With the turn of the New Year, I’ve just finished the rounds of the “umpteenth annual” Christmas and New Year parties that have become a real tradition with my set of friends. Actually in our busy lives we look to these traditions to set aside time to get caught up on the accomplishments, goals and other mundane news. When discussing what I’ve done in the past year, the responses were quite interesting. Specifically, it is interesting that when I mention my “Medical Marketing” column I got one of three responses:

  • a puzzled look
  • a “I’m not sure I like the idea of doctors and hospitals marketing to me” or
  • a “Great…Those weight loss advertisements and pharmaceutical commercials are bad enough. I’m getting tired forwarding through those ads when I’m catching up on my Tivo-ed shows.”

Those comments have really stuck with me and I’ve tried to figure out what’s going on to create the confusion, aversion and annoyance. I’ve got a number of hypotheses as to why the thought of medical marketing did not receive a positive reaction from my friends. Taking from further discussion with my friends and for the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on the impact of pharmaceutical marketing on the aversion to doctors, practices, and hospitals focusing on marketing.

In a nutshell, I think that medical and health marketing gets grouped into the same genre as pharmaceutical advertising purely because it is the most prominent type of health-related marketing. I think there are several things that contribute to this phenomenon:

  1. The plethora of pharma ads and their penetration into almost every aspect of our lives. TV, magazine, internet, direct mail, newspaper, NASCAR and other sporting events, — the list goes on and there is really no escape from their reach.
  2. The local nature of marketing activities of providers, hospitals, and practioners. For the most part, these individuals are not focused on garnering a national audience. Instead, they want to reach people in a finite and well-defined community around them.
  3. The growing frequency and reach of advertisements for herbal medications and supplements. My group of friends sees most of which with skepticism because they fear being the “fool” more than almost anything.
  4. The huge number of spam e-mails (not to mention spam blog comments) for medications that clog up inboxes and annoy everyone. While these are not pharmaceutical marketing endeavors. These emails do rely heavily on pharmaceutical branding efforts and brand recognition to get attention.
  5. The current trustworthiness problem of the US pharma industry.

According to the 2006 Edelman Trust Barometer report of its US respondents, the pharmaceutical industry ranks very low in their trustworthiness to ‘do what is right.” The only industries that rank lower are the media/ entertainment and energy industries.In fact the report goes on to say that in the US, the trust level of pharma industry is an unimpressive 48%.While the Edelman report tries to discuss the complexities of the trustworthiness problem, the fact remains that, according to their report, people only trust the pharma industry to do the right thing 48% of the time. It’s just really hard to spin that into something good.

I did a short little survey at work and with my friends. I asked them “What would you think about a person that is only trustworthy 48% of the time? How would you describe that person?” Some interesting responses I received were”

“If going on vacation, I’d probably trust them to pick up my paper and mail, but I surely wouldn’t want to rely on them to feed my cat.”

“Anyone under 50% trustworthy is not trustworthy.”

“Well, that person is just as likely to lie as they are to tell the truth… that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt.”

“I would never ask them for advice and if they gave it, I probably would think long and hard before taking it.”

“Actually, that sounds like my teenager.”

“Incompetent. On the short list for firing. A nuisance to all his or her coworkers.”

So… if hospitals, physicians, and practices are starting to develop a marketing plan or refine one already in existence. It is important to factor ways to differentiate yourself from the pharma industry.

I’m certainly not saying that the pharma industry is the only obstacle to public acceptance of medical and health marketing. Actually, I’ll be the first to admit that pharma is an easy target because it was really the first healthcare-related industry to strategically market. Thus, as a leader, it is the easiest to analyze (and pummel).

Thankfully, the Edelman report also states that doctors and healthcare professionals are highly credible spokespeople. The only spokespeople who are better are peers or a person like you. Here again… successful healthcare and medical marketing seems to be coming down to relationships – either having one or being perceived as having the ability of developing one that has a quality of caring, compassion and understanding.