Pharma Sponsored YouTube Patient Videos "Not Transparent" Says Cleveland Clinic Researcher

According to the results of two separate social media-related studies unveiled today at the American College of Gastroenterology’s (ACG) 76th Annual Scientific meeting in Washington, DC, social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube may lack patient-centered information and can also be sources of misleading information that could potentially do more harm than good (see the ACG press release here).

What I found interesting was the comment made by researcher Saurabh Mukewar, MD, the author of the second study ("YouTube: A Friend or Foe When You Are Taking Care of IBD Patients"):

“Clinicians and their patients need to be aware of misleading information posted by patients or particularly by pharmaceutical companies who often post videos to make it seem like they are coming from a patient when in actuality it is a company advertisement,” said Dr. Mukewar. “These sources are not transparent.”

I have often siad that "patient" promotional videos made by pharmaceutical companies can be mistaken for authentic patient stories. See, for example, "Method Acting for Real Patients Who Play Themselves on Pharma YouTube Channels".

Both Dr. Wolfsen and Dr. Mukewar agree that Internet and social media can benefit patients and enhance their care. But Dr. Mukewar said his findings are concerning to him since IBD patients may get misleading information via YouTube that could be harmful to their health.

Pharmacutical companies say that they must be allowed more freedom to put "credible information" on YouTube, Facebook, and other social media sites to counteract the misleading and potentially harmful information that is already out there! But here we have physicians who say that pharma companies share the responsibility for posting misleading information on social media sites.

Who are we to believe?

Angry PhRMA, Level 1: PDUFA

Yesterday I suggested a real "kick-ass" pharma-related game would be ANGRY PHRMA (see "Pharma & Fun, Not Oxymoronic? Here Comes Gamification!"). Below is shown "Level 1: PDUFA," the goal of which is to "knock down" those Senators trying to give FDA new regulatory powers as part of the bill -- or as PhRMA describes it, those "additional provisions that could create unintended burdens on the regulatory process" (see "PhRMA Statement Regarding Prescription Drug User Fee Act Reauthorization"). PhRMA specifically disagrees with REMS because it “has led to a breakdown in FDA’s review process and has eroded some of the positive progress derived from earlier PDUFA agreements" (see "PDUFA 2012 – Background From PhRMA’s Perspective").

OK, that's the boring, policy wonk explanation. Let's get down to  some serious Senatorial "butt whooping" fun!

EXTRA CREDIT: Name at least 2 Senators that PhRMA needs to work on.

I'll try and come up with more levels of play for my ANGRY PHARMA game, but I need your help. Suggest an issue that PhRMA is or needs to be angry about and who the adversaries (little piggies) are. Also, describe the pigs' fortress that the Angry PhRMA Birds must knock down.

BI's Facebook Game Syrum to be Launched "When It's Ready." Needs to Obey Privacy & FTC Laws First!

I wrote a review of Boehringer Ingelheim's (BI's) long-awaited -- but not yet available -- Facebook game, Syrum, in yesterday's post to Pharma Marketing Blog (see "Pharma & Fun, Not Oxymoronic? Here Comes Gamification!"). Today, I brought up the topic of pharma-sponsored "gamification" during the #hcsmeu chat. BI's John Pugh -- who is in charge of the Syrum project -- saw the "bat signal" that was raised when the subject of Syrum came up and he joined the conversation.

One question I asked during the chat was "@JohnPugh When is Syrum actually going to be launched? Hope not same schedule as FDA guidelines! :-)" to which John responded: "@pharmaguy Syrum will be launched when its ready, but I expect the first round of testing to be B4 the end of this year."

Oh, Oh! This sounds suspiciously like FDA's "promise" to come up with social media guidelines by the "end of the year" (ie, 2010).

