Sales & Marketing

Blockbuster antidepressants linked to bone loss in seniors

Track down standout healthcare agencies using legal means. Your purpose: to assist prospective clients in choosing the right agency for their brands. Find out what makes agencies tick. See what's in their toolboxes. Go behind closed doors. Observe agencies' physical environment, note how they work. Take stock of the company's internal culture. Are the employees engaged, happy? Gather whatever information (i.e., facts, gossip, samples of work) and/or anything else that might be helpful to prospective clients. Take pictures of key principals at work and at play (if possible). Deconstruct the agency's proprietary approaches and strategic processes. Translate them into language an eighth-grader can understand.

Everyone knows someone who knows everything about restaurants in a given city. Not just the best restaurants, but the restaurants best suited for whatever the occasion.

OK, a parent company is a holding company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations by influencing or electing its board of directors. In other words, it maximizes shareholder value. Still, what does it mean for an agency and, in turn, a client to be under a big top? To find out AGENCY CONFIDENTIAL brazenly elbowed its way into the executive offices of two men who should know: Nick Colucci, recently named president and CEO of Publicis Healthcare Communications Group, one of the largest healthcare groups in the world; and Scott Cotherman, CEO of Corbett Accel Healthcare Group, a parent company for eight business units and a member of the Omnicom Group.

Women are everywhere. Healthcare advertising has to be one of the few businesses where so many women occupy top positions and actually make a living wage. OK, maybe they're not always at the top, top, but the glass ceiling is high and underneath is a mob of dynamic women (CEOs, presidents, creative directors, senior copywriters, etc.). We couldn't even begin to interview them all. Here are just a few.

Scott Cotherman has a thing for companies. He flat out loves them. Most of all, he loves making them into something bigger and better. He worked his magic on Chicago's Corbett Agency in the late '90s when, as COO, he transformed it from a regional agency into a global medical-communications company serving mega-brands. And in 2004, he was the brains behind the merging of the Corbett and Accel agencies that transformed them into the Corbett Accel Healthcare Group (a member of the Omnicom Group, the world's largest advertising holding company). Under his leadership, as CEO, the combined entity has since doubled in size. It now includes Accel Health, Corbett, Surge, Iris, and Kinect. Cotherman, who combines Midwestern warmth with CEO sophistication, describes himself as being passionate about organizations, transformational change, leadership development, and the future. AGENCY CONFIDENTIAL met with him recently over a lunch of chicken sandwiches, potato chips, and Diet Cokes. An engaging story-teller, he has..

It's easy to imagine a collective gasp from independent healthcare agencies everywhere last March on hearing the that news Dorland Global was bought by London-based Huntsworth. Dorland was one of the oldest independent healthcare agencies in the world. Is it right, then, to view the acquisition as significant, a sign perhaps of things to come? And what was it like for the Sweeneys to let go of their baby after all these years?

To harness consumerization to improve the industry's image and enhance the value of its products, pharma leaders need to focus on the "Four Cs": commitment, choice, collaboration, and customization

It was like the end of the arms race last November when Pfizer announced it was slashing its national sales force by 20 percent. Coolly downplayed as cost-cutting by new CEO Jeffrey Kindler, the stunning move was met by industry insiders, Wall Street analysts, and the media with one humongous collective sigh of relief. Big Pharma was seen as having grown dangerously addicted to the detailing game over the past decade, with the top firms plowing more and more of their blockbuster profits into trying to keep up with Pfizer's "flood the zone" strategy and with less and less to show for it.

With their memorable characters, sense of humor, and ability to balance creative with clinical information, the Rozerem ads have broken the traditional pharma ad template

Advertorials were shown to be more effective than branded ads in terms of generating interest, providing valuable info, and provoking follow-up discussions

Direct-to-consumer advertising officially becomes a "tweenager" this August-and, oh my, how it has grown. DTC was officially born in 1997 when FDA gave the green light to companies to advertise their drugs to consumers. In the first year, pharmaceutical marketers bounded onto the scene and spent more than $1 billion. Years passed. Debates ensued. Patients learned more about drugs. And, yes, spending grew. The latest available figures for 2006 show that the industry spent $4.8 billion on DTC advertising, a 13 percent increase over 2005 and the second year of double-digit growth.

