Wednesday, July 11, 2007

New york Times July 12, 2007: "Bayer Goes Viral in Web Pitch for Painkiller"

July 12, 2007

Advertising

Bayer Goes Viral in Web Pitch for Painkiller

By PATRICIA WINTERS LAURO

HUMOROUS and offbeat are not exactly the words that leap to mind when it comes to advertising in the over-the-counter painkiller market.

But to attract a younger customer, the consumer care division of Bayer HealthCare is starting an online game today for Aleve Liquid Gels, a product that was introduced in March. By visiting a Web site, www.aleviator.com, Internet users will be able to follow a fictional storyline that leads them through a series of clues, taking them in and out of social networking sites, wikis and blogs.

 

For each person who clicks through to the end of the game, which takes at least a minute, Bayer will make a donation of $5 to $10 to the Conservation Fund, an environmental nonprofit group. The campaign will last a month.

 

The gimmick is intended to get people in the 25-to-49 age group to notice Aleve, a pain medicine that was introduced 13 years ago and is used mostly by people over 50 to relieve symptoms typically associated with aging, like arthritis and back pain.

 

“Aleve has become famous and is seen by older consumers as a wonderful product for arthritis,” said Jay Kolpon, vice president for marketing and new business development at Bayer HealthCare, a division of Bayer that is based in Morristown, N.J. “Liquid Gels are for a younger target and for pre-arthritic conditions, such as body pain, sports pain.”

The premise of the game is that two characters named Al and Eve (he’s a scientist, she’s an investigative reporter) have identified an online conspiracy by an organization known as P.A.I.N. (People Against Internet Networking). Game players must view video clues and visit Web sites that are supposedly under attack by this organization, thus restoring the flow of information online.

 

The plotline is meant as “an extended metaphor” for the pain medicine, said Fabio Gratton, co-founder of Ignite Health, a marketing company that specializes in health topics and that created the game for Bayer.

 

Bayer’s hope is that the campaign will go viral, meaning that people will send one another the links for the game. Mr. Gratton said that Bayer chose this approach because it seemed to be the best way to reach the intended audience “where they actually live.”

 

He said that more than 50 percent of the social networking audience was over 35, and that young people were not the only ones who played games online.

“You’d be surprised,” Mr. Gratton said. “The audience is there — we did our due diligence.”

 

The charitable donation at the end of the game is viewed as a way to get people to stick with it and to share it with one another, Mr. Kolpon said. “When you got through this kind of consumer engagement, more than 30 seconds, it is really important to have a payoff,” he said.

The “alleviator” effort is a big departure for Bayer in that it does not overtly advertise the brand. Younger consumers are said to be particularly negative about commercial messages, Mr. Gratton said.

 

The campaign does not even inform people that if they follow all the clues, a donation will be made to the Conservation Fund. “We wanted it to be almost a surprise,” Mr. Gratton said. “Our hope is that people will enjoy the journey and tell someone else.”

 

He added, “Advertising is no longer about pushing messages, but instead making a meaningful connection and letting someone decide how far they want to take it.”

Each page, however, is identified with a small blue-and-yellow pill with the message “brought to you by the makers of Aleve Liquid Gel” so as not to mislead consumers. That identification is crucial, because in the past companies have come under attack for not labeling their commercial messages.

 

Jez Frampton, global chief executive for Interbrand, a marketing consultant and division of the Omnicom Group, said that Bayer was clever to try to use a viral message to approach a new market. “If it works it could be a very good idea, and that’s the real question — will it work?” he said. “That all depends on how good the story is and how well it rewards the people who do it.”

 

In viral marketing, consumers forward items because it makes the sender appear hip or smart. One successful example was a video that Smirnoff Ice made last year called “Tea Partay,” which featured preppy-looking people singing a rap song. Mr. Frampton said the risks of such a campaign were often slight, especially since the cost is minuscule: Bayer Consumer estimated that the viral effort cost about 1 percent of its marketing budget.

