Pfizer Continues to Dominate DTC Ad Spending

If Pfizer chose not to do direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, we'd have less bad ads to criticize (as, for example, this ad for Viagra) and the total spending on DTC advertising would be 30% less than it is today. In 2014, Nielsen estimates that the U.S. drug industry spent $4.53 Bn on DTC advertising. Pfizer spent $1.4 Bn.

That's right... Pfizer spends nearly one-third (30%) of all the DTC ad dollars!

The last (red) bar of the following chart shows what the 2014 ad spend -- excluding Internet search ads -- would look like without Pfizer. We're talking 20th century numbers!

Pfizer simply is too big to fail as far as the DTC advertising world is concerned!

According to Bloomberg (here), Pfizer spent "$751.9 million on television ads, more than double second-biggest spender AbbVie Inc." This domination of the drug ad airways goes back to at least 2011 as shown in the charts prepared by Bloomberg.

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#Alive is Offline - Cinthol just doesn't give up

Attempting desperate transformation over the past 3 years & still at it.

Finally a brand with patience, and thus I should say to my liking. Marketers’ write-off their hard work very soon, especially over the last decade, but Cinthol's approach I feel will pay off in the medium run. 

Cinthol made a bold modernization/new launch combination a few years ago, primarily when their back was against the wall. But since then the marketing team at GCPL has pulled off some stunning concepts & campaigns. (Cinthol, Protekt, Aer..to name a few).

After their original ‘Alive is Awesome’ campaign, sales stagnated & even deteriorated in a few southern markets, but the team kept at it, maybe because they had no choice, or maybe because they were in it for the long haul.

It’s a matter of time before New category entrants, or tweens/teens exercising their with new found purchasing power start enjoying a little Cinthol (without even hopefully knowing its 60 year old legacy) in their lives.

While the original Alive is Awesome campaign broke the clutter on television & at retail with it bold colours, variants, excellent retail visibility solutions etc. – the marketer’s surreal dream didn't pay-off. Sales was slow & the trend was no wear close to being reversed.

Nevertheless coming now phase-2 as I call it of the brand story - #Aliveisoffline.

This is making quite a bit of noise in Social media, as it has struck the perfect cord with every busy corporate jailed 25-30 year old. The irony of the AV trending on Social media, a mild poke at every tweet or post on our timelines. GCPL looks like it has also learnt from its earlier errors of blind ATL bombardment and has still restricted this to Social media only.

Whether Cinthol can shed its harsh erstwhile Red packaging into its more vibrant green, yellow, black, cyan is yet to be seen, but looks like they’ll be at it till they succeed.

Now to the critique: there could be a better integration of the brand 'Cinthol' into the overall theme. Looks like P&G's global fever on the 'cause' has gotten to every marketer. A powerful integration or closure with Cinthol would have maybe scored a few more points.

But nevertheless, a brand soon to be noticed (yet again)...

Brand Update : Fair & Handsome ropes in Hrithik Roshan

Indian men's grooming  market is estimated to be  Rs 4300 crore market ( Source - Euromonitor). The skin care market is estimated to be around Rs 700 crore. The fairness segment for men was created and dominated by Fair and Handsome . Launched in 2005, FAH became hugely popular. The brand rode to fame with the endorsement from Shah Rukh Khan.

After 8 years of association with SRK, FAH has now roped in Hrithik Roshan as the brand ambassador. Hrithik is featured in the new ad for FAH Face wash. The men's face wash category is worth to be around Rs 250 crore. The 8 years association with SRK has helped FAH to be the leader in the category.

The new brand ambassador is expected to rejuvenate the brand and bring in freshness. The brand is currently airing the TVC featuring the new brand ambassador.

Watch the TVC here : Hrithik FAH

The ad highlights the functional benefits of the FAH facewash with brand ambassador as the user. The reports suggest that Hrithik would be one of the ambassadors and does not indicate that he has replaced SRK. 

Dear Patient, Come to the "Dark Side" & Engage with Pharma

Engaging patients was a major theme of the eyeforpharma Barcelona 2015 conference (hashtag e4pbarca), which just closed out after 3 days of presentations with a keynote presentation by Dr. Anne Beal, Chief Patient Officer, at Sanofi.

