Pharma Not Well Equipped to Handle a PR Cyber Storm - MarketingVOX

Pharma Not Well Equipped to Handle a PR Cyber Storm - MarketingVOX: "At ExL Pharma's Digital Pharma conference last month Med Ad News asked one of the session's panelists, Earl Whipple, the senior director of communications and new media for AstraZeneca, about the Seroquel lawsuits against AstraZeneca.

In this case, internal documents unfavorable to the company have been released online, creating 'a less-than-favorable impression of how a pharmaceutical company operates its marketing initiatives and clinical trials,' Med Ad News writes.

How, Whipple was asked, could a pharma company can win back the trust of patients and consumers with such seemingly damning evidence of corporate perfidy? His answer, according to Med Ad News: 'By the overall actions of the company.'

Med Ad News didn’t buy it, for good reason. When a health provider betrays a trust it must take aggressive steps - including apologies - to regain the consumer’s high regard. The best tool for a pharma company to do that is via social marketing. Unfortunately for the industry, its forays into this space have been conservative at best, thanks to mixed signals provided by regulators as to what is appropriate.

No Widgets

Recently, for instance, the FDA told Novartis Pharmaceuticals that a Facebook Share button it used to promote a cancer-fighting drug violated its requirements to disclose side effects or risks about such medications. The letter only partly clarified the FDA's current thinking on social media, according to health-care marketing agency Digitas Health. (via the Wall Street Journal).

For instance, it said in a client note, it appears that FDA was targeting the Novartis' content - and not the user-generated comments. The Facebook widget is one of a handful of cautious attempts on the part of pharma companies to advertise their products online again after last year when FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications sent notices to 14 major pharmaceutical manufacturers informing them that their sponsored link ads were misleading because they did not adequately inform consumers about the drugs' associated risks. The result was a significant decrease in the use of sponsored ads by pharma companies.

Google, for example, created a 'FDA-Friendly' online pharma ad format, which Bayer used to market the birth-control pill Yaz. Also Tremor Media launched a video ad-banner format called Rx In-Stream, that uses a shorter-form, pre-roll video in place of the long-form video ads that typically convey safety information. An accompanying banner ad, instead, provides the data about the risks and side effects of the drug in question.

Mass Online Ire

So far the pharma industry has not been the recipient of a mass online ire experienced by such companies as BP and, more recently Cooks Source, experienced. If it does, though, it will need the tools and knowledge base to respond quickly.

Read the documents:

http://i.bnet.com/blogs/spielmans-parry-ebm-to-mbm-jbioethicinqu-2010.pdf