Brand Liberators Blog

Super Bowled

Published by Eric Davis on February 12, 2013.

This post is

criminally late.

This is a Super Bowl spot article. Sort of. A very late Super Bowl spot article.

This isn’t about blowouts, blackouts, comebacks or safeties. That was just the game. This was about the other spectator sport — watching advertisers endure the joys and agonies of spending three million bucks all at once.

A brief mea culpa for not writing this last Sunday, you know, when it mattered.

But after the game, I began to wonder, what exactly did matter. Has the format gone stale? Has the relevance of what constitutes a Super Bowl spot faded?

Not according to modern media metrics, of course. People let their fingers do the talking, from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube, the audience was engaged and outspoken.

But what about me?

I sat down and confronted a taunting, blinking cursor and a white pixel wasteland and realized I had nothing to say.

I’m sure I could concoct a somewhat-arbitrary list of winners and losers. But, let’s face it — they’re all winners. Even when you talk about the losers and their creative idiocy, you’re still talking about them. Impressions. Hits. Eyeballs. Whatever metric you use, days later, people are still speaking the words Go and Daddy. Does it matter if it’s accompanied by gross, disgusting, stupid or crass? It’s all buzz now, isn’t it?

There’s no such thing as bad publicity — certainly when all publicity is measured the same way.

The biggest problem is now what we expect to see. We know what’s coming. We’ve seen herding cats, talking babies, drum-playing gorillas, and why-1984-will-not be-like-1984. Is the magic gone? Is it going?

Online leaks have murdered the mystery and subjugated the surprise. We knew Volkswagen was “racist” prior to kickoff. We were all affecting our own jolly Jamaican patois by happy hour on the first Friday in February.

We knew Kia was trying too hard, and that if you really like our cars, we’ll kick you across the room. Bang! Respect the tech! Now buy our cars! Or else!

Doritos did their DIY thing again. Clydesdales and Stevie Nicks (Tear.) Audi, to their credit, told us a story. Tide told us a story in which we already knew the ending. In a sign of the apocalypse (maybe the Mayans were off a year), Mercedes advertised on price to a youth crowd who had to Google Willem Dafoe. Oreo was great, but hey, their responsive agency is now expected to work on Sundays.

For the future, the audience has set expectations for what a Super Bowl spot looks like. It’s funny, irreverent, and often times remotely related to the brand. It’s a winning … formula?

But who wants formulaic advertising?

Like the game featuring lightning kickoff returns and lightless third quarters, there was still, however, room for surprise.

Paul Harvey’s somber-yet-inspiring speech reminded us of how seriousness can stand out in the sea of comedy clutter. But if RAM trucks are so great, why are esteemed farmers overwhelmingly choosing Chevy Silverados and Ford F-series?

Maybe that will change. Maybe the formula will change, too.

Maybe next year, this article will just be a list of winners and losers.

That would be more expected.

photo credit: Catalina Gracia Saavedra via photopin cc

Categories: New ideas and approaches

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Impactful ways to share your agency’s POV

Published by Dawn Marinacci on November 29, 2012.

Agencies are always looking for new ways to share their points of view (POV). Marketers are racing to produce and publish content that will continue to get noticed, over and over again. It’s rare that readers stick to one platform or device to consume information so we have to publish in different ways.

One of the ways our agency shares our POV is through an insight magazine we call UP:ROOT, and we’ve just released a new edition (you can view it by clicking on the image to the right of this post). It features some of the most recent trends in healthcare advertising. This edition highlights some important topics including: digital detailing, social media strategy and the evolution of DTC. We would love your feedback–what articles would you like to see? Leave your ideas in the comments.

Categories: Marketing trends and best practices

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Lessons learned from “health economic” claim violation letters

Published by Mark Stinson on November 16, 2012.

As we have been actively developing brand strategies for 2013, a common theme has been to strengthen our health economic positions among providers, patients, and payers.

And as we’ve all experienced, this is an area of high customer need – but with equally high regulatory obstacles and scrutiny. From a communications point of view, we’re most interested in claims we can make in promotional media.

Because of its importance, my colleagues in Medical Strategy and I wanted to offer some shareworthy insight on this topic – along with data from an analysis of industry experience.

A recent article in the journal of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) provides us with some specific learnings. Here are some highlights:

12% of all DDMAC violation letters sent to pharma companies Jan 2002 – Dec 2011 cited health economic violation
The most common type of violation cited was an implied claim of cost savings due to work productivity or functioning
The violations covered various indications, mostly commonly psychiatric disorders and pain

(Thanks to Jeff Trotter, of our inVentiv company PharmaNet/i3, for sharing this article.)

