By Sven Larsen (@zemoga)

It may come as no surprise to many who read this blog that in the design world, Pharma work is often seen as the “red headed stepchild”. Pharma and (to a lesser degree Finance) are seen as unfriendly to creativity because of the strict regulatory environments both fields operate under and the nature of the core business (many designers got in to design to stay as far away from math and science as they could). We’ve written before about this perception and how many in our industry play in to those misconceptions. Is it possible to change the negative image Pharma has among design types? is it even worth trying?

For those who answered no to the above questions, there’s some interesting news that came out of the Mozilla Foundation (makers of Firefox and a Zemoga client) last week. Mashable reports that Aza Raskin, the Foundations renowned Creative Director is leaving to found his own company. And what is one of the most gifted designers in the digital space choosing to work on? A healthcare startup called Massive Health.

What’s Raskin’s motivation for joining us here in the “design ghetto” of Healthcare and Pharma. Here’s what he has to say about it on his blog:

“Each of us has a unique ability. I want to use mine—the knowledge to make products which are disruptively easier and more enjoyable to use—to change people’s lives. Life-changing not in the sense of a new social website or better email, but in making people’s lives materially better by helping them get and stay healthy. Anyone that’s been sick, overweight, or had to deal with a doctor knows that health is a field in dire need of humane design.”

Given the recent Pew research that indicates searching for Healthcare info is one of the top three things all age groups use the Internet for, he couldn’t have picked a better time.

Here at Pixels and Pills we’ve often said that the industry needs a design guru to show others what can be accomplished. Someone respected enough to make people stand up and pay attention to Pharma and Healthcare work and show that there’s more to our industry than blue and white logos and little brown bottles. Raskin may be just the guy to do it.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Massive Health and how they impact on the industry. And we’re happy to see another champion added to the group of us fighting for humane design in the healthcare industry.

Let’s all do our part to make sure 2011 ends up being the year that Pharma breaks out of the ghetto once and for all.

Katie Couric discusses her Clio Award win for the Stand Up 2 Cancer campaign, bringing together the community, recruiting celebrities, honoring the scientists, and working together towards finding a cure.

Steve Farrar & Jackie Murray talk about the work they did to promote the Rockford Health System’s DaVinci Surgical Robot.

Phil Deschamps, President & CEO of GSW, along with Bruce Rooke, Chief Creative Officer of GSW, talk about GSW’s involvement with the CLIO Awards, and how the changing industry landscape has impacted the event

By Russ Ward (@russcward)

This fall, the chair of neurology at famed Brigham and Women’s Hospital did something unexpected. He didn’t lead another new study or pioneer a new procedure or publish a peer-reviewed article – he’s done plenty of that already. He co-founded a CME company, which in itself would be a fairly unexpected move for a physician, particularly one with such an impressive CV. But what’s more, he co-founded a company creating CME entirely without pharma industry funding.

Lighthouse Learning is, indeed, unusual. But is this an entirely unusual move?

Maybe not. Earlier this year, veteran CNBC pharma reporter Mike Huckman quit. Ten years into a high-profile career with the network, this might be seen as a surprising move. But what’s more, he left his job as a broadcast reporter to join a public relations agency. As a senior vice president and the director of media strategy for MS&LGroup, he’s become a “flack”, the profession reviled by many journalists. In his new job, he’s blogging and Tweeting, and teaching new hires about the right way to pitch stories.

These are just two examples that we’ve seen recently of people moving around to unexpected new facets of their broader industries – even, some would argue, their polar opposite career.

Their reasons are probably varied, and probably have something to do with economics and something else to do with quality of life. CME companies often make good money, as do PR agencies. Physicians have astronomical malpractice insurance, reporters have precarious job security, and both professions have long hours and unspeakably high stress levels.

What’s interesting to consider, though, is that in both these cases, the man in question isn’t just jumping over “to the dark side”, but is going there and working to make the changes that his former profession had called for. CME that functions independently; public relations that really understands the reporter.

Can they change their new professions with the knowledge of their old ones? They’ve both been extremely successful in their first acts; I see no reason why their second acts should be any different.

Who would you like to see “come over” next? Imagine a pharma CEO joining the FDA, an ad exec coming aboard at industry watchdog Public Citizen, or the leader of a managed-care organization heading up a patient support network. We’ve got the makings of a great reality show here. It’s Undercover Boss meets Wife Swap. Think of the potential. Think of the CVS ad buys. Prime time!

Let us know who you’d nominate specifically in the comments for one of these surprising moves, and why. Do you think it would do them good – or can you actually see it happening?