"Patients can help in many ways and we (pharma) have to reach out to them all," said Dr. Beal.

@TuLupus -- a Spanish Lupus patient blogger ("Tu Lupus Es Mi Lupus")-- was impressed and she offered this advice (as quoted by Paul Tunnah):

"patients, don't be afraid of going to the 'dark side' - engage with pharma and industry (is not so dark)."

"It's one of the most important things I've learnt in #e4pBarca," tweeted @TuLupus a few minutes later. "Dark side? No way! We need each other and you do great things."

Dark side? Let's imagine Pharma as Darth Vader and patients like @TuLupus as Luke Skywalker:

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Scary Pharma/Drug Ads in Medical Journals

Drug print ads aimed at patients are usually upbeat showing the benefits of the pill. Print ads intended for physicians on the other hand are often dark and downright scary. I came across this medical journal print ad about "poorly controlled LDL-C" yesterday:

Click on image for an enlarged view

What's up with this?

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Attending #e4pbarca Remotely: Second Day

There's been a lot of tweeting during the eyeforpharma Barcelona conference yesterday and today. I summarized a few of the issues being discussed that were of interest to me during yesterday's session (see here). Here's some impressions data from Symplur for the #e4pbarca hashtag:

I'm happy to see that I'm #3 on the list! That's pretty good for someone following remotely in a time zone that is 5 hours later than the time in Barcelona! I had to wake up at 3 AM yesterday to catch the opening presentations! Compare that to a day in the life of a typical digital marketer here.

Today, I woke a little later and missed most of the morning sessions, but there was still a good deal of interesting insights from attendees.

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Attending #e4pbarca Remotely

I'm getting up early to attend the 13th Annual eyeforpharma Barcelona 2015 conference from the comfort of my home office.

Disclosure: eyeforpharma is a client of mine - Pharma Marketing News is a Media partner for this event. But this post is a bit of "earned" media coverage - i.e., no one is paying me to do this.

Mostly, I'm using Twitter and following the #e4pbarca tweet stream, which is pretty active. I recommend that all conference producers use specific Twitter hash tags like this to allow people who cannot physically be at the conference to at least follow what's being discussed in real time. Make sure you keep your hash tags as short as possible! Also, make sure everyone at the conference has access to Wifi and knows the hash tag.

I've embedded the #e4pbarca tweet stream at the end of this post.

I will post here some highlights from the conference of interest to me. Also, I'm hosting my first ever Google+ "Hangout" to see if I can interview some conference attendees during the lunch break. You can access that Hangout here.

So, here are some highlights so far. I will add more during the day:

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DTC Ad Spend is Back Stronger Than Ever, Baby!

OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but according to Wonkblog, a blog published by the Washington Post, and based on data from Kantar Health, "drug companies are bombarding your TV with more ads than ever."

"Maybe you've noticed that prescription drug ads are everywhere these days — more so than usual," quips the blog. "It was just a few years ago that TV advertisements of prescription drugs had dropped off by 20 percent, as drugmakers were also cutting back on other types of direct-to-consumer advertising" (read, for example, "Pharma DTC Ad Spending Took a Nosedive in 2012!").

According to Kantar Media data, the pharmaceutical industry spent $4.5 billion marketing prescription drugs directly to consumers in 2014, up from $3.5 billion in 2012. That's up from the $2.5 billion drugmakers spent in 2000, or $3.39 billion in 2015 dollars when adjusted for inflation, according to Wonkblog. Most of that spending -- about 65% -- is on TV ads.

Here's my chart showing DTC spending on "measured media," which includes print ads and Internet display ads, from 1998 through 2014.

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FDA's Reprint Distribution Guidelines are "Counterintuitive" & "Indecent"

FDA's Reprint Distribution Guidelines are "Counterintuitive" & "Indecent"

Better and Faster - Your Path to Unstoppable Ideas Now Available

As a marketer, I'm approached on a regular basis to review books, products, and ideas from some well know entrepreneurs as well as young adults hoping to make a change in a particular niche or industry.  Unfortunately, finding a real gem can be far and few between.  The good news is that every so often, I do find something that changes the game, elevates my own thinking, and is literally too good to share.

