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The Art of Advertorial

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[i'm glad that places like RedFlagsWeekly.com read links from all over.

This article from " Pharmaceutical Executive " , a trade magazine for the

pharmaceutical industry, describes the tactics they use to market to

doctors. At least they're honest. Perhaps that makes it all the more

unsettling. It certainly made my stomach churn. --David]

 

The Art of Advertorial

They look like articles, but they work like ads -- and they're crucial in

conditioning the market.

May 1, 2004

By: Charlene Prounis

Pharmaceutical Executive

http://www.pharmexec.com/pharmexec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=99422 & pageID=1

 

In today's cluttered marketplace, it's not only important to tell your

audience about your product, but to get them to anticipate it. There are

few better ways to do that than a well-timed, well-placed advertorial.

 

Certainly, a market that's knowledgeable and anticipates a new therapy is

more important than ever. With increasing pressures for companies to

maximize product lifecycles, advertorials are one way for companies to

increase uptake for their therapies­particularly biologics, which represent

vastly new and more complex approaches to disease.

 

" There is every indication that companies are trending more and more toward

educational rather than promotional materials, " says Robert Osborn, senior

vice-president, magazines, at Dowden Health Media and a past president of

the Association of Medical Publications. " The Office of the Inspector

General makes it appealing to pharma companies to focus on education. "

 

This article outlines what advertorials are, highlights how companies

should use them, and explains how to evaluate the tactic to determine if it

is right for the company's brand.

 

By Definition

 

An advertorial is simply an ad that is designed to deliver the experience

of reading an article. In the pharma industry, companies use advertorials

to convey sound bites of science that educate a target audience of

physicians about specific aspects of a disease and its management in new

and different ways.

 

Beyond the design, advertorials differ from typical ads in that they are

based in education and are scientifically rigorous, often citing clinical

studies and information, rather than hard-selling a product. Companies

often use advertorials as part of their prelaunch marketing mix, and

therefore don't include the product name. But that's not to say that the

advertorials aren't branded­quite the contrary. Well-crafted advertorials

create the drug's prelaunch messaging, which evolves into its launch

messaging, and as such are part of the foundation of the brand. Therefore,

companies should take time to consider the visual elements and messages of

the advertorial, which in the long term, will help to drive home messages

that will eventually be tied into a comprehensive brand promotion.

 

 

Prime the Market.

 

Within the prelaunch category, companies can use advertorials to achieve

several goals. A review of 40 advertorials (that ran from January 1995 to

June 2003) obtained from 253 journals under 60 medical titles­including

general, popular, and specialty journals­revealed four primary messages

that pharma companies aimed to convey when using the medium. Specifically,

companies used advertorials to:

 

* show relevance of a new therapeutic agent's mechanism of action by

explaining its relationship to the disease process

* build awareness of a disease state in anticipation of a new therapeutic

class

* create an urgency to treat diseases earlier and more aggressively

* address the need for new treatment options that improve quality of life

for underserved patient populations.

 

Explain the mechanism.

 

Advertorials that fell into this category aimed to establish a new

understanding of the etiology or progression of a disease and set forth the

premise that new drugs under clinical study would specifically target the

proposed pathology. Of the advertorials analyzed, companies used this

approach most often, particularly for immunologicals, to explain the new

science to physicians. (See " Across Categories. " )

 

 

Case in point: the advertorial that Biogen developed two years before

launching Amevive (alefacept), which would become the first FDA-approved

biologic to treat psoriasis. Because physicians had traditionally managed

the disease using standard oral agents, Biogen needed to educate physicians

about a new treatment paradigm that would allow them to address the

underlying immunologic causes of psoriasis­T-cell activation. So the

company took out a three-page unbranded advertorial, " Looking Beneath the

Surface, " in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, which

underscored the need to treat psoriasis at the cellular level, at the cause

of the problem, to provide long-lasting remission. That way, when Amevive

was approved, physicians understood the benefits of long-term management of

the disease.

 

In the therapeutic area of oncology, Genentech ran advertorials

highlighting the role of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) . In

doing so, the company established an educational platform for the reader in

understanding how Avastatin (bevacizumab), which works by inhibiting VEGF,

helps fight the disease in patients. Those advertorials were similar to

Biogen's in that they had a primary focus on pathogenesis and introduced

new therapeutic modalities that use a novel mechanism of action to target

and treat the underlying cause of the condition.