So the timeline for the ACTUAL release of Syrum is sometime in 2012 (after 1st round of testing) -- maybe even ONE WHOLE YEAR after the game was announced on Facebook! Related to that, I posted this comment to the #hcsmeu chat: "Personally, I'm a little miffed at BI for promoting Syrum so far in advance of its actual launch date! All hype, no substance!"

How can BI justify announcing Syrum on Facebook (and at several industry conference presentations) a year or more before the game is actually available to be played? Hint: note the signup section at the bottom of the screen:

Of course, I signed up. I'm not sure how many other people also signed up, but is this BI's way of trial ballooning the concept? I mean, will the game be developed only if a certain number of people sign up?

John Pugh suggested that people who wish to beta test the game (me! me! pick me!) should use this form to sign up. I pointed out that the sign up form seems only for people who want to be notified when the game is launched ("Sign up below to be the first to know about the official launch or come back soon... the health of the world depends on it!").

After signing up, I received the following email message in my SPAM filter/box:

A "Syrum - Out of Office" message? Very odd! What's BI trying to do here? They are certainly not opening up to communicate with potential game players. I have NEVER received an "out-of-office" email from a pharma company! It shouts to me "We don't care very much about you." A pharma company should NEVER send an "out-of-office" reply! First of all such messages may end up ignored or, as in my case, get caught up in spam filters and never seen!

BI Ignores My Privacy Concerns and May Violate COPPA
Another point I made to John Pugh was that the Syrum site does not include a privacy policy or even a privacy statement! The "out-of-office" email message also does not include a link to a privacy statement, although there IS a link to an unsubscribe function/form.

The Syrum site also may violate US and other laws regarding Web sites that may be intended for or used by children under the age of 13 (eg, The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)). These laws do NOT allow collection of personally-identifiable information from children without the consent of parents. Since Syrum is a game site that John Pugh says is intended for "everyone," then it is also intended for kids.

I hope that BI will fix these problems as soon as it reads this post. Consider this my first beta test report!

Update (31 Oct 2011): I am happy to report that BI -- after reading this blog post -- has added this notice to the bottom of the Syrum Game promo screen: "Data collected form this web page will not be passed on to third parties. It will not be used for any other purpose than to contact you regarding your request or comment. All data will be deleted upon your request or as soon as they are no longer needed in order to contact you regarding your request or comment."

However, there is still the issue of collecting personally-identifiable information from children. BI needs, at least, to add a statement such as "This site is not intended for use by children under the age of 13."

Pharma & Fun, Not Oxymoronic? Here Comes Gamification!

Speaking of Boehringer Ingelheim's (BI's) long-awaited -- but not yet available -- Facebook game, Syrum, John Pugh, head of BI online communications, said it's about "pharma and fun.” He quickly added “This is not an oxymoron. You can have the two in the same sentence.”

The objective of the game is to "save the world, one disease at a time, by harvesting molecules (a little like Farmville) and then using them as trading cards to play against diseases (a little like Pokemon). A player must first investigate molecular compounds at a research desk before putting them to the test in the laboratory, then conduct clinical trials and, if successful, advance a treatment to market" (see the MM&M review here). You can see a Syrum "trailer" here.

BI's objective is to create a "kick-ass game," says Pugh. A game that is for everyone, not just pharma wonks -- a game that "different that people will love playing."

I can't wait to try out the game and get to the last level, which I presume is "marketing." I imagine that once I master that level, I will find a pot of gold at the end (maybe not a POT, but I did see a BAG of gold!).

Is this game -- or any other game dreamed up by pharma marketers/PR people -- really "kick-ass?" Just looking at the 1980's style graphics makes me think not. Here's an example (showing the bag-o-gold):

Looks a bit nerdy.

If you really want a "kick-ass" game, first start with a "kick-ass" subject. For example, the pharmaceutical industry is kicking ass public-relations-wise on topics such as Medicare rebates, drug re-importation, patent law reform, and FDA PDUFA. This is a kick-ass fight for survival of the industry.

