October 15, 2013, Philadelphia, PA: Today, at the end of Digital Pharma East’s Mobile Day, Pharmaguy (aka John Mack) presented the 4th Annual Pharmaguy Social Media Pioneer Award to the Roche (Italy) Digital Academy Team and its leader Davide Bottalico, MD, Digital Marketing Manager. Denis Dina, Digital Strategic Planner at Roche, accepted the award on behalf of the team.
The Roche Digital Academy Team members are identified in the following photo:
Due to personal reasons, Davide could not make it to Philadelphia to accept the award himself, but he and the rest of the team will formally accept the award via live webcast tomorrow.
“The Italian Digital Solutions Team Mission is to enhance Roche’s Digital Culture and to increase the adoption of innovative ways of communication,” said Davide in a personal communication. “We want to populate the commercial marketing environment with a wave of non-promotional digital initiatives to build a strong two-way relationship with our stakeholders. We opened the first Pharma affiliate Youtube channel in Italy and we’ve created the first Pharma Digital University Master in Europe, acknowledged by Mckinsey Agency as a Outstanding Best Practice, involving all of Roche marketeers in Italy. We believe that’s a giant leap for a pharmaceutical company.”
“This year, I wanted to recognize pioneers who are working within their companies to educate their colleagues about digital and social media marketing,” said Pharmaguy during the award presentation. “I was fortunate enough to be invited by the Roche team to present at the Digital Academy where I was able to see how well it worked.”
For more information about the Roche Digital Academy, please read “Graduation Day at Roche Digital Academy: What’s Next?” Also, see the video below in which Davide is interviewed on Italian TV:
As in past years, this year’s Award recipients were chosen solely by Pharmaguy based on his evaluation of merit. Input, however, was solicited via an online survey that helped Pharmaguy discover pioneers and influence the decision. Nearly 100 responses were collected. The top three choices (among 25 contenders) are shown in the following pie chart of the survey results:
Obviously, survey respondents — 67% of whom are based outside the U.S. — overwhelmingly chose Davide. Other SM Pioneers such as Amy O’Connor, Director, Digital Government Affairs at Lilly, and the voice of the LillyPad blog, as well as Lisa Flaiz, Group Product Director, Digital Marketing at Janssen/J&J were also favored by survey respondents. You can learn more about these and other Pioneers here and here and in future posts and podcasts by Pharmaguy.
Here are some comments from survey respondents about Davide and the Roche Digital Academy team:
“Davide deserves the award this year because he is a true innovator. The Roche Academy in Social Media in Italy is an impressive effort to increase the knowledge base about digital in the company. The employees have benefited from his hard work and so has Roche.”– Jeordan Legon, Head of Internet and Social Media, Roche.
“[The team] deserves the award for their foresight and vision [in creating] the digital Roche Academy [within the] context [of a rather conservative] Italian pharmaceutical [industry].”
“The Roche Digital Academy in Italy [is] a success story that is now being replicated in other countries.”
“Davide is one of the most creative and energetic colleague I ever met. In addition, I learned a lot working with him.”
About the Award
Instead of recognizing specific pharma social media sites or campaigns, why not give kudos to the pioneers within the pharma industry who have lead the way? We can learn more from how these pioneers overcame the obstacles to launch social media projects or promote social media than from the end result – even if the end result is flawed. Marketing campaigns and Web sites come and go, but pioneers move on to new positions and continue to spread their influence far and wide. Pharmaguy has recognized specific pioneers for the past three years by handing out the PHARMAGUY SOCIAL MEDIA PIONEER AWARD — the coveted Hawaiian shirt — at the Annual Digital Pharma East conference. Download this PDF version of a Powerpoint Presentation that recognizes all the recipients of this prestigious award.
