Opinion

Adapt or perish.

Adapt or perish. The law of nature could be applied to marketing and branding in the coming decade. The Internet has changed forever the way consumers shop and that includes healthcare and prescription drugs. While the debate over the healthcare bill ranges in both houses of Congress the pharma industry may have to anti up an additional $20 billion at a time when blockbusters are harder to come by and when costs of new drug development are increasing.

Some of the predictions for the drug industry in 2010 from my presentation 

There are a lot of people, most agency people, who believe that social media is the answer to the DTC marketing funk but that view is both shortsighted and myopic. Social media does have a place in an overall marketing strategy but the key to successful DTC marketing is going to be a very tight integrated strategy with marketing functions aligned around consumer/patient touch points. 

The days of big marketing launches and budgets are over but unless pharma makes an investment in new marketing and new media they will waste a lot of money and their accountability will suffer.

Download my presentation on pharma marketing "Where do we go from here" here.