The second ingredient necessary for creating a "kick-ass" game is "kick-ass" graphics. I don't have to say much about that except that BI may be limited implementing the game as a Facebook app or maybe it's a budget issue.

The third ingredient of a truly "kick-ass" game is the ability to create some havoc. Killing terrorists, enemy troops, random pedestrians, etc., is a popular "kick-ass" gaming past-time, but not appropriate for use by the pharma industry. But you got to have "kick-ass" characters actually kicking ass!

So here's my idea for a "kick-ass" game that PhRMA could sponsor: ANGRY PHRMA!

Is this a game for everyone? Maybe not. I see it as a game for busy pharmaceutical executives to play on their commute to work or while attending boring meetings. The game will adequately inform these executives about the issues and help them bond with their trade association, which is at the forefront of the fight!

The objective of the ANGRY PHRMA game is simply to have fun slinging angry PhRMA birds and knocking over those piggy houses representing anti-pharma issues.  You're not going to learn much playing this game, especially if you are playing on a small screen like an iPhone. The text would be too small! It's just mindless, fun mayhem!

Now that's a "kick-ass" game!

Pfizer's Facebook Fiasco: Chapstick Slapstick Ad Uses Woman's Ass as a Prop

The AdWeek article "ChapStick Gets Itself in a Social Media Death Spiral" caught my attention yesterday. It describes how Pfizer mishandled negative comments about a Chapstick ad image posted on its Chapstick Facebook page. Here's the play-by-play of the "death spiral" as reported by AdWeek:

"ChapStick posts weird image on Facebook of a woman, ass in the air [see photo at left], looking for her ChapStick behind a couch. Blogger is disgusted, blogs about it. Blogger tries to reply on Facebook too. ChapStick deletes her comments. Others object to the image. ChapStick deletes their comments. ChapStick's ads with the line "Be heard at Facebook.com/ChapStick" start to look foolish. People keep commenting. ChapStick keeps deleting. People get angry. ChapStick gets worried. The image isn't even that big of a deal—it's ChapStick's reaction to the criticism that galls. 'What asses,' people say of ChapStick (get it?). People start commenting about why they can't see their old comments. ChapStick can't keep up with all the deleting. Comments are getting through, and they're nasty."

Eventually, Pfizer apologized (sort of). The official Pfizer Twitter account (@pfizer_news) said: "The ChapStick ad was not intended to offend anyone & we R pulling it ASAP. Thank you to our ChapStick fans for providing this feedback". It also apologized on Facebook:

"We see that not everyone likes our new ad, and please know that we certainly didn't mean to offend anyone!" the post says. "Our fans and their voices are at the heart of our new advertising campaign, but we know we don't always get it right. We've removed the image and will share a newer ad with our fans soon!"

But then, says AdWeek, there's this "very strange" second paragraph: "We apologize that fans have felt like their posts are being deleted and while we never intend to pull anyone's comments off our wall, we do comply with Facebook guidelines and remove posts that use foul language, have repetitive messaging, those that are considered spam-like (multiple posts from a person within a short period of time) and are menacing to fans and employees."

I emphasized "have repetitive messaging" and "those that are considered spam-like." "Repetitive" and "spam-like" are pretty subjective terms that can be interpreted differently by different people. I wonder if this comment moderation policy can be found in Pfizer's secretive social media "playbook" (for more on that, see here).

Obviously, this moderation policy can be used selectively to allow only positive posts such as these "repetitive" messages currently found on Chapstick's FB page: "I ALWAYS have Chapstick with me everywhere I go.", "ChapStick is an everday part of me:)", "Chapstick and my lips are bffs.", "i always have one in my pocket!", "I LOVE CHAP STICK".