The FDA has expressed concern mostly about “work function” with backdoor clinical claims, i.e., about effectiveness or safety, embedded in economic promotions. The FDA letters mentioning work productivity provide a window into how drug companies are promoting the workplace-enhancing potential of their products, as well as FDA unease about the practice.

The article also cites public remarks by a DDMAC (now known as OPDP) official about the type of action that may constitute a health economic violation, in several possible categories:

Implied claims of cost savings due to work productivity/functioning
Unsupported claim of effectiveness, safety, or interchangeability
Implied claims of cost savings to broader audience than applicable
Claims of cost savings when there are obvious additional costs that may affect cost savings
Cost comparisons of dosages that are not comparable
Claims that encouraged switching on the basis of a lower price when there may be risks associated with the switch
Other misleading price comparisons.

A relevant topic included in the article is “Section 114” and the absence of any DDMAC letters on its use.

(Section 114 of the 1997 US FDA Modernization Act (FDAMA) is an important vehicle for pharmaceutical companies to promote the economic value of their drugs to formulary decision makers.)

The use of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy dossier format by US health plans is a vehicle for information on the clinical and economic value of drugs. This provides a separate non-promotional channel for the exchange of health care economic information between drug companies and health plans. Dossiers submitted under the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy format can contain economic models and off-label data, but the information can be provided by drug companies only in response to a health plan’s “unsolicited request’” and thus is non-promotional.

The advantage of Section 114, therefore, is that it permits the active promotion of health economic information. It permits drug companies to initiate a conversation about health economics in a business-to-business exchange.

Categories: Marketing trends and best practices

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Thoughts from PivotCon 2012

Published by Digital and Social Media on October 24, 2012.

Written by Shawna Polivka

It’s a fact: Consumers are heading to the Internet to discuss products and services with other consumers.

Last week I had the opportunity to experience NYC’s Social Media Week as a 2012 PivotCon attendee. Speakers included leaders in the digital world and represented companies such as Sephora, Coca-Cola and Facebook. Each speaker confirmed that all brands need to start building relationships with consumers to prevent a social media crisis from being unforgivable.

Control is gone!

Some social crises are beyond a company’s control. We’ve seen it all over the news: From the Starbucks beetle food coloring debacle protested on Facebook and blogs, to the FedEx delivery man who tossed a new computer monitor over a front yard gate that was captured by a security camera and then viewed over 8.5 million times on YouTube.

Is your brand’s relationship with the consumer strong enough to withstand a social media crisis?

Invest in relationships

Paul Adams, Global Head of Brand Design at Facebook contextualized the importance of building a relationship in advance. He reminded us that you don’t go on a first date and then get married the next day. Trust and loyalty take time. If an online relationship isn’t there when a social media crisis occurs, it becomes difficult to uphold the brand’s reputation.

The investment right now might seem fruitless, but with time, your brand’s fans will become its greatest advocates.

Be transparent

Control of your brand’s online conversations may be long gone, but luckily for marketers, consumers are becoming more forgiving when it comes to flaws found in online conversation.

Recently, KitchenAid came under scrutiny when the company’s Twitter representative accidentally sent a personal tweet via the company twitter handle, @KitchenAidUSA, during the presidential debate:

“Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’. #nbcpolitics,”

The tweet was deleted and multiple apologetic tweets were quickly sent explaining the situation:

Followers even expressed their understanding:

The key to success?

Be transparent, according to Siegel+Gale, a strategic branding firm. Its research denoted transparency as an area where social media lags most.

Paul Wilmore, Managing Director of Barclaycard, the payment business of Barclays in the US, shared a story of ultimate transparency despite a regulated industry. Wilmore used transparency and crowdsourcing in social media to define the brand’s next credit product.

Essentially, Barclaycard members have an equal say in the development of their credit card. Not only do members have the opportunity to vote on the credit card features, Barclaycard tells them how much their decision would cost them (e.g. If they want to service their card domestically, it will cost them $15 more per hour than off-shore servicing).

Brands no longer have a choice about being social. They can, however, be proactive through an online voice. They can continue the practice of building relationships by expanding into the digital and social realm, so that when a social crisis hits, they are there with an honest explanation and solution.

