That’s what Hitwise says, according to a recent report on search engine marketing. Online ad spending by pharma is predicted to be $2.2 billion in 2011, “up from $1.2 billion in 2008.
source: Take advantage of pharma sem: Your Rx for success. Dan Brough. Search Engine Marketing: Essential Guide. DM News. 2009
As we said the other day, we are now covering the online marketing of pharmaceutical and health products. One reason is that we want policymakers to better understand and assess the unique impact of online marketing techniques on the promotion of drugs. Here’s an excerpt from a DTC Perspectives article on the impact of digital media on pharma marketing:
“In video, this means that your target audience will consume three minutes or more of your branded content, and they will do it without being “forced.” Efficiency of the media buy improves, we see brand recall and favorability metrics increase significantly, and this more educated patient is much more likely to ask for a script. In a recent control/test survey conducted by HealthiNation, brand favorability increased by 30 percent over control and intent to ask for a script for the advertised brand doubled…Accurate and true measurement – Digital means you get what you pay for. If you are purchasing media placements to 100,000 viewers who are interested in heart disease, you get exactly that. Each view is counted and reported…”
source: DTC on Demand: The New Era of Qualified Reach for Consumer Rx Advertising. Raj Amin. DTC Perspectives. March 2010.
As CDD explained to the FTC and data protection commissioners, advances in online ad data collection, selling and targeting raise significant privacy concerns. This rapidly evolving infrastructure of user data auctioning requires scrutiny and safeguards. Here are some excerpts from jobs in the sector, which gives one a glimpse of what’s going on.
Director of Agency Development- NYC - eXelate
About eXelate
The eXelate Targeting eXchange is the world’s first and largest open marketplace for behavioral targeting data. Through participation on the eXchange, data buyers build an instant behavioral targeting function and optimize their campaign delivery, while data sellers gain insight on their audience, control over their data distribution, and build a new privacy–friendly income stream. The eXchange includes over 40 top ad network/agency buyers and dozens of leading publishers, who deliver targeting data on more than 170 million unique users each month.
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Account Manager - NYC - Netmining…
Netmining is a global provider of behavioral marketing solutions that are proven to increase conversion rates across websites, online advertising, email programs and offline sales channels. With a real-time profiling engine that understands each individual’s interests and buying propensity, Netmining enables companies to deliver highly relevant and personalized interactions across the entire customer lifecycle.
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Senior Account Manager - Social Targeting Data - NYC - Media6degrees: About Us
We are the first online advertising firm built from the ground up specifically to leverage “social graph” data. The power of this data is captured by the phrase “birds of a feather flock together.” We have mapped the social graph interactions of nearly 75 million US consumers and are the first company to offer “social targeting” which allows marketers to fully exploit the network value of every individual customer with whom they interact while also significantly improving response rates on new acquisition campaigns.
Our platform employs proprietary cookies to map the social graph. Our core data used to map the social graph has long been part of the standard Internet advertising protocols for trafficking advertisements and has been fully integrated with both Yahoo’s RightMedia platform as well as the DoubleClick Exchange and is accessible to any of the thousands of major marketers who advertise through these vehicles.
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Senior Account Executive (2 Jobs) - NYC, SF - TARGUSinfo:
Its unique identification, verification, qualification and location services enable retailers, call-center operators, Web-based marketers, communication service providers and others to dramatically increase the quality of their services and the effectiveness of their marketing. A privately held company, TARGUSinfo is headquartered in Vienna, Va. For more information, visit www.TARGUSinfo.com.
With a focus on delivering measurable, predictable results in a online environment, TARGUSinfo is defining tomorrow’s marketing standards by delivering a display advertising targeting solution to advertising networks, interactive advertising agencies, and publishers. We currently have a large cookie-based audience solution based on verified offline data assets.
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Optimization Consultant, Ad Exchange - NYC - Google
you will be responsible for working with buyers and sellers on the Ad Exchange to optimize their experience (ie. manage yield or drive return on marketing investment). You will be responsible for partnering closely with Product Management, Engineering, Sales, and Services to build models, develop new ones, apply customer specific data, and develop insights.
This week CDD expanded its work on public health & digital advertising to include issues related to prescription drug advertising and health marketing online. It submitted to the FDA, as part of that agency’s proceeding on Internet and social media marketing, comments. We are speaking on this issue next week in New York. And we will be dedicating resources via this blog and other venues on the issue.
But meanwhile we will begin by covering some of the latest developments. In our FDA comments, we raise questions about the online targeting and data collection practices of online health marketers, including the tracking and targeting a consumer by their medical “condition.” One of the companies we cited was “Everyday Health” and its “ConditionMatch(TM)” marketing system. Today, that company posted a release saying it was the “faster-growing health network.” Here’s an excerpt: GHM audience is up 93% over a year ago — to 32 million unique visitors monthly — due to growth in consumers’ appetite for sophisticated, condition-specific information on niche sites. Advertisers have followed…
One factor driving the ad gains: a precise targeting capability GHM calls ConditionMatch(TM), which profiles “in-market” consumers (people searching for specific medical and wellness information). GHM delivers three primary audience channels: Consumer Medical, Consumer Wellness, and Healthcare Professionals. The Medical Channel delivers condition-specific audiences (e.g., allergy, diabetes, depression); Wellness bridges a marketplace gap by combining fitness and nutrition sites; and HCP aggregates professional website audiences.