 

“I guess the biggest risk is being seen as uncool by the very market you are trying to attract,” Mr. Frampton said.

Bayer is viewing the campaign as an experiment that it will evaluate carefully. Mr. Kolpon said the company would measure consumer engagement and awareness, as well as the donation to the Conservation Fund.

 

The game is a small part of the marketing program for Aleve Liquid Gels. In March, Bayer began advertising to the younger audience using its “real people” campaign by BBDO New York, a unit of the Omnicom Group. The campaign typically features middle-aged consumers who explain how they have found relief from back pain or arthritis with the painkiller, but for Liquid Gels, BBDO introduced younger people talking about pains like sports injuries.

 

At the moment, the viral battle against P.A.I.N. remains a small part of the Aleve Liquid Gels marketing mix, but it could be expanded.

 

“Again, it’s a test case, a lab experiment,” said Mr. Kolpon. “There’s no question of the importance of Web 2.0. What’s still unclear is what’s the best way for consumer products to use the Internet.”

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Monday, July 09, 2007

VT's pharma report: Psychiatrists receive most payments

VT's pharma report: Psychiatrists receive most payments

 

Pharmaceutical companies spent $2.25 million in marketing expenses in Vermont during fiscal year 2006, according to the Attorney General William Sorrell's fourth report on pharma marketing disclosures. The top five spenders were Eli Lilly, Sanofi Aventis, Pfizer, Forest Pharmaceuticals, and Novartis, which combined to spend almost 60% of the total reported expenditures. Eighty-one percent of total payments and benefits went to physicians and other prescribers, and the top 100 recipients received a total of $1,549,891.86 in fiscal year 2006, or 69% of the total payments. Of these recipients, psychiatrists received the most gifts, and 11 psychiatrists received approximately 22.36% of the overall total. The average payment to psychiatrists was $45,692 in fiscal year 2006.

 

 

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iPLATO launch malaria information by text

iPLATO launch malaria information by text

Britons travelling abroad to exotic destinations are now able to receive immediate and free travel health information regarding malaria thanks to a new text messaging service developed by mobile healthcare specialist iPLATO. The service, funded by GlaxoSmithKline Travel Health as part of the Malaria Awareness Campaign, allows travellers to text in the name of their destination country to receive relevant information about the malaria prevalence in that country.
 
Despite the fact that malaria is a preventable disease every year approximately 2,000 British travellers return home with malaria, making the UK one of the biggest importers of malaria among industrialised countries. It is hoped that by making it easier for travellers to access important health advice via their mobile phone that this number will be reduced. The service is designed so that once a traveller has been informed about the level of malaria risk at their destination they will be encouraged to contact a healthcare professional for expert advice on protection. Travellers using the service are charged their standard operator rates and the service is available over all networks.
 
Malaria is a risk for British travellers as people increasingly visit countries where malaria is common; there has been a 150% increase in travel to malarious destinations amongst British travellers in the last 10 years. The humble mosquito may be tiny, but it only takes one bite from an infected mosquito to transmit this potentially deadly disease.
 
“We are delighted with using the mobile channel in helping people correctly assess the malaria risk at their destinations”, says Tobias Alpsten, Managing Director iPLATO. “Early reports on the volume of text interactions by travellers using the Malaria Advice Service during the months of May and June alone validate the usefulness of this service and its potentially life saving benefits. We hope that frequent travellers will save this phone number and consult this service whenever they have to.”
 
If you are travelling abroad and would like to use the service, please text the name of your destination country to 07800 000573 and you will receive the text response with further information. This is not a Premium Rate Service and you will be charged according the standard text message rate set by your network provider.