 

Companies can also include language in these types of advertorials that

represents their commitment to delivering a scientific explanation about

disease progression and discovering novel therapeutic options to treat that

condition. Alternatively, companies can use corporate branding to express

that same idea.

 

Build awareness.

 

Because this approach highlights improvements above and beyond those

offered with current treatment options, companies commonly use this type of

advertorial to increase the awareness of a condition and present the next

generation of therapeutic options.

 

Merck used this tactic in 1995 when it debuted its advertorial in support

of soon-to-be launched Fosamax (alendronate) for the treatment of

osteoporosis. Indeed, Fosamax represented a major advance in the management

of osteoporosis, and Merck used the expanded space advertorials offer to

educate physicians about the prevalence, seriousness, and the need for

appropriate treatment of the condition.

 

Advertorials that follow this approach can be considered almost " refresher "

courses because they give the basic facts about the disease. Roche's " The

Art of Influenza Management " advertorial is a classic example with

dedicated sections on awareness, recognition, and treatment of influenza.

Physicians are offered an entire snapshot of a disease and treatment

options, both current and upcoming, in a two-page spread.

 

By increasing disease understanding, these advertorials also lay the path

for improved treatment. For example, Lilly ran an advertorial to help

physicians build awareness of, and better recognize, the signs of

depression. With the headline, " We're not re-inventing it. We're just

taking a closer look, " the advertorial intends to redefine the symptoms of

depression to include physical as well as emotional symptoms. In doing so,

the company is educating physicians about psychosomatic illnesses and, in

effect, expanding the market for treatment

 

Create urgency to treat.

 

Companies use this type of advertorial to encourage physicians to treat

diseases earlier and more aggressively. In general, they address categories

that are underdiagnosed or undertreated by the medical community.

 

The approach is exemplified by Aventis' " Deep Vein Thrombosis: A Major US

Health Crisis " advertorial run in 2002 and 2003 for Lovenox (enoxaparin).

The advertorial aimed to instill an immediate sense of hurry by including a

patient case study that reported a woman's unexpected death from a

pulmonary embolism.

 

Another example is the series of advertorials Lilly created that aimed to

increase the early identification of sepsis. Within this series, Lilly

provided the target audience with information that supported the need for

early and appropriate treatment, then explained the cascade of events that

may be responsible for the condition. These advertorials also provide the

audience with an immediately useable tool­a table of identifying

criteria­that guides the early identification of sepsis.

 

Advertorials within this category also tend to use dramatic and alarming

statistical data to emphasize the commonality and burden of the condition,

thereby establishing a need for immediate action, such as early diagnosis

and initiation of appropriate treatment. For example, Wyeth used a list of

startling statistics to convince healthcare professionals, who previously

didn't consider obesity a disease, to evaluate and manage the condition

appropriately.

 

Improve quality of life.

 

This category encompasses several different types of unmet therapeutic

needs. For example, it can be used to increase the awareness of an

underserved disease category—disease states that are grossly

underdiagnosed, undertreated, or inadequately treated. Or—more

commonly—this advertorial approach is used to create a need to treat

conditions that negatively affect lifestyle and impact patients' quality of

life.

 

This category shares many commonalities with advertorials that create an

urgent need to treat. For example, Pharmacia's advertorial for overactive

bladder (OAB) demonstrated that despite its high incidence rate—higher than

that of Alzheimer's disease—patients, and sometimes even healthcare

professionals, do not talk about the condition. That silence only serves to

keep the disease stigmatized, undiagnosed, and untreated. The advertorial

also went to the next level by saying that when the disease is treated, it

is done so with undesirable and poorly tolerated therapies. Through the

advertorial, Pharmacia let the healthcare community know that patients

should not have to " live with it " or accept overacive bladder as a normal

part of aging, but rather to think of it as a condition that can be treated

with well-tolerated medications that are " coming soon. "

 

Amgen/Wyeth also created an advertorial that acknowledged the fact that

ankylosing spondylitis is inadequately treated and in need of new therapies

that can address specific symptoms.

 

Although companies typically use advertorials for pre-launch activities,

marketers may decide to run them after launch as well. Novartis, for

example, continues to run its Zelnorm (tegasarod) advertorial to educate

physicians about the symptoms and severity of the irritable syndrome so

that they will increase diagnoses of the disease.

 

 

Decide, Then Develop

 

There are few hard-and-fast rules for developing advertorials. One rule of

thumb, however, is that the more educational and balanced the copy is, the

more likely it is to hold the reader's interest and attention.