By Dan Licht (@thedvl)

The Great Recession. Are we in it? Are we out of it? Did it ever exist? You can find people who will argue all three sides, but what’s pretty plain is, whatever it is, many of us are dealing with smaller budgets, smaller staffs, and expectations that are just as big as ever. Here are three ways to start thinking fresh so you can hit your numbers without breaking your bank.

The Creativity of Bartering

So you’ve got less money and fewer people to meet your newly raised goals. Not ideal. But there’s a silver lining, although it may not look like one.

Your collaborators, your clients, your partners and your service providers – they’re all in exactly the same boat.
The question is how to start using this to your advantage. In a word: bartering. Start thinking about what you need – who can provide it – what they need – and what you can do.

For instance, maybe your team can handle the communications for the IT department in exchange for a loan of some of the hardware in their closet. You save thousands of dollars in your supply budget, get the new tech you need, and they save thousands of dollars for the temp they would have hired to replace the communications person.

The Creativity of Jury-Rigging

You can’t afford the focus group or market research that you want. Does that mean you can’t test your ideas at all? Does that mean you’ll have to present them with no data backing them up?

Nope. It just means you’ll have more interesting kinds of data. Maybe less quantitative, but still extremely valuable – and an extra cool story to tell.

Find everyone who’s Twittered about your brand – by definition, tech-savvy, brand-conscious and influential – and invite them to take a survey. Or do man-on-the-street interviews and edit them together to bookend your presentation.
You get great qualitative data that tells a story – and may end up having more of an impact on your audience than a PowerPoint deck full of statistics and charts.

The Creativity of Desperation

Yes, this is the worst case. You’re the last man (or woman) standing. Your team has been decimated, and you’re all that’s left. All of the same work still needs doing. But you know what time it is?

It’s time to present all the crazy ideas. It’s time to stick to your guns. It’s time to realize that they need you right now, very badly, and that presents you with a certain amount of leverage.

It’s not time to give up. It’s time to do all the things you always wanted, that nobody would listen to or agree with. It’s time to stand up and have some off-the-wall ideas to save your job, save your team, save your brand and save your company.
It’s time to get things done.

By Daniel Licht (@thedvl)

Recently Zemoga worked with PSFK on concepts for their new report in conjunction with UNICEF. Now those are some big names. PSFK, for those that don’t know are the leaders in innovative ideas and trend spotting. If I need to explain UNICEF then you need some rethinking of your news sources and world view. This new report focuses on the future or the health industry. PSFK spotted the trends they think will be the future and then looked to us (and other great agencies) to ideate on solutions to the problems groups like UNICEF face everyday.

Piers Fawkes, founder of PSFK invited us into their offices for a briefing with the other agencies and some great folks from UNICEF. While at the briefing we reviewed the initial version of the report. The best part of this was the insights from UNICEF’s team. They were able to give us examples of innovations already made and why they worked. I went away energized and ready to throw our ideas into the mix.

After an internal briefing with Fabian Garzon, Zemoga’s Innovations Director, our team began brainstorming on new concepts that had never been done before. This proved to be harder than some of our other ideations; say, compared to Retail or Social media in Pharm.  The reason being that PSFK did such a great job zeroing in on the bleeding edge of what’s being done in the health space. But by using some of our most advanced brainstorming technology (Post-Its and Sharpies) the team began throwing up idea after idea. Once we had our ideas out and up on the board we then began to rank them by several criteria. First, did it fit into one of the 15 trends PSFK had identified? If a concept did fit the first criteria then we asked if it fit into the ten critical challenges faced by the Health industry as well as groups like UNICEF. These are challenges like how to identify community health workers or difficulty in distance training. After this, we looked to how impactful the idea could be and how can it be carried out. Does the tech exist? Can we do this with the limited technology of an SMS enabled Nokia 1100 (UNICEF found this was the most common phone in remote villages in Africa)? Would our idea help those with no education achieve the ability to help themselves?

After a few days of this process we came to our final 6 concepts:

• Messages trough the sky – Google Earth Health Codes
• Dr. Cube – Basic medical diagnostic and data collection device
• Teach-Shirts
• AR Training
• Charit-i, Collaborative Change
• Application to manage communications on emergency situations

We then began the process of creating our visuals and our description of each. Given the template we had to use, we sought out to create the most impactful and descriptive visuals we could.

We are very proud of the 6 concepts we have created and we are honored that  all of them made it in to PSFK’s report. We think there is a lot of future in the Teach-Shirts idea, and who knows – perhaps there will be a line of them in the future?

Have you stopped to think about how you can change or create new methods to reach those most in need of our help?

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 Paul Harrington

R.I.P., CVA.

Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears: I come not to praise the CVA, but to bury it.

