In the May issue of Med Ad News, I intend to take a look at what impact these guidelines are having on pharmaceutical marketers and their agencies and how healthcare advertising agencies can work with clients to help meet these guidelines.

One company that is helping marketers meet this need to more effectively educate patients is Chicago-based ContextMedia Inc. ContextMedia develops waiting room TV networks that help healthcare professionals educate their patients minutes before they make decisions about their clinical treatment.

With the new PhRMA guidelines in place, ContextMedia reports seeing a greater demand from clients who would also like to reach a targeted audience at a time and place where they’re already thinking about their clinical treatment and healthcare solutions.

Each of ContextMedia’s point-of-care networks is condition-specific and tailor-built for lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and provides programming on nutrition, exercise, and disease management. In 2008, three of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies advertised on the company’s first network, the Diabetes Health Network. ContextMedia has more than 600 TVs nationwide with about one in seven endocrinologists as a Diabetes Health Network member, reaching 700,000 viewers each month for an average of 27 minutes.

I asked the folks at ContextMedia to tell me about the scope of the opportunities for pharmaceutical marketers when it comes to waiting-room TV. Other than purchasing advertising spots on the network, I wondered if there would be other opportunities. Could they get involved in the actual programming, for example?

The answer to the latter question is an emphatic “No.” Pharmaceutical companies cannot get involved in the actual programming because all of ContextMedia’s editorial content is independently-produced and medically-reviewed. Advertisers cannot choose or influence this content. However, ContextMedia does say they can work with individual sponsors on their patient education efforts and partner with them to help move these initiatives forward.

“The ultimate value in pharmaceutical marketers sponsoring DHN comes from our ability to directly reach their target audience at the right place, when they are in their trusted physician’s office, and the right time, moments before they make critical decisions about their health treatment and lifestyle changes,” ContextMedia says. “Our research showed that 51% of patients said they had already spoken to, or plan on speaking with their healthcare professional about something they saw on DHN TV – including diet and medication. Advertising on our networks leads to direct action minutes after they see the commercials. We offer the option of category exclusivity to sponsors, whereby they can be the only brand advertised on DHN TV for a given category of treatment.”

Additionally, marketers will not only have the opportunity to play their commercial message on DHN TV, but they can also distribute literature such as brochures, magazines, and handouts that the patients can take with them to read more. ContextMedia also offers a sampling program, which some sponsors have taken advantage of, that provides samples to member offices to be distributed to their patients.

ContextMedia provides active management of each of its member offices, with a team of account managers dedicated to building relationships with them and servicing their needs. The company collects monthly patient traffic numbers and confirmations from each office, and remote software allows the company to keep track of DHN TV compliance and see when the system was on, off, or down.

IMS Health conducted a promotion analysis evaluating the effectiveness of advertising on the Diabetes Health Network for an injectable insulin sponsor of the network. The study measured changes in prescription volume among physicians that had the DHN in their waiting-area compared with a control group of similar physicians without the service. The eight-month study found a statistically significant increase of 5.3% in total volume of prescriptions and a 5.15:1 ROI on the sponsor’s DHN program.

IMS also found physician penetration increased by 3.3% in the total prescription test group while it decreased by 2% in the matching control group.