 

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RE: J&J corporate blog aims to provide new means of communication

Hey Stephanie – I will call you shortly to discuss…

 


sean vassilaros
exec. producer
ignite H E A L T H
949.861.3257 (p)
949.861.3750 (f)
svassilaros@ignitehealth.com


From: Fabio Gratton
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 9:02 AM
To: Ignite
Cc: Blog
Subject: J&J corporate blog aims to provide new means of communication

 

J&J corporate blog aims to provide new means of communication


Johnson & Johnson has launched a corporate blog in a move that could prompt other pharma companies to do the same, according to Marketletter. Dubbed JNJ BTW (computer speak for "by the way"), the blog says, "Everyone else is talking about our company, so why can't we?" The blog's author, Marc Monseau, a media relations team member, writes that he will provide a voice for J&J's more than 120,000 employees that often "gets lost in formal communications." Although he acknowledges the "internal limitations" to what he can write, Monseau says that the blog will be an exercise in "unlearning of old habits and traditional approaches to communicating." The blog will also allow the company to talk about J&J and industry news, provide more context to happenings, and make corrections.

 

The blog:

 

http://jnjbtw.com

 

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J&J launches corporate blog: could show way for drug industry

J&J launches corporate blog: could show way for drug industry

Marketletter via NewsEdge Corporation :

US health care giant Johnson & Johnson has "gone public" with its corporate blog (http://jnjbtw.com), after months of internal trialling. The content on J&J BTW (an acronym for "by the way") is controlled by Marc Monseau, a senior corporate communications executive at the firm.

One of the blog's innovations is to express openly the areas the firm will not comment on, explaining the regulatory or commercial pressures involved in particular issues. In a posting titled Speculating, Mr Monseau wrote: "after declining to comment on an acquisition rumor, I'm often asked if I would simply talk about our acquisition philosophy in general - what types of companies or technologies Johnson & Johnson would like to acquire." He added: "again in the context of a question about a specific rumor, how can I discuss our acquisition philosophy and strategy without seemingly tipping our hand or fuelling speculation?"

J&J BTW responds to news events, such as a recent court ruling in Massachusetts, USA, on Medicare drug pricing (Marketletter June 26), which cleared the firm of wrong doing, as well as media comment, eg, a report on the Wall Street Journal Health Blog about the drug industry's future.

Although tentative, for instance it is not clear how the blog will handle a major controversy (such as a product recall), the move "signals greater transparency and more openness to customers," according to the California Healthcare Foundation's iHealthBeat, an electronic magazine. The report predicted that, "given J&J's expertise in consumer health care, it should be able to carry this off in a useful, consumer-friendly way."

810,000 Google hits for "Avandia" and "blog"

The recent concerns over cardiovascular disease related to UK drug major GlaxoSmithKline's popular antidiabetic Avandia (rosiglitazone; Marketletters passim) have had a massive impact on-line. A search using Google for the terms "Avandia" and "blog" identified over 810,000 web site entries, with none of the top 100 coming from GSK. In fact, the first entry was for a trial lawyer in Massachusetts offering to represent any "victims" of the drug, which is unlikely to be the sort of first contact for patients that the drugmaker would prefer.

Among the drug industry commenters, medical professionals, media and advertising experts, are thousands of patients who actually use Avandia. Social media outlets such as YouTube and iTunes carry hundreds of audio and video recordings concerning the diabetes drug. Part of the problem is the low level of credibility given by audiences to drug advertising: 18% trusting them "most of the time," according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey. By contrast, a JupiterResearch study found 34% of adult Internet users in the USA, or 54 million people, use and trust Internet-created health care-related content.

 

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J&J corporate blog aims to provide new means of communication

J&J corporate blog aims to provide new means of communication


Johnson & Johnson has launched a corporate blog in a move that could prompt other pharma companies to do the same, according to Marketletter. Dubbed JNJ BTW (computer speak for "by the way"), the blog says, "Everyone else is talking about our company, so why can't we?" The blog's author, Marc Monseau, a media relations team member, writes that he will provide a voice for J&J's more than 120,000 employees that often "gets lost in formal communications." Although he acknowledges the "internal limitations" to what he can write, Monseau says that the blog will be an exercise in "unlearning of old habits and traditional approaches to communicating." The blog will also allow the company to talk about J&J and industry news, provide more context to happenings, and make corrections.

 

The blog:

 

http://jnjbtw.com

 

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