Pharmaceutical Marketing in a Multi-screen Environment
A recent survey by Nielsen found that up to 70 percent of Americans now own a mobile device and most are smartphones. Health care marketers should take note because behavioral trends like these suggest new ways for us to interact with people and share timely and relevant information.
The Nielsen study illustrates a tipping point in the United States and underscores an enormous opportunity for the health care industry to reach customers in targeted and meaningful ways. The technology is advanced and ubiquitous, and it allows us to engage in places and at points we could never have imagined only a few years ago.
Consumer goods and automobile companies use mobile platforms today to interact with customers, offer purchase incentives or invite them to try out new products. BMW, Audi and Lexus all use the mobile platform to engage with potential buyers and arrange a test drive. Retail outlets use near-field communication (NFC) and iBeacons to notify customers on their mobile devices about sales and special promotions when they are in the vicinity of the store. Companies like Unilever and Proctor & Gamble are constantly tinkering with mobile ad formats to reach their customers.
But the pharmaceutical industry lags behind. Few pharmaceutical marketers focus on the mobile environment beyond a couple of apps or the e-detail for sales representatives, despite the fact that mobile devices are the primary means of communication for most people. A recent study by inVentiv Health’s Digital + Innovation group found that of the 20 brand.com websites surveyed, only four were even accessible on a mobile device. This must change, as more and more customers are turning to these sites for information, but they’re no longer sitting at their computers when they do so.
Yet 85 percent of traffic is mobile, so our industry is delivering the experience of looking up desktop information on a less-than 1080-pixel display. The marketing message is being lost. It is important to think through our campaigns in a coordinated and holistic way in place of the specific device- or product-oriented tactics that we have been using.
To get the most benefit from the new multi-screen environment, marketers need to carefully consider their audiences and how they interact with all their devices. We have coined the term “create content for distracted use,” because in this multi-screen environment, the common experience is one of distraction. People use smartphones while they watch TV, or check email and access the internet on a tablet while they wait for an appointment or for a train. It is critical to ensure consistency of brand and message along these distraction points.
The other two factors to consider are relevance and timeliness. Studies are available to help marketers understand the rate and frequency of individuals’ interactions with their mobile devices at different times of the day. They follow a familiar cycle of content consumption.
Behavior People primarily watch television and read newspapers from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and then again from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Desktop PC use is high throughout the work day and then again between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. Smartphone use spikes from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m., 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. It spikes even more with peak use from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Tablet use follows a fairly similar cycle, with peak use from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Content consumption by health care providers, patients and caregivers follows a similar pattern.
Knowing when people are using specific devices allows us to more accurately render our brand or content in a way that is most relevant to the audience. For example, we could air a TV commercial during prime time to raise awareness about a drug and provide information on a responsive web site that can be viewed on a cellular phone, or run a banner ad with a similar video and a call to action with a coupon for tablets. In this way, the person viewing the television ad can continue to consume information on a nearby mobile device and engage with a brand a second time for reinforcement.
Health care professionals can visit a brand.com site on a desktop computer at home before heading to their practice, continue looking at content on their smartphone or tablet during the day, and resume use of the desktop when they return home in the evening. The content and brand experience should be familiar and consistent across platforms. It should be seamless from one screen to another. We typically see bounce rates (people leaving a site after opening the home page) of about 90 percent on web sites that are not responsive or enabled for mobile devices.
The primary aim of creating multi-screen campaigns is having the ability to create truly engaging content for various mobile devices. With the advent of advertising units in the HTML5 format, brands can create relevant and compliant content, using video and imagery that is immersive, educational and engaging. Employing sophisticated tactics to attract mobile users, we have seen click-through rates of up to 20 percent for some advertising units on mobile devices. Compare that with the measly 0.003 percent on the web alone.
Developing cross-screen advertising is not as simple as just adding a few mobile placements to your advertising buy. Multiple operating systems, device sizes and new protocols are emerging, and marketers may need help navigating the path to multi-screen success. Fortunately, a number of technology vendors have developed the capability to create branded pharmaceutical advertising units for the mobile platform.
Here is an example of an advertisement that was created for Cimzia, a UCB brand, specifically for the iPhone and iPad platforms. The ad is contextually delivered in the health and wellness section of Time.com.
When a patient or health care professional clicks on the advertising unit, it expands just like a rich media unit on the web, including a video and also a scrolling ISI (important safety information.)
The experience is the same on the iPhone and the iPad. The extended real estate on the iPad screen allows for the ISI to be displayed on the side of the banner advertising unit, within the advertisement. But, the engagement is the same as on the iPhone.
The rapid evolution of the web offers us opportunities and challenges. In the past, we worried only about what appeared on the landing page of a web site, but with mobile sites, we have to decide whether to build an app or a responsive site. In most cases, a responsive site allows the majority of customers to access information about a brand. Apps are better as single-purpose tools. There is a different app for posting to Facebook, Foursquare or Twitter, for example. Brand sites are usually multifaceted, offering a wealth of information in different ways. For us, the decision is simple. Build an app that does one thing extremely well (blood glucose meter, information about a clinical trial), but use responsive design principles for a comprehensive web presence. (brand.com)
Multi-screen marketing can make a huge impact on the pharmaceutical industry if it is done right. Every mobile platform has its own set of rules, but all can be part of an effective marketing initiative. When you define the goals of a campaign, you also should determine how every available digital platform plays a role and fits into the bigger strategic picture.
In summary, as you look at marketing in the multi-screen environment, think about consistency of brand, content and message, design for distracted use, and above all think holistically about a coordinated campaign.
The days of siloed media are over. Ubiquitous mobile media is the path to engagement for your brand.
