Pharma playing catch-up in mHealth race
pharmafile | April 30, 2014 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | GSK, Havas, butler, digital, gait, mhealth, mobile health, pm awards
Pharma risks falling behind in mobile health (mHealth) as more innovative industries capitalise on its emerging opportunities, according to two UK digital pharma gurus.
GSK’s global digital director Kai Gait along with comms agency the Earthworks’ managing director Alex Butler, were speaking at the PM Society Digital Awards showcase this week which gathered past winners to share ideas and discuss approaches to digital marketing.
Gait, himself the recipient of last year’s ‘Digital Pioneer’ award, drew attention to the ‘huge amount’ of possibilities that are opening up as tech-savvy patients and consumers begin to take better control of – and interest in – their health. But he warned that pharma needs to get involved or risk missing out.
Butler echoed Gait’s sentiments, saying that he has identified plenty of interest in this developing area from various other sectors.
“All of the businesses that I speak to – and all of the businesses outside of pharma that I speak to – are all massively interested in health – or wellness as they call it,” he said. “That’s where everything is in digital and technology at the moment. So, rather than lagging behind, we should be at the forefront of what’s going on.”
Nike and Apple: innovative partnership
Gait presented the example of Nike’s FuelBand device as a case of a company investing in health technology, learning a great deal from the experience and using that knowledge as the basis of further innovation.
The wearable piece of tech collects information such as the amount of calories its user burns during physical activity, and is compatible with an iPhone app that tracks and maps this data. Although the sportswear giant recently announced it would stop developing the product, it has shared its insights with Apple which, in turn, has developed its much anticipated Healthbook app.
For Butler, Healthbook could represent the ‘biggest change in mobile health’. With the capacity to track a wide range of biometric data, including heart rate, blood pressure and sleeping patterns, the app could be used in “everything from clinical trials to patient support programmes – you name it, it will do it”.
He went on: “So if you are working within a chronic condition, you can understand how patients’ respond to taking medication; if they’re travelling somewhere, you’ll be able to warn them about, say, pollution levels; if you haven’t slept well, your device will be able to tell you what to do to get better sleep.”
Operating in silos
Pharma is traditionally a conservative, slow-moving industry, but according to Gait its lethargy is seriously limiting its potential. This is a particular problem with digital which he argues has not yet been fully integrated into pharma firms’ operations.
He said: “My observation is that we have remained the same as an industry – what we’re actually doing is giving more reps more [of Apple’s ] iPads. We’re saying ‘this is digital’ but we’re still very focussed around the existing channels. Is it integrated? No, it’s not; we’re building on top of it.”
In Gait’s opinion, a silo mentality is still dominant in most pharma companies, with very little communication between departments – and this is preventing them from operating more efficiently through sharing and analysing information.
“It’s all about linking these silos together. What we’ve got to do is connect the data in some way [and see] how it all comes together.”
Personalisation: worth the hard work
Another area in which pharma is failing to innovate is communications personalisation. Butler pointed out that it is becoming increasingly important to better understand customers, and their interests and patterns of behaviour.
Some firms make use of what Butler considers ‘crude personalisation tools’, such as Amazon’s “customers who bought this item also bought” product suggestions.
He argued that rather than drawing the consumer’s attention to more of the same thing, companies should strive to anticipate what customers don’t realise they want. Butler highlighted American Express’s Centurion Card service, which makes use of advanced interest mapping techniques to send customers appealing – but less obvious – bespoke gifts.
Gait suggested that one barrier to better personalisation in pharma is the industry’s over-reliance on mass communication, an attitude that has to be ‘re-wired’, he said. “We have to understand there is a person at the end of that message and the content has to be tailored to the individual.”
Of course creating more bespoke communications is a lot more labour – and more time-intensive – but Gait maintained that it was necessary if companies are to truly interact with customers on an individual basis. He urged marketers to always “think about how you can customise to individuals” when formulating a campaign.
And if you can’t do individual communication, then at the very least try to think about how an audience can be segmented, Gait argued – because at the end of the day, “engagement is more rewarding for all”.
Other award-winners
Also presenting at the launch event were Beth Williams and Charlotte Collins from comms agency Ruder Finn. The firm’s ‘Meningitis: Keep Watching’ campaign for Novartis won three awards at last year’s PM Society Digital Media event.
The campaign revolved around a one-minute YouTube video, which was supported by pre-planned social media activity and an online launch event which targeted screenings at cinemas around the UK.
The aim was to increase awareness among parents that vaccination does not protect children against all types of meningitis. Key to the campaign’s success, said Williams, was the ability to quantify its impact.
As well as making use of social media metrics – counting tweets and Facebook likes, as well as views on YouTube – the firm employed an external research company to survey populations of parents about their meningitis awareness before and after the campaign.
“We did the same benchmark research a year after the launch – and where awareness had been 32%, it went up to 82%,” explained Williams.
She continued: “What has made it such an impressive campaign is that we can genuinely demonstrate that we have shifted awareness and understanding in this parent community.”
Another key point that Williams stressed was the importance of ensuring a campaign strategy is credible and, more specifically, not using digital for digital’s sake.
“If digital is the right channel to reach your audience with the right message, then it’s absolutely the way you should go. We did market research to show that the vast majority of mums were using Facebook, they were going online to get their information, and how critical peer-to-peer sharing – that’s how we built our strategy.”
Hugh McCafferty
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