Today’s guest blog post is by Casey Williams, the Associate Director of Health Sciences at iProspect. Since joining the firm in 2006, Casey has focused on the health sciences market. She is responsible for strengthening relationships with iProspect’s clients in this field, and cultivating and disseminating health industry knowledge within iProspect and across its client base in order to enhance their performance marketing initiatives. Prior to iProspect, Casey worked in marketing at a DNA sequencing biotech start-up, and interned at both a Fortune 1,000 pharmaceutical company and the National Institutes of Health. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology.

By Casey Williams (@iHealthSci)

Nowadays, we take search for granted. At least we do as users – but as marketers, sometimes it’s too easy to let search considerations fall by the wayside.

When a question arises over dinner about what exactly constitutes high blood pressure, the answer is easy. “Just Google it!” Our queries are so easily and immediately answered that we have learned to turn to search engines when we have questions.

This is true when more serious issues arise as well. A few summers ago, my boyfriend was very sick – fever, headache, vomiting, the works. I returned from a business trip to find him cranky, achy, and immobile on the couch. He pointed to a strange rash on his leg – and who did I turn to but Google (or “Dr. Google” as I call him in these situations) to diagnose him.

In this case, we were lucky. We found websites that indicated he may have Lyme disease – and after a midnight trip to the ER, it was confirmed by a blood test. His treatment began immediately, thanks in large part to “Dr. Google” and of course the “real” doctor he visited.

I’m not alone in my use of search to answer my health questions. There are approximately 212 million Americans online per month, 94 percent of whom perform searches as part of their activities (according to comScore research Jan-Feb 2010). Health is of major interest – 62 percent of those people online visited sites in the health category (comScore Oct 2010). And similar to me, they’re not just reading the information, they’re acting on it. Seventy six percent of people took an action as a result of health-related online research (comScore research Jan-Feb 2010).

You cannot afford to take your brand’s presence in search for granted. You want your medicine or service to be in front of the right audience when they are actively seeking it.  Most brands participate in paid search as part of their media buys. But over 70 percent of searchers click on organic search results. If your brand isn’t there, you’re missing out on a significant amount of traffic and branding!

Go to Google right now. Search on your brand name. Is your website in the top position  of the organic results? Where is your website (or the associated non-branded domain) when you search on your indication? Are you on page one of search results?

If you’re nowhere to be found on the first page of results ask yourself these questions:

1. Is my website technically accessible to the search engines? If you’re not sure, try running your site through a crawler program like Xenu.
2. Do I have content on my website using the exact terms that I just “tested” my website on? If not, when is my next planned website update so I can update the content?
3. Who is responsible for organic search visibility for my brand? Is it my IT department? The marketing team? The Agency of Record? Accountability is crucial for ongoing success.

If you have strong positioning in the organic search results based on these two tests, good for you! A few items for you to think about:

1. What is your site’s visibility in mobile search? It’s a fast growing access method with a small screen, making good visibility even more important.
2. Have you performed a content gap analysis to see where additional keyword opportunities may exist?
3. Are your paid search and organic search strategies integrated? For example, high-cost PPC keywords should be targeted in organic search. PPC ad positioning relative to organic search positioning can also be tested for maximum efficiency.

With some work, your website can be in front of consumers when they too are visiting “Dr. Google.”

By Andy Smith (@andysmithpalio)

What whiskey will not cure, there is no cure for, says an old Irish adage. While that might not track well with today’s focus on healthier lifestyles, the health care industry, thankfully, offers a range of options for people to feel better whether that’s improved living through pharmaceuticals, therapeutic approaches to pain management or a focused approach to diet and lifestyle.

Like the spirits industry, health care needs to explore new avenues for thriving in a struggling economy. How would spirits reinvent the health care industry?

