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    THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why
    THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why
    THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why

    By Sokotch Mel

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    About this ebook

    There’s no marketing challenge more difficult than creating advertising that encourages patients to ask their doctor if a prescription medicine is “right for them.”  Myriad FDA regulations must be learned and faithfully applied; every DTC message must “fairly balance” benefits with risks, often frightening

    LanguageEnglish
    Publishermel sokotch consulting
    Release dateOct 15, 2018
    ISBN9780692186626
    THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why
    Author

    Sokotch Mel

    Mel's advertising agency career spans 30 years, much of it heading up major accounts at three of the world's leading agencies: Ted Bates, Grey Advertising, and Foote Cone & Belding. The lion's share of Mel's agency experience involved healthcare: he's headed up OTC accounts, including brands from Pfizer, Warner Lambert, GSK. Importantly, Mel launched and built FCB's DTC practice, attracting Rx marketers like Merck, Lilly, Alcon, Organon, Amgen, Boehringer-Ingelheim. Mel's consulting career is now in its 12th year with focus on helping pharmaceutical marketers prefect their DTC campaigns as well as conducting advertising training seminars. Clients have included: Merck, AstraZeneca, BI, AbbVie, Takeda, Roche, Biogen-Idec plus several ad agencies and media companies. He's helped to create DTC campaigns for Fosamax, Singulair, Proscar, Varivax, Zocor, Cymbalta, Strattera, Neulasta, Patanol, Nuvaring, Meridia, Flomax, Pradaxa, Spiriva, Tradjenta, Uloric, HUMIRA, Entyvio, Brintellix. Along the way Mel's authored numerous articles on issues facing the industry; made presentations at key industry functions as well as the FDA. And in 2010, published "Shortcuts to the Obvious," a common sense, cut-to-the-chase advertising primer. Mel is a lifelong resident of New York City. He's a graduate of the City University of New York. His wife Joan is a local school principal; son Jon is an attorney; and daughter Amy, like Dad, is in the advertising business.

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      Book preview

      THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK - Sokotch Mel

      It’s axiomatic that every business has its unique marketing challenges, but when it comes to pharmaceutical marketing, especially marketing prescription medicine to patients, the challenges are particularly unique.

      First, no marketing plan faces the heavy, intimate involvement of a federal agency the way direct-to-consumer marketing (DTC) faces with the FDA. There are myriad DTC regulations that must be understood and complied with. These DTC regulations are regularly updated with guidance documents that must be studied, re-learned and re-applied. Pharma is the only industry where advertising is required to fairly balance the product’s benefits with its risks. And should your DTC team make a mistake that results in an FDA violation, the cost of the revisions plus the opportunity lost is always in the millions.

      Second, unlike most advertising, DTC does not persuade consumers to buy a product or service. DTC encourages patients to talk to their doctors about whether a promoted medicine might be right for them. It’s a very big ask. Most of us hold doctors in high esteem. Doctors are experts. Getting patients to question their doctors requires compelling and highly credible messaging. And even then, only the most proactive patients respond to DTC’s call to action.

      But despite the heavy FDA involvement, despite the regulatory constraints, despite the relatively few patients who actually ask their doctor—the investment in DTC since the FDA finalized its broadcast guidance back in 1999 has been huge. In 2016 alone, reported DTC media spending was over $6 billion, the 7th largest advertising category.

      Here’s the point, after 18 years of DTC, with hundreds of campaigns launched and billions spent, the time is right to get out a short volume on the DTC’s best practices and most common mistakes.

      THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK deals with the most important issues along the way to effective advertising. But the main focus is the campaign itself. That’s where the real leverage is in this business. When a client buys a media schedule, the value received rarely equals the money spent. A great campaign can turn a $50 million schedule into impact worth $75 or $100 million; a campaign that’s wanting diminishes the $50 million to $40 or $30 million.

      As to how the lessons will be taught, the best teacher is always the best advertising. THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK is long on the real world, short on the abstract. We’ll learn from some of the best DTC campaigns ever created, including campaigns for SPIRIVA, ZOLOFT, CYMBALTA, LIPITOR, VYTORIN, CRESTOR, PRADAXA, LUNESTA, RESTASIS, CHANTIX, JARDIANCE, LINZESS, HUMIRA and more.

      Importantly, this is an interactive handbook. When we analyze a campaign, you’ll be able to watch the campaign. Simply click on the embedded video.

      Let me also point up that while most DTC involves multiple media, and increasingly the Internet, TV continues to get the majority investment. In 2016, over 60% of the $6.1 billion reported DTC spending went to TV; more than 60 brands got at least some TV support; and 9 had TV budgets that topped $100 million.

      That’s why so much DTC market research conducted each year involves TV. Accordingly, many of the lessons taught here are informed by TV advertising, especially when the lesson involves core issues, like brand positioning or campaign strategy.

      That said, the fastest return on DTC investment is not TV, but the Internet, especially Search Engine Marketing. This is where a DTC marketer’s best prospects, proactive patients, go to get informed before starting a dialogue with their HCP. Accordingly, we’ll draw important lessons from some of most effective Internet marketing programs. And we’ll see how the combination of TV plus the Internet delivers a whole that’s bigger, more effective, than the sum of its parts.

      Who should read THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK? Anyone importantly involved in the DTC advertising development process, but especially the brand teams responsible for executing marketing plans. One learns early in this business that they who control the advertising purse strings wield considerable influence over the advertising they get. What our clients know or don’t know about the subject invariably makes a difference.

      A few words on how to best to use THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK. The subtitle says it all, What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why. So, when you’re dealing with brand positioning, or creative strategy, or about to review a storyboard, or approve a media schedule—go to your favorite device, open up THE DTC ADVERTISING HANDBOOK, go to the relevant chapter, and take a minute or two to review the several things that count most. You’ll save many times that small effort, and increase the odds of ending-up with a DTC campaign that helps your target patients as well as your bottom line.

      The level of advertising clutter your DTC campaign must break through is unprecedented and extraordinary. It’s a make or break issue that affects every step along the way to effective advertising. Whether you’re evaluating a positioning statement or a creative brief, a launch TV campaign or a banner ad, you’ve got to consider real world clutter in order to make a good decision.

      First some data, then the lesson:

      The estimates of the number of ads we’re exposed to daily run from the hundreds to the thousands. Yankelovich Research once estimated that people living in cities are exposed to as many as 5,000 ads a day. But whatever the real number is, it’s big. For example:

      Most 1 hour cable TV programs have 5 breaks, 5-8 commercials per break, as many as 45 spots per hour.

      Between commercials

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