month.

With smartphones becoming more prevalent and popular, we wanted to get a sense of how students feel about these new gadgets and what they thought were the biggest benefits of having one. While the majority of students know what a smartphone is, only 26% of the respondents own one. Students have limited budgets and during these harder economic times, not all parents can afford to go out and buy the latest and greatest technology.
While only a few have smartphones, the features and applications that are offered with the smartphone are very appealing. The ability to check email and browse the internet are the biggest benefits to students. We asked all respondents the following question.

What are some reasons you purchased a smartphone or want to purchase one?
• 61% stated I can access my email and internet
• 51% stated I can play music on it
• 50% stated I can take pictures with it
• 42% stated it’s a mini-computer
• 41% stated it has a touch screen
• 41% stated I can view video clips
• 38% stated it has a miniature keyboard
• 12% stated I don’t think there is anything really special with it

That said, the feature they would use the most is the internet. Students want to get information instantaneously, so having the internet at their disposal has high appeal.

What smartphone feature you would use the most?
• 44% Internet
• 23% Music
• 17% Email
• 8% Pictures
• 1% Video

In terms of brand choice, Apple is the top rated among students if they were to purchase a smartphone, followed by the BlackBerry.
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