Greater focus on experience – You’d see a shift in marketing from solutions-based messaging to affinity-based and aspirational messaging. While there’s always going to be a role for “if you have this medical condition, here’s how this drug or device fixes it” types of marketing, the spirits industry knows, perhaps better than any other sector, how to precisely research and target audience segments based on how they want to be perceived. It might sound silly to have a hot new drug marketed differently – and even branded differently — to, say, Medicare recipients, middle-class consumers and affluent consumers, but the spirits industry has proven this path to increased sales and profitability. Of course, this isn’t entirely new to health care. More than a decade ago Viagra found Bob Dole, and he gave voice to how the drug improved his sex life, capitalizing on the end-experience while treating the medical condition.

A blend of private and state-run dispensaries – Rather than a privatized sale system, you’d see state-by-state variations in where you could get your prescriptions, with some states allowing you to go to a private drug store and others requiring you to go to a state-run pharmacy. This would create a revenue-generating model for some states as well as provide more rigors around compliance.

Integrated marketing would be an imperative – While sponsorship is de rigueur in the health care industry, you’d likely see resources re-allocated among the sales and marketing departments, with some efforts currently used for sales being re-tasked to street-team and end-user marketing. This goes back to more focus on experience and enable consumers and patients to learn through experience, whether that’s regulation-approved health product sampling or personalized education events. Social media will also play a greater role. Spirits marketers have placed great effort on engaging consumers in meaningful, pitch-perfect dialogue – and enabling those individuals to have consumer-to-consumer dialogue, driving sales and creating brand ambassadors. Health care has begun doing this as patient and physician blogging gains momentum but if the spirits industry had a say, they’d make it part of the regular business approach.

Offer different value propositions to consumers – One-size rarely fits all and that too is true for the health care industry. With so many brands and generic offerings, the health care industry needs to take a deeper-dive into consumer needs and explore options such as tiered pricing, more brands and different-sized packages with different value propositions for the customer. Taking a daily aspirin as part of a therapeutic regimen? Enable customers to make few trips to the store by selling larger packaging. Like the spirits industry, health care can offer almost anything anyone wants.

Combine operations for greater distribution reach – Several years ago, SABMiller and Molson Coors combined their U.S. operations into a joint venture called MillerCoors. Joining forces gave the partners greater distribution reach and manufacturing capacity. It also gave them more ammunition to take on their top competitor, Anheuser-Busch. While merger and acquisition activity is no stranger to the pharma and health care industries, more companies would form partnerships that would retain brand integrity but accelerate sales.

Taking lessons from the spirits industry can help health care organizations rethink marketing methods and give organizations a reason to raise their proverbial glass. How are you celebrating your customer?

By Krissy Goelz (@krisgoelz)

Happy Friday, Pixels & Pills readers! It’s been a long and snowy week here in the Northeast and we’re delighted to see that the weekend forecast calls for…more snow. Oh well.

Remember how on Monday we gave you an awesome little set of marketing ideas, absolutely free of charge? Well, in the same spirit, we’re going to close out this precipitation-heavy week with five easy things that you can do right now to improve your social media presence. Some are relevant for your corporate presence, and others will work for your personal accounts, too.

1. Synchronize your watches. Create a quick and dirty social-media style guide, so that all of your team members or employees list the same URL, use the same brand colors, and are talking about the company and products with the same messaging. Then encourage them to get out there and get talking! Whether small or large, you’ve got an army at your disposal: Use it well.

2. Get under the hood. Just about every social media platform offers options to alter your personality and privacy. You ignore them to your detriment. Get in there and know what apps you have running, what information you have public, and what you can change to more accurately reflect your brand. Tweak your settings and make sure that they’re serving you well too!

3. Automate. Use the advance setting capabilities of services like TweetDeck or HootSuite to take advantage of unexpected quiet time (like, say, a snow day working from home?) to set up a batch of posts, Tweets, status updates, e-mails and notifications. You’ll address the up-to-the-minute issues as they happen, but there’s plenty that you can do ahead of time. Why work nights and weekends when you can let technology do it for you?

4. Link up. Whatever you’re writing – post, Tweet, update, email, notification – are you including links? Links to your previous work, links to colleagues, links to people you admire, links to sources of more detailed information. Add them all! Improve your SEO, your relationships, and your knowledge.