Better and Faster by Jeremy Gutsche is the latest find that I couldn't put down.  Jeremy is the CEO of Trendhunter.com and an amazing entrepreneur and author.  This book explores the genesis of creative ideas - the best creative ideas, and provides insight into how they happen.  The best part is that by reading this guide, it can make YOU better in the area of discovery, innovating faster and better, and recognizing your full potential.

The book explores neurological traps that are holding you back.  As I've always said, "Change your thinking change your life!"  It also reveals a number of ways to innovate more quickly which you've likely never considered.  Jeremy calls his six patters of opportunity: convergence, divergence, cyclicality, redirection, reduction, and acceleration. 

These finding are based on real data.  In fact, they studied more than 250,000 ideas through the trendhunter.com audience of more than 100,000,000 individuals to discover what causes opportunity.  Wouldn't you like to know where to find true opportunity and how to use it for personal and professional development?  Of course you would. That's why this book is such a valuable resource. It's also why more than 300 brands rely on Jeremy's method to accelerate innovation.

I strongly encourage you to "be in the know".  Connect with Jeremy and start innovating.  Jeremy has offered readers of the Marketing Blog exclusive access to content which you can find by clicking here.  Enjoy the content and be sure to pick up Jeremy Gutsche's book on Amazon.  It's content you can't innovate without.

A Pig, a Cow, a Robot, an FDA Warning Letter

In a March 5, 2015, Warning Letter to Discovery Laboratories, Inc. (here), regarding its Surfaxin promotional website, FDA cited "evolution" as a false claim of superiority. Well, not exactly.

FDA noted the phrase "Join the Therapeutic Evolution...", which was used in conjunction with graphics of a pig, a cow, and a human-like robot (see screen capture below).

Click on image for an enlarged view.

Here's what the FDA had to say about the pig, the cow, and the robot:

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A Day in the Life of a Typical Digital Marketer vs. My Day Yesterday

I was sent an email from a reader of Pharma Marketing Blog directing me to an infographic about the day in the life of a digital marketer. You can view the entire graphic here, but I want to focus on the section reproduced below and compare that to what my day looked like yesterday. You can compare it to your own day and see if you fit the pattern.

Click on image for an enlarged view.

So how typical is this?

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Brand Update : Sunfeast Brand Architecture

Launched in 2003, Sunfeast has come a long way. The brand has become an umbrella brand endorsing a wide range of biscuit and other products from the ITC stable. It is interesting to see the brand architecture of Sunfeast.

Brand Architecture refers to the strategy in which the company decides on how to use the brand elements and how these elements are shared across products. So Sunfeast's brand architecture refers to the strategy on the usage of Sunfeast brand elements across various products.

ITC has used Sunfeast as an Umbrella ( Family ) brand name for biscuit and snack products from its stable. Sunfeast endorses the following products - biscuits, noodles and pasta. 

Within each category, the brand architecture of Sunfeast is interesting.

According to the brand's website, ITC has divided the biscuits into four sub-categories - Cookies, Cream based biscuits and  Light and Fun biscuits and Healthy biscuits.

In the brand architecture , the company has used sub-brands for various types of products .

In the cookie sub-category, Sunfeast has following sub-brands - Delishus, Special Cookies and Mom's Magic . 

In the healthy biscuits sub-category, Sunfeast has Farmlite, Marie Lite, Glucose and Milky Magic sub-brands.

In the cream biscuit sub-category, Sunfeast has Dark Fantasy,  Bounce , Bourbon Bliss and Dream Cream  sub-brands.

In the light and fun biscuit sub-category, Sunfeast has Sweet'N'Salt, Nice and Snacky sub-brands.

Within the Dark Fantasy brand, there are three modifier brands - Choco Meltz and Choco Fills and Luxuria.

Besides the biscuit category, Sunfeast is also extended to Noodles and Pasta . For noodles category, Sunfeast uses Yippee  sub-brand and for pasta, it has Pasta Treat sub-brand. 

Recently Sunfeast launched a competitor for Choco Pie in the form of  Yumfills which is not a biscuit but a cream filled cake. 

It is interesting that ITC is investing in not only Sunfeast but its sub-brands because it has lot of cash to spend. These sub-brands are differentiated through packaging and other brand elements like color. 

