{"id":7084,"date":"2009-06-04T18:28:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-04T18:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pharma-mkting.com\/dtc-media-machine-is-struggling\/"},"modified":"2019-02-21T01:22:59","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T01:22:59","slug":"dtc-media-machine-is-struggling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/dtc-media-machine-is-struggling\/","title":{"rendered":"The DTC Media Machine is Struggling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I asked Dale Taylor, the President and CEO of AbelsonTaylor, the &#8220;world\u2019s largest independent medical advertising agency,&#8221; the following question via Med Ad News&#8217;s Ask the Expert page:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe majority of respondents to my \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.surveys.pharma-mkting.com\/DTCfuture.htm\">Future of DTC Advertising<\/a>\u2019 survey expect DTC ad spending to decrease in 2009 compared to 2008, which saw an 18% decrease compared to 2007. What do you think and why? What brands or categories do you think will show an increase in DTC spend in 2009?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In his response, Dale said:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Somewhere we got the idea that aggregating the opinions of people who don\u2019t know what the future holds can provide a clear picture of what the future holds&#8230; I don\u2019t really know what difference it makes anyway except, maybe to Rupert Murdock.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Well, the publisher of Med Ad News is no Rupert Murdock, but opinions of people do seem to make a difference to that publication, which made a big deal out of a survey of 104 of its subscribers in the lead article of this month&#8217;s issue (&#8220;Traditional media is alive and well (for now)&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, although Med Ad News said the study showed an &#8220;increased number of marketing professionals [who] indicated that their DTC budget for 2009 has decreased,&#8221; they gave no details such as percentage of the 104 who said that nor how much their budgets decreased.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the following chart (click for an enlarged view) shows the results so far of the survey of Pharma Marketing News\/Blog readers (N=65):<\/p>\n<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_ZiPiXEv_Q_g\/SigfprM1UQI\/AAAAAAAACig\/489mDm6EM6E\/s1600-h\/FutureDTCSpendChart.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 245px;\" src=\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/FutureDTCSpendChart.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343555758706741506\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Of course, this is not a scientific study and the respondents probably do not include many product managers who would know something about actual budgets, but there&#8217;s a certain amount of wisdom in this crowd, despite what Dale Taylor thinks. (You can take the survey and add your wisdom <a href=\"http:\/\/www.surveys.pharma-mkting.com\/DTCfuture.htm\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>IN FACT, there&#8217;s QUITE a bit of wisdom in this crowd. According to a study by Cegedim Dendrite, the percentage of marketers who say they will decrease their DTC spending rose to 58% in 2009, up from 28% in 2008. If you add up the percentages in my survey chart the result is 59%, which is about as close to Dendrite&#8217;s 58% as you can get!<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The decrease in spending would be due to budget cuts and a shift to more targeted direct-to-patient efforts,&#8221; says eMarketer (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emarketer.com\/Article.aspx?R=1007114\">Drug Marketing Drops<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Dale agrees: &#8220;I am, however, confident that many brands will be doing a lot more with a little less when they start making their DTC communications more targeted, more insightful, more creative, and less dull. Relentless pressure to improve ROI will make this inevitable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s the goal of DTC spending anyway?<\/p>\n<p>I only ask that question because of a disturbing remark made by an expert quoted in the Med Ad News article I mentioned above: &#8220;A critical mass of new patients is obviously needed to keep the media machine going. If a media budget is too low, or target audience too small, it may be extremely challenging to keep the media wheels greased.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To this person, DTC budgets are just grease for the wheels of the marketing machine. Marketing for marketing&#8217;s sake!<\/p>\n<p>This is what happens when there&#8217;s too much focus on dollars and cents ROI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I asked Dale Taylor, the President and CEO of AbelsonTaylor, the &#8220;world\u2019s largest independent medical advertising agency,&#8221; the following question via Med Ad News&#8217;s Ask the Expert page: \u201cThe majority of respondents to my \u2018Future of DTC Advertising\u2019 survey expect DTC ad spending to decrease in 2009 compared to 2008, which saw an 18% decrease [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[86,348],"topic":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The DTC Media Machine is Struggling - Pharma Marketing Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/dtc-media-machine-is-struggling\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The DTC Media Machine is Struggling - Pharma Marketing Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I asked Dale Taylor, the President and CEO of AbelsonTaylor, the &#8220;world\u2019s largest independent medical advertising agency,&#8221; the following question via Med Ad News&#8217;s Ask the Expert page: \u201cThe majority of respondents to my \u2018Future of DTC Advertising\u2019 survey expect DTC ad spending to decrease in 2009 compared to 2008, which saw an 18% decrease [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/dtc-media-machine-is-struggling\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pharma Marketing Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-04T18:28:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-02-21T01:22:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/FutureDTCSpendChart.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"245\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Pharma Guy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Pharma Guy\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/dtc-media-machine-is-struggling\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/dtc-media-machine-is-struggling\/\",\"name\":\"The DTC Media Machine is Struggling - 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