The CVA – or Core Visual Aid – the most commonly used sales tool in the armamentarium of pharmaceutical sales is dead, dead, dead. Certainly, for decades it had served us well: it gave pharma reps a “show-n-tell” tool with glossy pictures, snappy pullouts, and easy-to-read safety information.

The days of the CVA were heady times indeed. Ad agencies created massive image campaigns to fill them. Media companies sold miles of ad space to promote them. Printing companies chopped down million of trees to fuel the reams of paper need to manufacture them.

But a funny thing happened on the way from the sales rep’s car to the doctor’s office: the CVA started getting left behind. “Ho-hum,” said the physician, “I’ve seen all this before. I don’t want your glossy Madison Avenue schtick anymore. Give me my samples and off with you! Git now!”

Suddenly, a CVA wasn’t a magic door opener. It was a static, 20^th Century leftover from The Cosby Show. The CVA was DOA. Moment of silence…

IVA ASAP!

The 21^st Century is the Era of the IVA: the Interactive Visual Aid. And it will be a vital, liberating time indeed.

If the CVA is a script the rep uses to tell the doctor a story, what exactly is an IVA? Think of it as the IMAX version of the script, the flat story brought to life with moving pictures, bold colors, energetic characters, motivating scene changes, and an easy-to-follow, engaging performance.

If you think of an IVA as just an electronic version of the old paper CVA, you’re selling yourself – and the medium – short. Think of an IVA more like an informational kiosk at the airport or a convention. It’s a two-way exchange of exploration and education, and medicine will be all the better for its implementation. Charts and diagrams animate to tell a fuller story. Patients walk, speak and escort the viewer on a tour of their lives. References and study designs appear in abbreviated or complete detail simply by touching on a fact. Studies can energetically unfold and tell a fuller story. And calls can be customized to meet the needs of a particular physician or sales initiative. The days of folding over a brochure and flipping through dog-eared pages are over.

Here’s how it works: a pharmaceutical sales representative wakes up on Monday morning and turns on her laptop computer. (If she works for a cutting edge company, her computer is one a slew of new tablet computers that are lightweight, slim, and built for show-n-tell.) The rep logs in and gets a new directive from HQ on a recent study and how it can improve patient outcomes; an updated call flow is automatically downloaded to her computer, along with a learning module or implementation guide that instructs her on how to craft a compelling sales call utilizing the new information.

When the rep calls on Dr. Feelgood later on in the day, she’s able to catch and hold his attention in the hallway by utilizing the stopping power of her new IVA. In fact, the good Doctor spends more time than usual with the rep, because the interactive presentation of the new data has captured his interest and engrossed him, and he’s taking an active role in the presentation.

An IVA offers a fluid stage that allows figures and studies to dynamically unfold and telling a compelling story. Patient profiles come to life with patients who can move, speak, explain (and complain), and demonstrate results. Touch-screen interfaces – the latest and greatest in the technological advances that the IVA can leverage – allow a physician to interact with and manipulate the information to answer their questions. And reps can easily stay on message, on label and focus more on selling.

OMG!

Let’s not mince words: making the move from CVA to IVA isn’t easy or cheap. Anyone who’s made the leap from regulation TV to HDTV knows that stepping up the technology ladder is expensive and sometimes trying, and IVAs are no exception.

Certainly, there are the hard costs: outfitting your sales force with computers/hardware to use is not cheap – and like any computer, they need constant repairs, updates and upgrades. Then there are the softer costs, like training, technical support, high-speed connections, yada yada yada.

Another cost factor to consider is the content. Whereas your ad agency used to simply set up a photo shoot for this year’s CVA and campaign, they now have to create interactive content that can be utilized in the IVA: HD video, sound, animations, and so forth – this can add extra hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of campaign creation.

However – unclench those muscles – these creative assets can be applied across multiple mediums (such as websites, trade shows, and advertising outlets like smart phones) and if crafted wisely, will actually yield more creative bang for your buck. We’re in the 2.0 age of the digital revolution, and the costs will only continue to drop as more and more outlets clamor for your marketing dollar.

XOXO IVA.

If you embrace the day and recognize the massive advantage an IVA offers your sales force, you may find that you actually can cut costs while improving output. You’ll help the environment by cutting down dramatically on paper use. You may even see your competitors struggle to react to your bold initiatives.

What’s the first step? Talk to your ad agency: if they’re not up to speed on how to deploy interactive sales tools for your company, find one that can. This isn’t the wave of the future: the water is already upon you and up to your knees.

So rest in peace, ol’ CVA. You were good and did us proud, but your time has passed. Vive la IVA!!