“Ka-Boomers” blow up more perceptions of pharma advertising

June 8, 2010 – 4:32 pm by Chris

There’s good news and bad news in a recently released survey about active boomer women’s attitudes toward pharmaceuticals and healthcare marketing. The good news is that these women want healthcare information, and the company that establishes its trustworthiness and openness in providing that information could win very loyal, long-term customers. The bad news, however, is that these women are highly cynical about pharmaceutical marketing efforts, with 56% of those surveyed believing that pharmaceutical marketing does more harm than good.

The “She Says” survey was conducted by Pink Tank, the division of GSW Worldwide specializing in women and health, and Meredith Research Solutions. According to Gretchen Goffe-Wagner, senior VP and brand manager for Pink Tank, these active boomer women, who she characterizes as “Ka-Boomers,” are becoming uber-consumers. “The ‘She Says’ survey indicates they are more confident in making healthcare choices for themselves and their families, and they are more apt to challenge the traditional role of the doctor as the person who initiates and has the final say in healthcare decisions,” Ms. Goffe-Wagner says.

Ms. Goffe-Wagner says the discovery that more than half of the women surveyed thought DTC advertising was harmful “was kind of a shock.”

“You always know that women aren’t crazy about DTC advertising, but that number hit us like a brick,” she says.

Why the distrust? Women are reading print ads and listening to DTC ads intently to get side effect information; although DTC spots have improved, “historically, that’s where the voice got really fast and they [the commercial] just ran through that whole litany,’ Ms, Goffe-Wagner says. “I’m kind of connecting the dots to something that the survey didn’t say explicitly, but it does seem like you combine that with news stories that have come out about negative effects of things in the pharmaceutical world, and I think women have kind of connected those so that they’re saying, ‘Nothing comes without a price, and I really want to understand what that price is, and I don’t want anyone to hide that from me.’”

Because these women want to know all the risks as well as benefits, 40% of those surveyed say they do not get a prescription filled immediately after leaving their physician. “Women say they still trusted their doctors, but while doctors were seen as the beginning and end of the decision, way back when, we’ve known since DTC advertising, that the consideration starts before [the patient] goes into the doctor’s office, because a lot of the times they’re asking about a specific brand,” Ms. Goffe-Wagner says. “What was surprising in the survey was that how much of the sale hangs on after she leaves the doctor’s office with a script. That pharma advertising distrust comes through – ‘OK, I saw your ad, you raised a question whether I had this, I talked to my doctor, now I have a script, now I have to go do my homework!’”

For example, if one of the side effects of a drug is constipation, it’s often difficult for a patient to evaluate the impact of that side effect from the information available. “Is it something that’s really going to impact you, or is it going to be a little bit of a bother?” Ms. Goffe-Wagner says. “That’s when they say, ‘All right, I want to talk to some girlfriends who have tried this, and I can trust they’ll tell me what to expect.’”

Based on the survey results, Ms. Goffe-Wagner says there are some tactics pharmaceutical companies should be following when evaluating their marketing. “When the brand is all about itself, women feel, as one put it in the survey, that it’s pocketbook before patient,” Ms. Goffe-Wagner says. “That’s the lens they are looking at; they are looking at what you say, and what you do, to see whether they feel that you’re just all about growing sales of your brand, or whether you’re really about improving health and the lives of women.”

One thing marketers can do is step back and look at the activities through the lens of a brand invitation, Ms. Goffe-Wagner says. “By that, I mean if you consider all that you say and do as an invitation, what event are you inviting her to? Are you inviting her to a club that’s all about your brand? If so, your trust is going to be lower. But if she looks at that and says, ‘Oh, they’re really committed, through sponsoring events, through creating communities, they are really committed to getting information out, educating, supporting, and leading to better health outcomes.’ That brand invitation is much more appealing.”

Additionally, marketers need to think more like advocates and less like advertisers. “That means not just your words, but your actions,” Ms. Goffe-Wagner says. “Women are wired to read that context around things.”

Survey respondents stated that they would view brands that give back to the community, by donating to or supporting a cause in an authentic way, much more positively. They would also positively view activities that would let people know more about under-diagnosed disease states.

“Those are all things that make a brand more of an advocate brand,” Ms. Goffe-Wagner says. “It doesn’t necessarily come at the cost of ROI, but it does require taking less of a focus on how you are driving new prescriptions this month, this week, this quarter, and focus instead on how you can build advocates to the brand who will be more loyal.”