When it comes to corporate reputations, it's clear the pharmaceutical industry doesn't quite get it. (Just pick up any newspaper.) But here's the latest newsflash when it comes to managing a bad rap: You get what you pay for.

When it comes to direct-mail marketing, tiny envelopes and wordy letters just don't cut it. But for a fraction of the cost of a sales call, you can create an eye-catching mailer that will land on physicians' desks rather than in the circular file.

Once you get past the Disney allusion, it's easy to see the appeal of the idea that everyone in the world is linked by a short chain of social acquaintances. This "small-world phenomenon" was first advanced four decades ago by social psychologist Stanley Milgram, whose groundbreaking work includes the theory that there are only six links, or acquaintances, between any two randomly selected Americans. Popularized as "six degrees of separation," this notion has been transformed by the digital revolution into a buzzing, booming hyperreality beyond anything even the radical Milgram could have imagined.

It's the start of a new quarter, and you've just been named the new product manager for Brand X.

Survey respondents say the spots make them smarter, but some would still like greater advertising restrictions.

Have the confidence to step outside the norm. A targeted, humorous campaign will attract attention more quickly.

The pharmaceutical industry is abuzz with discussion: What will "tomorrow's" sales force look like? How will the job profile and competencies for sales reps change to better serve customers? How do we recruit and hire this new breed of sales reps? Steve DeMorro, president of Publicis Healthcare Recruiting, identified several key characteristics of the new biopharma representative, and how he believes these will become a standard part of the job profile for recruiting-and developing-sales reps in the future.

Phone-based marketing might not offer the wow factor of its newer Web- and text-based cousins; however, proposing that a computer handle calls offers an innovative twist. But this concept begs the question: Who wants to speak with a computer about his health?

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act-or SOX, as it is dubbed (not always so affectionately)-requires companies to provide greater control and quality assurance across a vast spectrum of business processes. In practice, SOX plays out differently industry by industry and even company by company. But for pharma, one of the most pressing consequences is the need to improve the accuracy of revenue recognition.

McCann HumanCare will launch Pfizer anti-smoking drug Chantix.

Creating a breakthrough pharma campaign in today's world of me-too (and me-three and -four) drugs-not to mention marketing mania-forces brand teams to think of new ways to capture consumer and physician attention. In the sleep and cholesterol categories, the competition is so fierce that agencies are using talking beavers and comparing food to family members to stamp brands on consumer brains.

Pharma ad campaigns increasingly rely on fear and humor to capture consumer attention. But be aware: Balance is key.

Let's face it: no brand manager wants their drug listed on the third or fourth formulary tier. But the reality is that brands often do wind up with low coverage, making them more expensive for consumers.

Pharma companies today are focused on driving prescriptions. But just because physicians are prescribing a brand doesn't mean that they are committed to it. Who's to say a doctor won't jump ship the moment a flashier new drug comes on the scene?

Pharma companies have been blasting out electronic newsletters to consumers since the advent of new media. But far too often, the content is vague and redundant, and instead of striking a responsive chord with potential readers, e-mail campaigns are more likely to prompt a strike of the delete key.

Gardasil embodies the kind of links between science, commercialization, and humanity that typify great pharma breakthroughs. It turned a medical success story into a campaign of empowerment. Merck used visionary science to produce a vaccine with the potential to eradicate the third-most-common cause of cancer worldwide, and taught girls how to talk about sensitive issues.

Pharma can receive twice as much revenue from detailing than from DTC. For every dollar spent detailing, firms should expect about $10 in revenues. The return from DTC advertising is more in the range of $5 to $6.

Mobile marketing is paperless and scalable, and allows pharma companies to build one-to-one relationships with customers.