5. Add video. These days, you can take video anywhere and put it anywhere. Are you using that ability? It’s easier and faster, often, than actually writing. Change things up, and let people see the real you!

There you go: five fast, easy, fun ways to improve your social media presence. While you’re doing each of them, don’t forget the social media golden rule: have fun. Has everything you’ve said this week been completely serious? Why? We’ve proven this week that even MTV’s “Jersey Shore” can teach you something – and if there are lessons there, you can find them absolutely anywhere. If you let yourself have fun with your work, you’d be surprised at how even the things that seem completely unrelated on the surface can give you the best ideas.

Enjoy your winter weekend!

By Jeremy Lichtenberger (@Air_Master_J)

Without being able to see it, I knew there was someone nearby holding a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. The familiar aromatic scent of their particular brew tickled my nose before I could pinpoint its location. While I’m familiar with their pink and orange logo, it was the olfactory tease that connected me with their brand identify that morning. It got me thinking that while much of marketing focuses on defining the right words and creating the right copy, are marketers – outside of the food, beverage and perfume markets — putting enough thought behind other opportunities to create a sensory experience to promote their brands?

Brand loyalty is characterized by an emotional and behavioral response. Using all the senses available is extremely important for brands to develop emotional bonds and relationships with consumers. The key is to build positive sensory experiences and lodge those experiences in long-term memory.

Pharma marketers are no stranger to employing sensory marketing strategies. That’s because most marketers realize that the use of color triggers subtle psychological cues. Who doesn’t think of Viagra when they hear the words “little blue pill? A majority of people list blue as their favorite color. It’s a masculine color that has been known to have a calming effect. It symbolizes trust, confidence and other powerful attributes. While Viagra is the little blue pill, AstraZeneca’s Nexium has invested significant branding dollars in promoting its image as the purple pill.

Color is a powerful psychological tool and has been shown to increase brand identity, assist in memory, increase a reader’s participation in ads, and improve readership, learning, and comprehension. However, it’s important to get good grounding in how people react emotionally to different colors or color combinations. Also it’s important to recognize that different cultures have different views on the meaning of color. This is important to keep in mind as companies create materials for a variety of countries or for their global presence, both on and offline.

The auditory system also provides powerful stimulus for connecting consumers with brands. I can still sing the 70’s Alka Seltzer jingle and I know I’ve caught myself humming the “viva Viagra” theme song on more than one occasion. However, audio is not limited to catchy jingles or theme songs. Consider using podcasts, YouTube, audio commercials, video voiceovers and other sound stimulation to deliver key brand messages and strengthen the emotional connection consumers have with your brand.

As more products enter the market and technology advances such as social media make it harder to stand out, it’s important to think of ways to create connections with consumers beyond visuals. Whether it’s the color of your webpage or product or hiring a well-known celebrity voice to deliver brand messages, consider opportunities to build relationships using emotional, rational and sensual elements and create brand loyalty with customers in a more intimate and personal way than ever before.

By Dan Bobear (@dbobear)

Now that AstraZeneca’s experimental blood thinner Brilinta has been given the green light by an advisory committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, they need to prepare for the next hurdle they face: usurping category leader, Plavix, which is slated for generic availability sometime next year.

Most critical: changing physician prescribing behavior.

The lessons coming out of the Brilinta approval process are a key for marketers. Like the study that showed Brilinta’s less favorable results in the U.S., compared to the entire 18,000+ international population of patients studied, what works in one place may not work in another.

What should AstraZeneca (and every marketer) be thinking about?

Location-based promotional activity – You can have the right message but in the wrong place. With the effectiveness in U.S. participants in question, the company needs to address that concern, giving patients and physicians confidence in the drug as an appropriate course of treatment. Traditional marketing vehicles, social media, conference exhibits and direct mail pieces combined with insight gathered through the CRM system will ensure the right message is delivered to the right audience at the right time.

Creating a positive brand image – This article references a poll that showed that 75 percent of physicians were prescribing Plavix for a year or more. For Brilinta to successfully penetrate the market, they will likely need to break physician behavior of prescribing a medication out of habit. Reaching an increasing number of doctors with no-call policies, as well as a consumer audience, will require a multi-channel approach, especially when a low-cost generic option is available. Where to focus?  For doctors, the brand needs to communicate the safety and efficacy of the drug. Patients also need to understand the advantages they will gain through treatment.