Categories: Social media marketing

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Health Literacy 2.0: More Than Words

Published by Marcee Nelson on October 18, 2012.

We’ve all seen health illiteracy defined as the lack of reading and math skills among the poor, the unschooled and newly immigrated. But according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, today only 12% of Americans have proficient health literacy skills. So that leaves 88% of people, probably including you and me.

Add the fact that healthcare is moving to self-care, and we’ve got a problem on a whole new scale, which I think of as Health Literacy 2.0. This heightened need goes beyond simpler words or traditional education. But what is the “more?” I looked at what health literacy experts have been up to lately and found some interesting possibilities.

1) More asking, less telling.

There is so much a patient needs to know, right? So we tell them. And tell them. Sandra Smith, PhD, a trainer for a new health literacy study supported by the Missouri Foundation for Health, has observed this:

“The traditional education model, like the clinical model, puts educators and healthcare professionals on the sidelines telling caregivers/patients what to do – giving information, dispensing advice, rescuing them from their conditions, and fixing their behaviors. But patients often ignore expert advice and instructions. This is frequently misinterpreted as a cognitive deficit or disinterest in health. The more likely explanation is that caregivers/patients recognize intuitively that the dispensers of expert advice consciously or unconsciously consider them a problem to be fixed or an incompetent person in need of rescue.”

Her new project uses an approach called “reflective practice,” which basically means shifting from telling to asking. In reflective practice, instead of telling parents/patients what to do, educators ask reflective questions. Reflective questions are designed to stimulate critical thinking and help patients or caregivers think it through themselves.

I think this model is interesting to consider as we look for ways to improve disease state and branded patient communications.

2) More starting at Go.

Today we’re all swimming in information. The trick is getting the right information at the right time. I saw this firsthand while watching some doctor/patient conversations about gout. Almost every doctor launched into autopilot about the science and each patient walked away without the critical basic knowledge that gout is a form of arthritis. They completely skipped go.

We know creating common language helps. And Helen Osbourne, a health literacy consultant, emphasizes that active visualization can help physicians express themselves more simply.

Visual tools are not a new idea, and there are apps now that help patients remember what the doctor said. But what I took from Osbourne’s suggestion was the value of going low-tech, too. Either way, the simple act of drawing by a doctor levels the playing field, sets context and almost forces him/her to start at go.

Something to think about when we provide physicians with conversation tools.

3) More feeling.

Can using emotive techniques improve health literacy? In her abstract, Vivian Day, BSHCA, MA, RN, discusses how experiential learning and storytelling can enhance patient understanding and motivate change.

Of course these engagement techniques involve bringing emotion into the clinical setting—something we know HCPs prefer to avoid.

But if you think about it, the reflective approach being studied in Missouri is experiential learning. And a doctor sketch is a simplistic form of storytelling. With some creativity we can help emotive approaches feel more efficient. And we can bring them in through supportive efforts—like this storytelling website created to tackle the sensitive topic of advanced ED.

These three ideas just skim the surface of possibilities for better Health Literacy 2.0. There is so much more. Let’s be inspired many the dedicated individuals and institutions out there working on ways to change the system and share their purpose to empower better choices.

Categories: New ideas and approaches

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A Picture Really is Worth a Thousand Words

Published by Kathryn Bernish-Fisher on October 3, 2012.

I’m in love with Instagram. Giddy-as-a-schoolgirl in love with seeing what I hadn’t seen before when the Instagram filters I choose shape the focus and feel of my usual subjects.

Butterfly effect in our Columbus, Ohio, backyard

I create my life every day with my wife, my daughter, seven cats and three dogs. And now I Instagram it, too.

If I find a picture that moves me, I collect it for inspiration, instruction and awe. More importantly, to show the Creator or Curator that I admire their shareworthy images—that what matters to them, matters to me, too.

We grow together. (Photo Credit: Deborah Bernish-Fisher)

In their just released survey of 1005 adults, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest are included for the first time in analyses of human behavior online by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. The study credits “the rise of the smartphone” for the shift. The study also affirms that the future of SoMe content will be fueled by visual content creation and curation—made easier through the UX designs of YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest—and of course, Facebook.

My online interactions put me among the 32% of Internet users who both Create and Curate visual content—and the 12% of folks who use Instagram. Although, at 43, I am a decade or so older than the majority of Instagram participators: 27% are between the ages of 18-29.

Many of the images I create are from Nature—the place I go to reconnect and recharge and, until Instagram, the one place I didn’t take a device of some kind.

I’m pretty clear that what I am looking for and photographing is emotional and without words. And, as with all collections and sharings, I am telling micro-stories about my Self with every click and filter, Like and Heart. This made me wonder…

Can we use Instagram and other visual collections for new kinds of research?
Could subject matter and filter selection reveal insights into emotional states?
Will people living with chronic diseases document their life in new and surprising ways with these platforms?
Will we attach dollars to Hearts for a cause to raise awareness and funds for people in need?

And, selfishly, when can I get a real camera with Instagram so I can lose the “phone” and better control my wellness and creativity boosting retreats to Nature ?

Categories: Uncategorized

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Too rare for social?

Published by Digital and Social Media on September 28, 2012.

Written by Shawna Polivka

A common misbelief among marketers is that a particular disease is too rare to have a social presence online. They fear that because the prevalence of the disease is so low, it would be a waste of money to spend time in social. Surprisingly though, we’ve found that discussions of rare diseases on the social web can be more abundant than even the most common of diseases when put into context of the diagnosed population.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a rare disease in the United States is one that affects fewer than 200,000 people. A target market that’s less than 200,000 people is small by marketing standards, but in aggregate, over 30 million people are diagnosed with one or more of the 7,000 identified rare diseases.

Prevalence of rare disease mentions on social

Imagine that you’ve been diagnosed with a rare disease. You leave the physician’s office and go home to begin your life managing your condition. Who do you turn to for help beyond the physician’s office when no one else around you has even heard of the disease you have? For many, the social web provides the only opportunity to make connections with people who are experiencing the same things as them.

“I appreciate all that share their stories because personally I need to know there are people out there that understand and that know others understand them. Thanks to all!”
– Community member of the Narcolepsy Support Group on DailyStrength.com

The pictures below provide a reference for how much greater the volume of conversation is per person diagnosed with a rare disease than the volume of a more common disease.

To compare, a more prevalent disease such as Diabetes receives about one mention for every 12.8 people diagnosed with the disease in the United States.

Wealth of knowledge from rare diseases on social

Social media conversations have allowed an otherwise small population of people to gather around a topic and create a conversation that serves as a wealth of information to us marketers. By monitoring conversations, we can learn more about the true patient experience of living with these rare diseases including:

Symptoms
Treatment
Struggles
Language specific to the disease

Popular forums for diseases include Daily Strength and PatientsLikeMe. Most recently, hospitals and institutions have been using social channels to find research participants. They host forums where people can talk about a specific disease to learn about it.

In closing, using social media as a source of market research or as a channel to communicate to people living with rare diseases might not seem like an efficient use of resources, but in reality, these people have already created popular destinations filled with insightful discussions about their daily trials and tribulations. We have the opportunity to tap into these conversations to inform a meaningful communications strategy.

Categories: Social media marketing

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Social media in our Discover phase of Brand HealthCheck™

Published by Mark Stinson on September 24, 2012.

At the heart of an account planner’s role is the ability to listen to what customers knows about a brand, how they feel about it, and how they use it.

That’s why we always have looked for new and better techniques to understand what they like, what they say to their friends, what they associate the brand with, and how they experience the brand – all in hopes of moving toward brand loyalty.

No wonder social media insight is proving such a powerful qualitative research modality.

Today, account planners can observe and learn from online communities by following the real-world conversations that take place there. Through networks (LinkedIn, Facebook), blogs, forums (WebMD, PatientsLikeMe), bookmarking (StumbleUpon, del.icio.us), podcasts, visual content communities (Flickr, Pinterest, YouTube), and micro-blogs (Twitter), we can construct a more complete picture of how a brand fits into a customer’s life.

More specifically to our work at GSW Worldwide, we can learn how a brand fits into a customer’s health and wellness.

Behavior & attitude. Reality & perception. Belief & emotion. Usage & trends. All the stuff of qualitative marketing research to help reveal both facts & insights.

Then we mine and analyze it all to help optimize strategies, product innovation, media campaigns, and even clinical development.

In addition social conversations already taking place, we can use social media platforms to create our own source of customer research. Here are just a few tools we’ve used lately in our Discover stage with clients:

Online focus groups
Webcam one-on-one interviews
Content monitoring services and text analysis software
Keyword search analysis
SEO and linking research
Brand story and concept evaluation surveys

That is a significant range of research conducted online now rather than traditional interviews. No wonder Joan Lewis, global consumer and market knowledge officer of Procter & Gamble Co., said she expects surveys to dramatically decline in importance by 2020 and sees the rise of social media as a big reason why. Another research executive, Frank Cotignola of Kraft Foods, has spoken about the imperative to cast the social media net wide beyond simple brand monitoring to derive deep, unexpected consumer insights about unmet needs and alternate uses for products.