“Pharma and CPG brands want condition specific-audiences of scale,” said Bill Jennings, CEO of Good Health Media. “Our site partners attract more a more frequent, loyal audience than broader health destinations online. We’re able to reach people who are actively seeking specific information on partner sites and across the Internet. That’s the ideal platform.”
Loni Ding was a remarkable person. A highly dedicated award winning independent filmmaker, Loni made a wonderful series of films over the decades. Her work on the Asian American experience leaves a rich legacy of creative and moving documentaries, including on the immigration of Chinese to America [“Ancestors in the Americas”] and the Japanese Americans who served in World War II [”Nisei Soldier” and “The Color of Honor”]. She also produced the pioneering public TV children’s series Bean Sprouts. Loni played an important role in the early history of public television, including her work for “Open Studio” at San Francisco station KQED. Loni saw the unfulfilled promise of public television to serve the public interest and the arts, and she did everything in her power to make PBS a more responsible programming service.
Loni just passed away after a long illness I was told. One of her most important accomplishments was the work to establish the Independent Television Service (ITVS) during the 1980’s. She was one of our most important congressional witnesses, and lobbied tirelessly. Loni always had time to help organize and convince people that public TV needed a structural change in its funding system. The result was a unique funding organization for independent producers that has supported many important films over the years. I know Loni was also a wonderful wife and parent of two children she loved dearly. She was also a friend.
Loni Ding’s creative work–especially her films–and her political efforts–the ITVS and more–will help serve as a living memorial to a remarkable life.
Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg is the industry draw for CDT’s 2010 fundraising event. “Gold” sponsors of the “host committee” include Facebook, Google, Microsoft and AT&T. “Silver” sponsors (and there’s a long list) include Adobe, NCTA, eBay, Verizon, Intel, AOL, Time Warner Cable, News Corp., Visa, Yahoo, Comcast and a bevy of law firms that work on privacy and related issues. They include Manatt Phelps, Wilmer Cutler, Wilson Sonsoni, and Arnold and Porter.
It’s troubling–to say the least–when any consumer/public interest group takes funding from the industry/industries it is supposed to hold accountable. Conflict of interest questions and concerns need to be posed whenever the group takes a position and has funding from parties connected to the issue (think about Facebook and Google’s recent privacy problems, let alone legislation and policies now before Congress and the FTC). It’s great to have extra money. But we suggest groups “just say no” to such special interest relationships.
In its annual report for 2009, the Interactive Advertising Bureau [IAB] cites as a accomplishment that it “Lobbied extensively and proactively against several proposals— including the FTC Reauthorization Act—that would grant broad newn rulemaking powers to the Federal Trade Commission.“ It also notes that the “IAB PAC had an active year supporting many key Congressional champions of the interactive advertising industry and was able to host the first ever IAB fundraiser. The PAC begins 2010 with a healthy balance of over $55,000 cash on hand.“
As we have explained all along, the ability to collect and analyze data about us and our social networks is the “DNA” of contemporary advertising and marketing. There is a very thoughtful piece in “Metrics Insider,“ and I hope you will look at this excerpt:
“The future of advertising is not about social, not about viral videos, not about mobile, not about any new medium or any new ad unit — but about data. Those who know what to do with this will be the new kingmakers, the new rulers of Madison Avenue — or the creators of a new Avenue of media…The critical component that makes this new world work is data — not simply general research data, but data about you. This goes far beyond just behavioral targeting, to your preferences, your interests, your actions — all of the signals you send as you move through the grand stage of life. The revelation is that this new world is no longer the far-off land on the horizon — we’ve hit the beach.”
from: Death Of The Impression/Rise Of The Data Economy. Michael D. Andrews. Mediapost. February 18, 2010.
Microsoft “launched an online forum January 6 for the academic community to participate in a dialogue about policy issues relating to the technology industry,” according to PR Week. The so-called “Technology Academic Policy” [TAP] group “is aimed at journalists, Capitol Hill staffers, think tanks, and other decision makers,” explained Kathryn Neal, academic relations director for Microsoft. Academic institutions that are participating include UC Berkeley, Harvard University, Northwestern University, and Stanford Law School. Microsoft, which hired Adfero Group in summer 2009 to support the program, also created a presence for TAP on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Digg, and Facebook. Academic participants can engage in each medium, including posting videos to YouTube, noted Neal.” Adfero Group says that it helps clients “persuade the powerful.”
Microsoft is playing a game of academic catch-up to Google, which funds scholars and research to help advance it’s own interests. But there should be real independence between the academy and powerful special interests. One will have to examine closely Microsoft’s relationship with the following academic institutions aligned with the new TAP program:
“TAP Centers - The following institutions currently contribute to TAP:
As we explained to reporters, the larger issue to be addressed when discussing Google’s Buzz is the role of social media marketing and our privacy. There’s a race to “monetize” our relationships and connections–the so-called social graph. It wasn’t a coincidence that at the same time Google launched books it acquired social media marketing company Aardvark. Here is an insightful excerpt from this week’s Search Insider:
” …by building its own social tools into the growing user base for Gmail, Apps and iGoogle, Google’s algorithms will be able to see what sorts of conversations, questions or responses you offer not only through email correspondence or in a collaborative exchange on Wave, but also via Aardvark and, by extension, Facebook and Twitter. Which represents an opportunity to serve highly targeted, extremely relevant ads in ways that go well beyond the keyword search.”