Interacting directly with patients – Patients who request a drug, provided they are a candidate for it, are likely to get it. Direct-to-consumer messaging is no longer limited to print and broadcast advertising and educational resources. Today’s patients head online and research treatment options across a variety of sources. Community forums enable patients to get information from other users, medical professionals, and company-sponsored materials. While changing physician prescribing behavior is an imperative, it’s also important to create demand among appropriate patients.

Incorporating social media – Discussion groups, You Tube videos, Twitter, and blogs as well as improved search engine optimization can increase brand awareness and create a positive connection with the target community. Facebook has become an extremely important referral source to drive people to a company’s website. There are brand pages, disease awareness groups and fans or followers that can carry the message to a larger audience. AstraZeneca has taken a deliberate but dedicated approach to social media, but to shift the opinion of doctors and patients, they will need to produce social content that is a little less sterile and a lot more engaging.

The September 16 decision looks favorable. How do you see this changing the competitive landscape? What do you think Brilinta needs to achieve peak sales?

By Guy Mastrion (@gmastrion)

I’m going to speak heresy as an advertising creative director, specifically one working in healthcare. I’m coming to the belief that the FDA should put an end to branded TV commercials for pharma products.

Why?

Because I believe we’ve all been lulled into a healthcare coma by unimaginative, often nonsensical commercials attempting to communicate a range of product benefits in subtle and not so subtle ways. Things that can be said and others that are not allowed to be spoken, but may be inferred if the imagery implies with just the right tip of the hat.

We’ve been lulled into the complacence of not taking an active role in staying healthy. The onslaught of offers to fix whatever nature or circumstance have heaped upon our mortal selves is staggering. We’re immune to often-severe fair balance claims, simply because they’ve lost their bite after so much exposure. We willingly stride, or hobble, into our doctor’s office and request a product that may in fact result in our death and may not be the solution to our problem, if there is a problem at all.

Does DTC advertising promote physical and emotional dependency on the healthcare industry? When I get home from work at night and my kids are singing TV jingles for pharma products and can tell me “there’s a pill for that” I begin to worry. We are creating legions of future patients who will forever look outward for solutions to their health problems instead of looking in the mirror.

Sure, the truth is that not all ill health is self-inflicted, but some of our larger cultural health issues are amplified through the proffering of junk food – which exacerbates the proliferation of diabetes and high cholesterol – then the next spot after the pitch for “fatty burger and fries and sugar water with bubbles” is for a diabetes med or a cholesterol-lowering agent. In a nice business model, one industry works on poisoning us and the other works on correcting the problem. And TV media just keep ringing the cash registers. They make millions, we get sick.

Our food supply is a serious problem that needs to be sorted out. I’m not meaning to demonize the pharma industry any more than the food industry or TV media. All of us are learning and realizing things about our food supply, our medicines and the influence of TV – not all of it is good. As parents and as adults in general, we have some control over what food goes into our mouths, and with a little work and effort we can get a solid understanding of what good healthy food is, and we can shut off the TV. It’s not as easy to figure out what’s needed with our health and the products and services designed to fix us. We rely on our healthcare professionals and, yes, increasingly we need to rely on ourselves to be our own advocates and patient educators, but still, most of us are not doctors.

Do we really need TV commercials pitching drugs at us?

Here’s my suggestion: Use the power of TV to promote healthy living sponsored by pharma companies and healthcare industry providers. I’m talking corp-level promotion that will make these firms’ household names, in the name of good health. This effort will provide a broad and valuable halo effect for these manufacturers. These spots can cover a range of disease states and drive those seeking more information to a Web page or app or digital whatever, where they can then navigate to specific product info. And as they go deeper into an educational environment, it will set them straight on the facts of good health, and what is normal, before they are educated on any specific meds. This is good-old-fashioned brand building, trust building I like to call it. The current model is a sales model, not designed to build trust as much as drive a highly coordinated sales effort. We need to trust our healthcare system again.