In this brand architecture, the parent brand  Sunfeast is present as a logo in most of the products. In all the packaging and brand related communication, the primary driver is the sub-brand. ITC expects that over a period of time, these sub-brands will acquire equity and Sunfeast would just be a token endorser. 

FDA Develops a Mobile App for Reporting Drug Shortages. But Wouldn't an App for Adverse Events Better Fit the Agency's Mission?

FDA/CDER launched its first and only mobile app on iTunes: DrugShortages (see logo on left).

The iTunes blurb suggests the public would find this information important:

"Access to drug shortage information is now easier and faster. FDA has developed an app that allows users to quickly identify current drug shortages, resolved shortages, and discontinuations of drug products. This app was developed to accelerate public access to important – and sometimes critical -- information about drug shortages. The application uses a searchable database to provide real-time information to key stakeholders, including health care practitioners and pharmacists."

I'm not sure how useful this app is for the public versus HCPs who definitely would like easy access to such information. According to the blurb, the app "helps health care practitioners make quick decisions about patient treatment."

More importantly, the app "provides information on how to report a shortage or supply issue, and links to other resources from FDA". Of course, the general public would not find this feature of the app very useful.

But an app that would be VERY useful for HCPs and patients is an app that provides easy access to adverse event data and that allows users to report adverse events. This, I believe, would better fulfill FDA's mission: to "protect the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices..."

What would such an app look like? I used the DrugShortages screen to create what I call "DrugAE," a concept for a mobile app that I hope the will FDA launch on iTunes soon. Here's my concept:

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Milso : The ( Goat) Milk Soap

Brand : Milso
Company : Good Buy Soaps and Cosmetics

Brand analysis count : # 556

This post is about a soap brand from my state of Kerala. It feels good when some one from a predominantly consumer state like Kerala dives into the world of marketing with a brand. Milso is a " Made in India" brand of soap from a little known firm - Good Buy Soaps and Cosmetics. According to reports, the company which began operations in 2007 has been marketing soaps in the rural markets. This is the first foray into the branded urban consumer space.

Milso soap's USP is that it is made from goat's milk. According to the brand, goat's milk has many skin nourishing properties. The brand claims to be the first Indian soap brand to have goat's milk. 

The brand is currently running its launch campaign in its home state. 

Watch the ad here : Milso

While there is nothing great about the ad, the thinking behind the ad is to make the " goat's milk" proposition popular. It is true that there is a novelty in the brand which will definitely catch the interest of the consumer. 

The brand has the tagline " The Milk Soap " and I assume that the brand name is also derived from milk-soap. The company has done right in terms of packaging which looks attractive. I am not sure about the pricing part which will be updated soon.

In the highly cluttered toilet soap category, getting a space for a new brand is not that easy. It takes lot of investment to get the eyeballs and also to induce trial. In a cluttered market, the trouble is that one has to continuously burn cash in order to be in the top of the mind. 

Milso has an advantage in the fact that its USP is really new to the Indian market. That gives a certain amount of eyeballs and trial. The brand according to the company is trying to build awareness about the efficacy of goat's milk in the personal-care space. The fact remains that any other competitor can imitate the brand without much of a problem. 

As a new product, Milso has many good things going for it , the fate now depends mainly on how the brand performs and fulfill its promise. 

In a Major Turnaround, FDA Now Requires "Low-T" Drug Label Changes & Safety Studies: Warns of Stroke & Heart Attack, Inappropriate Prescribing

FDA characterizes today's Safety Announcement requiring label changes for drugs that treat "low testosterone" merely "an update to the FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA Evaluating Risk of Stroke, Heart Attack, and Death with FDA-Approved Testosterone Products issued on January 31, 2014." But it is obviously much more.

According to today's announcement,

1. FDA is "requiring that the manufacturers of all approved prescription testosterone products change their labeling to clarify the approved uses of these medications. We are also requiring these manufacturers to add information to the labeling about a possible increased risk of heart attacks and strokes in patients taking testosterone."


2. "[FDA is] also requiring manufacturers [ of approved testosterone products to conduct a well-designed clinical trial to more clearly address the question of whether an increased risk of heart attack or stroke exists among users of these products."

This is worlds apart from what the FDA said on January 31, 2014 regarding this issue. It is also worlds apart from what Public Citizen petitioned the FDA to do in February, 2014.

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