Novo Nordisk is Back on Pinterest with Patient Stories

Novo Nordisk is back on Pinterest! Recall that Novo “de-pinned” all its images a few days after I first discovered them on Pinterest (see “Pharma Pinterest Update: Bayer US Pins, Novo Nordisk Depins!“). Novo now has 3 “boards” and 15 images on the site.

The most interesting “board” is the one devoted to “Patient Stories.” The images pinned to this board link to videos that feature narratives spoken by real patients who suffer from various forms of diabetes. Here are the images:

NOTE: Novo is smart to use videos that are viewable on iPhones and iPads. In a previous post I noted that Janssen Uses Digital Storytelling, Animation to “Bring Prescription Medicine Labeling to Life.” But Not iPhone or iPad Life!

This, I believe, is a very good use of Pinterest by a pharmaceutical company and I expect others to follow Novo’s lead. I am sure, however, that everyone is waiting to see what mischief will befall Novo. So to hurry this process along, I did two things:

• I reported one pin to Pinterest and “complained” that it lead to a “drug site.”
• I added a comment to another pin asking Novo if the patient was paid to participate in the video.

I’m a trouble-maker, I know. But someone has to test pharma’s use of Pinterest. Let’s see if they pass the Pharmaguy Stress Test.

Currently, there is a lot of worry about spammers using Pinterest. Spam pins, for example, link to pages that only contain Google Adwords. Pinterest is trying to deal with this, but many people, like myself are becoming victims of their over zealousness.

Every one of my pins that has a link in the comment section is “blocked” by Pinterest when users click on the link. Pinterest says that the pin has been “reported” as being spam or leading to “objectionable content.” All the links are to this blog.

I doubt that Pinterest has bothered to investigate “reports” to determine if they are legitimate or not. They are simply “blocking first and asking questions later.” Actually, Pinterest doesn’t even tell you that you are being blocked and they certainly haven’t asked me any questions about whether or not I am a spammer.

So, I am testing Pinterest by reporting one of Novo’s pins.

As I mentioned in the previous post cited above, comments are Pinterest’s Achilles heel as far as pharma companies are concerned. It’s as easy to make comments on Pinterest as it is on Facebook. We have seen how pharma has run away from Facebook because comments cannot be turned off. Will the same happen with Pinterest?

Meanwhile, you might be interested in taking the following survey. Afterward. you’ll be able to view a de-identified summary of results: