Cake or Fruit Salad?

Cake or fruit salad? That's the question asked during research conducted by Stanford University when asking whether Emotion trumps the Rational in our brains. in NPR's "Morning Edition" story, researchers tasked two groups with remembering a series of numbers while walking up and down a hallway -- one group remembering two sets and the other remembering seven sets of numbers. Both were interrupted with a snack choice of cake or fruit salad, with the "two" group selecting fruit salad ant the "seven" group choosing cake - both overwhelmingly.


The conclusion? When the brain is not overloaded, it is more likely to select the rational or "better for you" choice - fruit salad. When our brains are over tasked, our emotional side dominates, and we select what we're really prefer - cake! The ratio was 7:1 in this study, emotion vs. rational.


So what? Good marketers talk about marrying the rational and the emotional, but often times once (especially with the much regulated pharmaceutical industry) rational wins out. But emotion is not just a "soft" factor - it is hardwired in our brains, which this study helps underscore. Granted, our challenges and opportunities are far more complex than a snack choice, but so are the drivers we must factor into our marketing in engaging our audiences.

B2B Social Media IQ

Surprisingly, B2B (business-to-business) seems to be outpacing B2C (business-to-consumer) in their respective industry's use of social media, according to eMarketer. Possibly this is because B2B marketers may have to work a bit harder to build relevancy and loyalty, and are less "glitzy". More probable is that B2B has historically been more grounded in maximizing channel reach and engagement, including relentlessly optimizing their list or customer value over time.

Facebook and Twitter top the list, but LinkedIn is right up there. As you can imagine, Consumer tracks higher (slightly) than B2B on Facebook (83% vs. 77%) and MySpace (23% vs. 14%), but B2B is outpacing Consumer on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube (28%, 23% and 13% higher respectively). B2B marketers tend to often have smaller budgets, so social media is appealing as a low-cost tactic, lower-audience waste scores.

In pharmaceutical marketing, social media seems daunting and risky. Aside from the obvious B2B retailer potential (eg, promotions alerts), there are some less obvious ones. For example, clinical trial recruitment is essentially a B2B initiative, in that pharma co's recruit from referring physicians into trials. Patients generally get referred via physicians, although some are direct. Novartis' Twitter presence, while less active now, still provides a link to their web site for recruitment information and pull-through. A more straight forward example is Performics (Search specialist) and Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, sister companies to Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare Innovations. Performics uses their Twitter feed to push out Search trend updates and thought leadership promos for their white papers, etc.

For B2B, relevancy and purposeful, timeley updates are key, no fluff please!

Email + Social

"Hey, your social media got in my email!" - can you imagine marketers ranting about this? Email is the top channel tactic marketers expect to increase spend in 2010 (69%), according to eMarketer, followed by social media (59%). While many marketers are pursuing both, very few area planning their channel mix with an integrated email-social approach. Why?

Some of the usual suspects play into this, including a fear of the unknown, inability to integrate technically, or a lack of ability to measure and pull-through on an integrated approach. But email remains a strong tactic when used the right way, as a permission based, relevant and user centric (I'll click on it when I'm in the right mindset or time allows). Social media is more engaging and relevant, sparking high viral pass-along value and interactivity or "buzz". Leveraging social media to increase email engagement rates or product / brand conversation makes sense - it's a combination of two great ingredients.

This can be as easy as including a link to a social media destination, which can be a corporate one if med/legal/regulatory concerns are present. Within pharma/healthcare marketing, this integrated tactic is a natural for unbranded or condition related communications. For example, an email could highlight patient stories then link to a site (either unbranded or a 3rd party support organization) to view more or post your own story to motivate or support others.

According to eMarketer, 4 out of 10 marketers plan on integrating the two tactics - but will they be able to deliver on this? Will they be able to measure and optimize from this? It's possible, but it must be planned as an integrated effort that is sustainable due to the social media component, and not viewed as a finite campaign or one-off communication.

To target or not to target, is it even a question?

Targeting is one of the most efficient, measurable and high impact forms of digital marketing, yet it is often underutilized, misunderstood or bluntly not on marketers' radar. The digital savvy embrace and worship this as a first line tactic.

Simply put, targeting is the ability to not only precisely target (WHO) who you wish, but in the relevant content (WHAT) at the most appropriate time (WHEN) to deliver the highest form or level of engagement (WHY). Targeting is easy to do, it's a matter of having the right partner to enable this. As marketers today, we have the ability to literally imagine how we would ideally reach our audience, and there is probably a way to achieve this with today's technology, ad serving and robust analytics.

As noted by eMarketer in December, there are several ways to target:
For Pharma, exploring effective targeting and retargeting holds true promise, and should be a low hanging fruit. We are able to geo-target patients for enrollment in clinical trials or patient support groups. We can contextually reach physicians when they are reading relevant specialty or condition content. We are able to tap into robust publisher networks to reach the right demographic or psycographic, and even go further to optimize the list of network sites based on click through and engagement to our destination site. Behavioral targeting offers the ability to engage difficult to reach audiences. Example: hepatitis C patients -- most do not realize they may have this, as it is often confused with flu or fatigue like symptoms. Many would not assume they have risk factors. Through targeting we are able to find them when they are searching on relevant terms or if they have demonstrated a sequential pattern of content consumption (eg, first responders, flu/fatigue content, etc.).

The most overlooked form of targeting for pharma in my opinion is retargeting. Most pharma companies either have a list of their segmented targets, or are able to do so with a list partner such as SDI or IMS. When you have the power of this list, you are then able to reach out to key sites such as Medscape, and only market to your target list when they are signed/logged in - this eliminates waste. We can also deliver sequential messaging to key targets, which in essence is relationship marketing. For example, if a patient clicks on a tagged email to a unbranded condition support site, but elects not to opt-in, we are able to find these people when they are on the top Nielsen rated sites, and deliver specific messaging about the value of enrolling in our patient support program.

"Just 30.5% of marketers surveyed had used retargeted display ads in the past, but the majority of those who reported using those ads had seen greater impact" as referenced in the eMarketer article, which goes on to cite that retargeting can boost response up to 400%.

So, I ask you... why wouldn't you target?

Convergence

There's a blitz of year-in-reviews. In reading the eMarketer round-up I see some of the usual suspects - video, social media, usage and access. Of their list, Convergence most motivates me. We've been hearing this terms for nearly 2 decades as "coming soon". When I worked in the telecommunications and digital broadcast industry, this always seemed 10 years away.

The Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES) in Vegas this year showed that "soon" may actually be right now. Technology advancements in television have enabled linking to web content portals and sites such as YouTube, Blockbuster and Netflix today. Gaming applications such as Wii do t his as well, in addition to mass multiplayer (MMP) gaming. Usage of the "third screen" or mobile and computer advancements - are also accelerating this trend. While the ability existed before, it was not intuitive or user centric to advance past early adopters and techies. Now it is - almost anyone can do it, or read how to, or purchase a kit to do so. This excitement also brings challenges in that it is not only easy but commonplace to ignore advertising. Indeed, ads are still here, but they are not relevant or embedded contextually.


This is the challenge and opportunity, to relinquish control enough to be "generous", inviting people in to understand what relevance and value is to them, and remaining honest to this. Anytime you engage with your audience to in a value-driven way, even in the absence of branding, this is more meaningful. In fact, delivering content in a commercial-neutral way may be even more meaningful. It becomes engagement, not advertising. For pharma, this is still intimidating if not inviting risk. If you execute on this consistently your customer will associate the quality of content with your brand and your company. Social media has proven this out for us. Today, there is no shortage of pharma and health company presence in social media. Yet, ad spending on these channels is at the bottom of the investment priority. What tops the list is creating content and applications that actually help audiences, either by giving them a place to find support or information, or enabling them to make more informed decisions. It takes longer to show ROI, but the ROI promises to be greater, with more longevity. In the end, the mantra, "if you build it they will come", rings truer than ever, it just has to be welcomed.

Right now, Convergence via TVs is in the "make it easier" stage - such as with Netflix. I am watching out for the proliferation of what the now nearly-dead, WebTV promised - true engagement and relationship.