Pharma to TV: Drop dead.

According to this BrandWeek article, Bristol Myers Squibb is “re-thinking” its use of direct-to-consumer advertising, specifically on television. And if one major pharmaceutical company is re-thinking its Direct-to-Consumer advertising strategy, then others will surely follow.

We’re not surprised. TV advertising is the black hole of advertising budgets. Advertisers could slice and dice their viewership numbers to measure the spend. It was safe, in that no one could question a product manager’s spending on TV because they all followed the herd.

Yet, according to the article:

Most pharma companies are becoming increasingly disenchanted with TV advertising and are moving more dollars into alternatives, particularly the Internet.

Their [BMS’] mantra: Move away from direct-to-consumer marketing and head toward direct-to-patient marketing. DTP focuses more on grabbing the attention of people who are already being treated by doctors, as opposed to DTC’s scatter-shot appeal to the entire population.

This is great news for online advertisers and agencies that effectively use the Internet, because unlike TV and print, you can reach very specific, very focused audiences and you can measure results real-time.

David Stern, VP-marketing at Serono, says:

“The return on investment for traditional advertising is really waning . . . the Web is where we can get a return on our investment.”

The article also quotes Jack Barrette of Yahoo! who confirms:

...dollars were already moving out of TV and into his Internet display ads and paid search formats. He said Yahoo! had received queries from the “Big 10” pharma companies in a “tidal wave of interest” in the medium.

“You have to spend $50 million to get TV to even work,” said Barrette. “Online, $10 million can make it pop.”

$10 million! For $1 million you could run traditional banner ads, targeted newsletter advertising, patient-specific web sites, patient-written blogs, multiple email campaigns, multiple PR campaigns, several pay-per-click campaigns, etc. etc.

To re-iterate, the move from television to the Internet is happening because it better targets the audience for a particular drug and is more measurable.

[As an aside, Google lists job postings for account executives and healthcare vertical managers to focus on healthcare. What does that tell you?]

Hat tip to Fierce Healthcare.