Advocacy vs Thought Leadership

There's a subtle but important difference between these two terms that can change the way you work with opinion leaders. In a meeting recently I saw this "penny drop" for a room full of experienced industry folk.

Advocacy is when a customer believes in your brand so much they'll recommend it over and above the competition to others (hence 'brand advocate')

Thought Leadership is when a truly powerful opinion leader influences the way we think about a disease

While it's nice to have brand advocates at a local level interacting with prescribers, too many pharma marketers then try and convert thought leaders into brand advocates, to the point where they start to obsess about whether the thought leader is predominantly prescribing their brand.

There are two points to be made here:

1. A true thought leader will not let themselves become a brand advocate. By doing this they lose their perceived objectivity and with that their influence. It's thought leader suicide, so save your breath
   
2. You don't actually want them to. Thought leaders can do something far more powerful (commercially for your brand) than advocates: they can change the the world thinks about a whole disease. The way we think about a disease defines which treatments are most relevant for that disease. For example, if asthma was still a disease to be treated symptomatically - what use would there be for Advair / Seretide?
   

Understanding this elevates opinion leadership to where it should be; a strategic imperative rather than a tactical message channel. It also explains two of my pet hates:

• the phrase "thought leader management" (sounds patronising and/or logistical)

• clever dicks asking what the ROI (return on investment) of working with thought leaders is. I'm OK with ROI - for tactical programmes like Reps, advertising or even advocates. But for thought leaders it's like asking what the ROI of your position statement or insight research is.

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Blogs & Pharma part 1 - Intro

So blogs; if marketing commentators aren't talking about them, they're writing them. But does this make blogs and other social media a force that pharma can't ignore? Should we take the step out into the unknown, potentially risking all sorts of backlash to become involved in this modern communications phenomenon?

Talk to anyone involved in social media and they'll look at you like an idiot if you question the impact of blogging. There were moments like this at the International Word of Mouth Conference earlier this month in Amsterdam. During one pro-blogging presentation, Dr Peeter Verlegh of Erasmus University openly challenged the presenter on what percentage of the general population could actually be involved in blogging - there was stunned silence.

Over a few posts on this fledgling blog I want to explore these questions, challenge a few assumptions and by the end see if there is a way forward for pharma, blogs and social media. I say challenge assumptions because I feel that there's an accepted wisdom building about the power of blogging that reminds me of the blind faith behind the first dot-com bubble (but then I also thought the same about that new search engine Google, so just goes to show...). At the same time, the power of word of mouth in healthcare is undeniable and social media would seem to tap into it. Let's see where we get to.... Read more....

IWOMC '07- is this where WoM is at?

Last week I presented at the 3rd International Word of Mouth Conference in Amsterdam. It was a thought-provoking couple of days with a friendly bunch of people. Good on you Nils for organising it.

Having attended last year, my key thought going into this one was:

"is it just me, or is everyone else using WoM as another media tactic, rather than a fundamentally better way of approaching marketing strategy?"

An avalanche of presentations of the various buzzmarketing agencies resoundingly confirmed the the former. I note that George Silverman also experienced this at WOMMA in the States late last year - see his insightful blog post here.

I believe in 'live and let live' for the buzz guys, but my concern is that "WoM" as a concept is getting niched as a kooky direct marketing tactic, rather than fundamental strategic shift. My presentation (download from here) followed this line of thought and showed how you can build a WoM centred communications strategy.

The good news from IWOMC '07 was that there seemed to be an acceptance that we need to move things 'upstream'.

So the questions I'm left with are:

1. Why isn't WoM being talked about in this way?
2. Who else out there (apart from George) is trying to do this?
3. How can we get this discussion going at events like WOMMA and IWOMC?
   

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My (pharma) marketing philosophy - what this blog is about

For the rest of my posts to make sense, it's important to understand where I'm coming from. So, here's my philosophy on marketing and pharmaceutical marketing.

I 'grew up' as a pharma marketer wishing I was a consumer marketer. Those guys work on brand names people have heard of, they can actually use their own product, and plenty of them get to do the ultimate in marketing glamour - TV. Try telling someone at a party that you're in pharmaceutical marketing. The eyes glaze over (or maybe even squint a little if hostile to the industry).

Not only that (or maybe because of it) as a pharma marketer you're constantly being told just how clever the consumer guys are, and being shown the latest clever ad or piece of viral marketing.

When I first moved over to healthcare advertising, these prejudices were reinforced. The consumer advertising guys have interesting trade magazines and prestigious award ceremonies in places like Cannes. There also seemed to be a lot of money going around, and you actually read about successful admen in proper newspapers.

But then, after working with the consumer guys on a few projects, I got to realise that consumer marketing was definitely no more intellectually challenging or fulfilling than pharma. In fact, selling toilet paper doesn't exactly require mental gymnastics. We'd always been led to believe that Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) was where the buzz was at. For 'FMCG' read detergent or fish-fingers; not nearly so glamorous, or interesting.

So that made me think about what sort of stuff I would like to work on; something mentally stimulating, but important - something that might even help change the world we live in a meaningful way. First up, I thought of computer and information technology, and the way that it's revolutionising everything we do. And promptly admitted that I knew nothing about it, and a lot of it looked pretty dry.

But then another form of evolving technology that is shaping our world came to mind - healthcare. This made me realise that it's not the pharma subject matter that's the problem, it's the staid, myopic view of marketing that we've always applied to it. Why should we ape the tired old ways of classic consumer marketing (becoming rapidly outdated itself) when what we have is a far more complex and interesting marketplace that requires its own approach?

"And hence", to be dramatic, "my quest was born".

Together with my business partners I've set about ripping up all the pre-conceived notions of how we should approach pharma marketing. In their place, seeking out and developing the theories, tools and techniques that work in a marketplace where the customer is rarely the end-user, and colleague recommendation (word of mouth) is the most powerful influence; not advertising or sales reps.

The result is a marketing approach that is not only unique for pharma, but I that believe in places is cutting edge across all marketing sectors. In this blog you'll find all related viewpoints to this - some from pharma, some from other industries. I'd be fascinated to know what you think of them.

Matt

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