The healthcare industry did not invent TV advertising, but once they were entitled to use it, they learned just how much leverage it can provide in the sales of drugs. It ushered in the age of the blockbuster and created a feeding frenzy for the revenue, shareholder value, and development dollars it can push back into the labs of new drug development. But as this ecosystem matured and the patent extension game became a key strategy to protect revenue, not necessarily advance medicine, DTC advertising became an end game in itself, in some cases propping up revenue in organizations otherwise nearly devoid of the income needed to support what’s now a huge marketing-driven organization.

My suggested approach will free TV advertising from the constraints of regulatory guidelines on promotion, as they will be dealing solely in good health and disease awareness. It will free up resources at the FDA to deal with other pressing issues, like how rotten our food chain is. It will also educate our nation and our children on good health – what to do and what to avoid in order to stay healthy. And when we really need it, how to talk effectively with a healthcare expert because we’ll be well educated through a thoughtful and easily accessible information base enabled through the immersive environment of digital media.

Above: Proctor & Gamble set up posh Charmin toilet tissue-equipped restrooms in New York’s Times Square.

By Kimberly Reyes (@CommDuCoeur)

April’s National DTC Conference in Washington DC had its share of highlights – a doctor’s perspective from Howard Dean, loads of laughs from No Kidding, Me Too!’s Joe Pantoliano, and a host of qualified speakers talking about everything from the rise of empowered patients to how to market to consumers during a recession.  But it was Erik Hauser’s presentation on experiential marketing that really gave us a lot to think about as interactive specialists in Pharma marketing.

Believe or not, Erik Hauser is a celebrity in his own right.  Currently the VP, Executive Creative Director, EURO RSCG, the world’s fifth-largest global agency network, Hauser is a leading voice and large proponent of the adoption of experiential marketing.  He founded his extremely successful boutique shop, Swivel Media, in 2000 and launched The Experiential Marketing Forum, as well as The International Experiential Marketing Association.  So what’s Hauser so passionate about?

In an industry that can’t seem to shake of our lust for numbers, the idea of developing campaigns around consumer emotion at first seems a bit radical.  Sure, it’s easy to count eyeballs, but how do you measure ROI on a multi-sensory experience?  After we examine the definition of experiential marketing, the payoff becomes obvious.

1. Experiential marketing involves logic

Making experimental marketing work involves evaluating the thought process that follows a sensory experience.  Instead of simply trying to sell your brand based on demographic data and targeted media messaging, you, as a marketer, will have to experience the full consumer purchase cycle.  Experiential marketing is often part of a multi-platform effort that does so much more than turn eyeballs into cash – it locks in fans of your brand.  The consumer gets the feeling that you really understand them, and with the rapid growth of empowered patients, showing that your brand is patient-centric is key.

2. Experiential marketing facilitates action

It’s a well-known fact that consumers trust each other exponentially more than they trust the brand.  They know your motivation and objectives, and know that your ultimate goal is to sell them your product.  But when a trusted friend recommends a product or brand, it comes from some place different: their friend is saying I am telling you about this because I know that it will help you. Experiential marketing leads to viral, word-of-mouth results.  The consumer is testing, feeling, and experiencing the product.  The consumer knows what it does, how it works, and is likely to pass this information along to friends.

3. Experiential marketing has long-term effects

Experiential marketing creates lasting associations with your brand through meaning and relevance, but it also opens up new data to your market research that was not available through traditional promotional venues.  You get to experience first-hand how a consumer reacts to your brand and your messaging, and how they interact with your product after making the purchase decision.  Most important, the face-to-face connection and the memories you make with consumers will stay with them long after the event.