But it's not Pfizer's moderation policy that Chapstick consumers originally complained about. It's the image of a "woman, ass in the air" that compelled this sort of comment:

"Have we really become so desensitized as women that we just ACCEPT that our bodies are used as props to sell products? That women in sexually suggestive poses and naked women (google "Chapstick and Amanda Ware") are being used to sell LIP BALM? That we just look the other way and say "eh, what's the problem?" There is a problem. A big one. By sitting on the sidelines and being ok with such images, you essentially give a thumbs up to the overt sexualization of women in the media. Look around. Pay attention. If that was your daughter's rear end showcased for all the world to see, how would you feel about it? -- Tasha Burwinkle Murphy (Redmond, WA)."

Of course, not all women commenters agree:

"People have too much time on their hands if they are worried (and harassing) a company for a silly ad like this. There is NOTHING offensive about it, unless someone is looking to make something offensive out of it." -- Nicole Leigh (Chalfont, PA)

There's a long-standing tradition of using women in ads -- including most direct-to-consumer (DTC) Rx drug ads. I've pointed this out many times here on Pharma Marketing Blog (most recently here and here). Until social media, however, women haven't been able to submit comments directly to advertisers about offensive ads. And women are VERY important when it comes to social media marketing and communications.

Women and Social Media
According to a Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project survey (see here), "Young adult women ages 18-29 are the power users of social networking; fully 89% of those who are online use the sites overall and 69% do so on an average day. Looking more closely at gender differences, women have been significantly more likely to use social networking sites than men since 2009' (see chart below).




How can marketers better communicate with women via social media? That's a topic that I will explore in an upcoming Pharma Marketing Talk LIVE podcast: "How to Score With Women (as a Marketer) via Social Media." I invite you to participate and/or listen live or listen to the podcast archive afterward (here). You can also participate in the ongoing Twitter discussion using the hash tag #SMXFactor.

Channeling Steve Jobs to Solve Pharma's Innovator's Dilemma

There's a lot of buzz about pharma's current lack of innovative new products in the "pipeline" and what needs to be done about it.

"Innovation" itself is such a buzz word these days that AstraZeneca decided to sponsor an international "Innovation Survey" to find out "it means to different people and how valuable they thought it was to society" (see here).

When drug executives talk about innovation, they often use phrases like "drive value for our stakeholders and our business" as the focus of innovation.

Who are pharma's "stakeholders" and what drives value for business? Mostly investors.

Today, more than ever, pharmaceutical companies are fixated on profits and have lost the vision of the founder of Merck (George Merck) who said "We try to remember that medicine is for the patient. We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they will never fail to appear. The better we have remembered that, the larger they have been."

That sentiment sounds a lot like what Steve Jobs believed. Regarding how he turned Apple around after 1996, Jobs said "My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. The products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley [who replaced Steve Jobs as Apple's CEO for a short time] flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything" (see "Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator's Dilemma").

The book Innovator's Dilemma by Clay Christensen was on Jobs' reading list. What's interesting to James Allworth, Fellow at the Forum for Growth and Innovation at Harvard Business School, is that Jobs "solved the conundrum." Aliworth noted that the causal mechanism at the heart of the Innovator's Dilemma is the pursuit of profit. "The best professional managers — doing all the right things and following all the best advice — lead their companies all the way to the top of their markets in that pursuit... only to fall straight off the edge of a cliff after getting there," says Aliworth. By flipping Apple's priorities away from profit and back to great products, Jobs took Apple from three months away from bankruptcy, to one of the most valuable and influential companies in the world.

I'm finding a lot of writings about Steve Jobs, whose management style and vision are being studied and applied to other industries. Here are some examples related to the pharmaceutical sector:

• "A Steve Jobs Lesson for Pharma", 
• "The Essential Steve Jobs for Today’s Pharmaceutical Executive", and 
• "What Pharma Did NOT Learn from Steve Jobs"

Adapting the learnings from Steve Jobs' career to the pharmaceutical industry may even be a "hot" enough topic to warrant at least a Pharma Marketing Talk podcast discussion or a Twitter chat. Who knows, it may even be worthy of a full industry conference! What do you think?

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