How social media monitoring is applied to the 5C’s in the Discover phase of the Brand HealthCheck process.

We apply it to analyze the social media environment and present learnings that can help in optimizing strategy to achieve our client objectives.

Let’s take a look at details of the social insights listening methods we can use in each of the 5C’s:

Category – Document the language used by customers to describe the class, mechanisms of disease, modes of action, and the dynamics of care. Capture both the words and visuals found throughout social media. Analyze the frequency of use, as well as the context.
Competition – Audit competitive online promotions. Moreover, verify customers’ positives responses or negative reactions (using social media monitoring tools, such as Atlerian SM2 and Scoutlabs).
Clinical – Compare and contrast how audiences are talking on social platforms. Uncover opportunities for message clarity about the disease and treatment options. Monitor products in the pipeline through social reaction to press releases, clinical trial updates, and investor communication.
Customer – Evaluate forums where like-minded physicians are gathering or patients with similar conditions are interacting. Identify channels for community management, content planning, and media engagement. Target the diverse stakeholders who are potentially impacting information and decisions of the customers.
Culture – Assess social exchanges in broader cultural contexts, such as payer environments, practice settings, legal controversies, or patient advocacy positions.

In one recent example, this kind of listening to the online conversations helped us decipher the priorities of a hospital-based specialty group. Going into the research, our brand team imagined that patient safety would be most important – and it was. Beyond this, however, was additional insight of more efficient information sharing within the group practice, as well as better communication with the referring PCP.

Because the Discover phase is the start of Brand HealthCheck, a quick assessment report can provide an initial high-level overview of metrics. Next, we can conduct a more all-encompassing review with analytics of conversations, including: HCPs, Consumers, disease-state, competition, communities, and KOLs. Then, continuous monitoring can be updated with key performance indicators.

Submit a question for our Social Media e-book

Later this week, we’ll be creating an e-book that summarizes many applications of social media. If this article on social media insight has stimulated thoughts about how to use it to learn more about your key audiences, post your question in the comment section below. Not only will we feature answers to your questions, but also you’ll be the first to receive the book.

Categories: Social media marketing

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A is for Apple all right

Published by Dawn Marinacci on August 22, 2012.

Apple, Inc. becomes the most valuable company of all time. Hallelujah. Sad that Steve Jobs couldn’t have been alive to formally witness this moment. But I’m sure he knew, just like the rest of us Apple enthusiasts, that this moment was sure to come.

The company set a new market value record and edges past Microsoft. According to Reuters, its shares have gained more than 8 percent just this month. And we haven’t even seen the latest version of the iPhone yet.

For those of us who believe in and drink the “Apple” Kool-Aid, this isn’t a surprise, but as a communications professional it makes me reflect (again) how Apple and Steve Jobs has changed the world. With Jobs at the helm, Apple developed the iPhone and iPad, creating a way for doctors to monitor patients remotely, e-prescribe medication and hold tele-health sessions.

The Apple brain trust provided us with the raw tools and imagination and anticipated how people could utilize tools to more effectively communicate and collaborate. And it just so happens that they solve very real problems in the health care industry.

For starters, docs love all things Apple. The latest survey by Manhattan Research reveals that 75 percent of physicians in the United States have purchased an Apple mobile device such as an iPad, iPhone or iPod.

Even the ability to view text messages on an iPhone brings improved communication between doctors and patients and allows them to inform patients of abnormal lab results. Messaging tools provide better collaboration among physicians to bridge care gaps providing a very cohesive way for HCPs to manage care and to interact with patients and colleagues in a way they weren’t able to do before.

Telehealth on mobile devices is now possible using the FaceTime feature on the iPhone and iPad to allow doctors and patients to conduct remote consultations over a cellular and WiFi connection.

This influential technology without a doubt has changed the course of healthcare. I think I can speak for many of my peers when I say that we knew long ago that Apple was the most valuable company of all time. In fact, would m-health even exist without Apple? Likely not. Or at least not as quickly or seamlessly as it has.

So here’s to you, Apple. I’m excited to see what’s next. You can bet I’ll be along for the ride.

Categories: Marketing trends and best practices

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