In the Pharmaverse, there have been few who dared to take the experiential route.  Obviously, you can’t set up a table in the middle of Times Square and hand out prescription meds.  But that doesn’t mean that there’s not way to harness the power of experiential marketing to build your brand.  For instance, if you’re promoting a weight-loss drug, you can take a tip from Tyra and outfit consumers in fat suits and draw further attention to the adversities of obesity by setting up an athletic course for the participant to complete.  It’s a well-known fact that one of the side effects of diabetes is a decrease in sight.  Consumers will experience just how tragic eye conditions related to untreated or unmanaged diabetes are with goggles that simulate blurred or decreased vision.  These types of experiences are a call to action for patients suffering from a condition, or for caretakers who are concerned about the health of their loved ones, and may lead to the recommendation of treatment options.

In a book by Max Lenderman called Experience the message: how experiential marketing is changing the brand world, Hauser offers the following quote: “The ultimate medium for marketing is people, and to reach them it involves giving them a fantastic brand experience.  They then will do the marketing for you.”

How can your brand use experiential marketing to create lasting memories for your consumers?

By Kimberly Reyes (@CommDuCoeur)

So how does this thing work?

When Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams launched Twitter in July 2006, little did they know how the micro-blogging platform would affect the mainstream, changing the way we communicate, learn, and even do business.

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past four years, Twitter is a free service that allows users to share brief updates with a mass group of “followers.”  The updates, known as tweets, are confined to only 140 characters, and may include another user’s name, or handle, as well as a link.  Tweets can easily be retweeted, with credit being given to the original author.  Applications have been developed to provide additional functionality, such as the ability to share photos or use geolocation to identify the user’s whereabouts.  Twitter also offers the option to privately message other users.

When a user follows another user, the person’s updates are added to a newsfeed that appears on the follower’s homepage.  The follower can also organize different user feeds into categorized lists, such as “coworkers” or “celebrities.”  Additionally, hashtags identify trending topics.  A trending topic is a conversation that there is the most collective buzz around.  For instance, #Oscars was a popular hashtag on the night of the 2010 Academy Awards.

Twitter is especially useful for updating friends while on the go.  Many mobile phones support Twitter software, or the user can simply use text messaging to generate a tweet and receive updates.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what Twitter is…so?

At the end of 2009, Twitter clocked in with just over 75 million users and counting.  But it’s Twitter’s ability to reach a large amount of people in a short amount of time that gives it the greatest value.  Government agencies are exploring the potential of using Twitter to inform the public during a natural disaster or national emergency.  Marketers are constantly reinventing branding strategies with creative uses of Twitter.  News providers are using Twitter to tease headlines.  Businesses are changing the way they operate with Twitter.

Most notably, Twitter is uniting niche groups with similar interests.  Users are organizing think tanks on Twitter, coordinating social events, and sharing relevant information at lightning speed.

What do I do with Twitter?

Twitter is important for a number of reasons, the two most important among them being conversation and collaboration.  Through Twitter, numerous people with varying levels of expertise can engage in meaningful conversation around any particular topic.  Hashtags can be applied to the conversation to keep everyone on the same page.  Our recent favorite is Fard Johnmar’s #mustshare hashtag, which is used to collect links to important information for healthcare marketers.

Twitter also creates meaningful relationships among people with similar interests.  The Pharma marketing community, for instance, has rallied around Twitter, creating an active and influential forum for industry professionals.  Since Pixels & Pills’ inception, we’ve shared some of our friends, new and old, that we believe comprise the movers and shakers in the industry.

Pharma marketers are using Twitter to engage with consumers, educate them about the medicines they take, and share information about healthy living.  Our friend Schwen Gwee provided this comprehensive list on the different ways Pharma marketers can take advantage of Twitter:

Market Research

Targeted searches can provide insight into what segments of the population are thinking and doing.

Customer Service & Customer Relations

Twitter provides a direct connection for customers to ask questions or provide feedback about a service or product.

Publicity and Promotion

Twitter is a great platform for making company announcements, providing news updates, and giving insight into the company’s mission, beliefs, and culture.

Marketing and Sales

Creative uses of Twitter are highly engaging and encourage brand loyalty.

Crisis Communications

Twitter offers a direct-from-the-horse’s mouth approach to dealing with difficult or controversial situations.

Issues Advocacy

Because of its mass reach, Twitter is a great tool for supporting cultural change, such as encouraging people to lead healthier lifestyles.

