VIEWPOINT

Targeted marketing isn't 'unfair and deceptive'

Jay Boiling
President & CEO, Roska Healthcare Advertising

IN A RECENT MOVE a consortium of organizations the Public Interest Research Group, Center for Digital Democracy, World Privacy Forum, and Consumer Watchdogfiled a complaint with the FTC alleging that, "Health marketers are using digital data on consumers to promote medical products and services" and trying to "influence consumer behavior in some of the most personal and profound decisions they will ever have to make...'" The 144-pagefilingis a weighty tome, stuffed to the gills with examples and coched in pointed

language, accusing websites like Quality Health or WebMD and pharma companies of deceiving consumers by offering health information as the bait to attract unsuspecting consumers whose information is then mined for highly targeted marketing. The consortium admonishes the health industry for abrogating the right to privacy, exploiting personal medical information and delivering marketing messages geared to consumers' specific medical needs. Perhaps most worrisome within the complaint is not the alleged "unfair and deceptive marketing practices." It's that the complaint does not contain any sense of balanced argument. Not one single paragraph sets out the many benefits customers can reap from targeted marketing. Without help, how does each health seeker find exactly

the right information in the vast, digital universe? Google "asthma awareness" and 13,000,000 results pop up in (approximately) 0.09 seconds. Targeted marketing, on the other hand, can put the right information into the right consumers' hands quickly and effi-

Improve patient health outcomes and reduce the burden of chronic diseases; Encourage preventive medicine; Enhance the quality of patient/ physician dialogue; Improve medication adherence/persistency rates; and

Without help, how does each health seeker find exactly the right info in the vast, digital universe?
ciently. And, sometimes it will be information that might save a life. In a nation of people notoriously lax about taking care of themselves, targeted marketing offers a unique opportunity to: Educate and motivate consumers to take better care of themselves; Actually decrease the incidence of off-label use. Without access to consumer data, healthcare marketers can do no more than post information on the web and hope that the right consumersfindit. Consumers are left to navigate unaided unless healthcare marketers have access to their data.

Pharma marketers using iPad to their advantage

Antoine Jacques
Marketing director, Europe, IBA Molecular

COMPANIES worldwide see the iPad as the latest tool to connect with customers, and the healthcare industry is no exception. However, rather than as a consumer marketing tool or health application, some healthcare companies find the iPad's biggest advantage is in the hands of their marketing and sales forces. Healthcare and pharma marketers can and areevolving their approach via tactile computer tablets like the iPad. A marketer's goal is to ensure that

clients perceive and capture the full value of a company's products. Given the increasing battle to capture customer attention, in particular within the generics industry, a sales force's ability to effectively convey value messages within a short timeframe is essential. The iPad is a true marketing weapon because with it, sales can deliver value propositions more effectively, therefore

iPad provides sales and marketing afiexibiepresentation approach, giving the power to communicate with relevant information, personalized to fit the customer's needs. Rather than one-size-fitsall brochures or static laptop lectures, sales and marketing create individualized, interactive presentations. Furthermore, as IT and digital media become increasingly commonplace in the practitio-

A marketer's goal is to ensure that clients perceive and capture the full value of a company's product
maximizing a campaign's impact at the individual client level. Health and medicine are complex, specialized and ever-changing sectors. Technology like the ners" office, this reinforces the significance of multimedia and IT in the sales approach. Internally, this technology helps marketers monitor cam-

paign effectiveness with bottomup reporting, giving real-time visibility to critical sales processes and data. With centralized information and real-time updates, marketers guard brand consistency while providing sales with exibility. Fmally, with iPad applications, marketing gains more insight into field sales activities, and can better understand internal/external clients' responses to various messages. Consequently, the iPad helps perform closedloop marketing in a more structured, effective way. As an industry, we have just begun to tap the potential of this interactive new technology. Though the technology is new, our marketing goal remains the same; intelligent communication to help advance and improve health and medicine.

mmm-online.com I JANUARY 20111 MM&M 31

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