Event Support/Management

Many events now have official hashtags that allow attendees to tweet live updates right from the event, sharing useful information with non-attendees and expanding the event’s reach.

Is your brand on Twitter?  How are you using it?

This week, Pixels & Pills is celebrating partnerships.  Some are unexpected.  Some haven’t happened yet, but need to.  And some just plain make sense.  Come along with us as we discuss the very principle that P&P is founded on.

By Jason Brandt (@Jasondmg3)

In our week on partnerships, we’re covering a variety of different kinds of collaborative efforts. We hope some of them might spark new ideas for you. But we don’t want to give short shrift to the partnerships that are less unusual, and maybe a little more utilitarian. These are the kind of partnerships that happen all the time – the partnerships that keep the industry alive. They make it run more efficiently: they bring the strengths of different types of organizations together for the benefit of everyone involved.

Partnerships between small and large pharma. Frequently, a molecule discovered by a small organization needs the power and reach of a large one to market it properly.

Partnerships between biotech and pharma. Similarly, a biotech company has the specific knowledge of their large molecule – but may need the old-school muscle of a traditional pharma to get it out.

Partnerships between diagnostics and pharma. As Med Ad News put it, “growth in personalized medicine is driving alliances between diagnostics and the pharmaceutical industry.” Scientists are discovering that more and more drugs work better for people with different gene expressions than others. Targeting medicine for the people who’ll benefit most is a win for everyone.

Partnerships between advocacy organizations and pharma. These can be as formal and separate as a sponsorship donation, or as close as an outright merger or purchase. One example is J&J’s 2008 purchase of Children With Diabetes.

Partnership between researchers. From academic institutions, to hospitals, to government organizations, to non-profits, to corporations, there are many, many thousands of men and women investigating the mysteries of the human body, and how to help it.

You may think of your own organization as a monolith, a single entity – but when you stop and look at it, you’ll realize how many different partnerships have been negotiated and organized in order to make success happen.

This post continues Creativity in Pharma week as we salute the noteworthy campaigns, commercials, and websites designed to compel and inspire inspire the healthcare community.

By Kimberly Reyes (@CommDuCoeur)

Creativity is a virtue.  Creativity requires that you see the world from a fresh and innovative perspective.  Creativity sometimes requires resourcefulness, thoughtfulness, sensitivity.  In marketing and advertising, creativity leads to persuasion.  Creativity can change minds, and even entire cultures.

In Pharma, creativity faces many obstacles.  Marketing executives sometimes feel stifled by the rules and regulations that govern the industry.  Investors obsess over metrics and ROI.  Despite all this, some of the most compelling campaigns have come from Pharma and today, we’re tipping our hats to some of the best the biz.

Clinical research coproration CEDRA created GetYourDrugOn.com, a beautifully-designed Flash website that lets visitors “create” their own drug.  Visitors can name the medication, pick the vehicle, and combine humorous lifestyle issues to determine what it treats.  Finally, the website generates a Mad Libs-inspired ad for the drug, which visitors can share with friends via e-mail.

Creativity and erectile dysfunction make for a pretty dangerous mix, but Bayer Schering’s In Bed campaign introduces UK consumers to Dennis, an animated everyman who tries to understand his condition.  His thoughts are the perfect blend of funny and serious, and the illustration is charmingly minimalist.

Sundown sunblock’s now-defunct Piano campaign was a viral hit.  Sunbathers act as the keys of a piano, which react to the click of the user’s mouse with a sunburnt “ouch.”  Users were able to compose and record tunes, and share them with friends.  The campaign was designed to encourage proper skin protection before spending long periods of time in direct sunlight.

On a more serious note, Images of Isolation is a website by the National Eczema Association created to raise awareness around the chronic skin condition.  Famous photographer Jeremy Kost was employed to assemble a photographic essay using Polaroids of patients who suffer from Eczema. The accompanying stories communicate the fact that Eczema not only impacts a person physically, but mentally as well.

What Pharma campaigns have inspired you or made you laugh recently?  Share your favorites with us!