 

That doesn't mean that marketers should squeeze as much copy as they can

onto a page­too much text, and the message will be lost. Companies can

improve the readability on full-text pages with graphs and pull-quotes.

Advertorials are like any other ad, and will only get a fast glance if they

fail to pull the reader in. In addition, companies should ensure that they

match the colors, typography, and images on advertorials to subsequent

communications. That's because, like other prelaunch activities,

advertorials are a step along the pathway of product branding.

 

Marketers can determine if an advertorial is worth their investment by

asking the following questions. A positive response to one or more

indicates that an advertorial may be worthwhile.

 

* Is there a new understanding of the disease process that may lay the

foundation for the introduction of more targeted therapies?

* Does the company have a new message regarding a specific disease-state

pathogenesis?

* Do healthcare professionals need to be made more aware of a given disease

or treatment option?

* Is there currently a lack of appreciation or understanding regarding a

given condition?

* Are there new efficacy or safety benefits that healthcare professionals

need to be made aware of?

* Is there a reason to establish a compelling sense of urgency?

* Does the product address an underserved need?

* Is there a lack of social acceptance about a given condition?

 

Companies should ensure that advertorials follow either the publishers'

guidelines­or the guidelines of the American Society of Magazine Editors

(ASME)­which many major publishers adhere to. Otherwise advertorials may be

perceived as editorial, and publishers may refuse to run them.

 

" When an advertorial cannot be distinguished from editorial, companies run

the risk of losing the readers' trust, " says Peter Murphy, former division

director of advertising sales and marketing for the American Medical

Association and now vice-president and general manager, primary care group,

for Advanstar Communications. " A publication has two customers­the reader

and the advertiser. As publishers we have to maintain the trust with

readers because that's what makes them come back to us on a regular basis.

If we can deliver the reader, then we can deliver the exposure the

advertiser is interested in. "

 

Advertising agencies should already be intimately familiar with the ASME

guidelines. However, the most salient points include:

 

Content.

Advertorials should be sufficiently distinct from the magazine's editorial

material so readers will not confuse editorial pages with sponsored content.

 

Sponsorship declaration.

Each text page of a special advertising section must be clearly and

conspicuously identified as a message that has been paid for by

advertisers, typically by including the word " advertisement, " which should

appear near the center of the top of every page containing text, in type at

least equal in size and weight to the publication's normal editorial body

typeface.

 

Layout.

The layout, design, typeface and literary style of advertorials should be

distinctly different from the publication's normal layout, design,

typefaces, and literary style.

 

Magazine's brand.

In general, the publication's name or logo should not appear as any part of

the headlines or text of such sections, except in connection with the

magazine's own products or services.

 

Placement.

Advertising sections should not be placed adjacent to editorial material in

a manner that implies editorial endorsement of the advertised product or

services.

 

No editorial involvement.

The names and titles of editors, editorial staff members, and regular

editorial contributors should not appear on, or be associated with, special

advertising sections for their own publication, for other publications in

their field, or for advertisers in the fields they cover. Nor should

edit-orial staff members work on projects prepared by the publisher for one

or more advertisers.

 

Editorial review of ad pages.

In order for the publication's chief editor to have the opportunity to

monitor compliance with these guidelines, material for special advertising

sections should be made available to the editor before publication, in

ample time for review and to recommend necessary changes.

 

 

Break Through the Clutter

 

Typically, companies should introduce advertorials to the target audience

early in the prelaunch phase, possibly as early as two years before launch.

They should run them based on the same principles of other media

schedules­deciding what levels of reach and frequency they want to obtain

among physicians and spending appropriately.

 

Pharma companies can view the tactic as part of both educational and market

development activities. As such, support through an advertising campaign

and medical education efforts can perpetuate the momentum created by the

advertorials.

 

" Advertorials allow companies to deal with a complex subject, which is

similar to sending a letter to doctors, " says Dowden's Osborn. " However,

while we see promotional materials appear in doctors' mailboxes by the

jillions, relatively few advertorials are run in journals. If I had a

complicated message, putting it in the journal is going to have a high

degree of impact because it will be one of the few in the issue. "

 

Because they are only one component of the brand's overall communication

plan, it is difficult to determine their discrete and exact impact. For the

most part, measurement of advertorial effectiveness falls into the category

of attitude and usage changes over time, especially when used as part of

the pre-launch marketing mix. Marketers can judge the effectiveness through

ad studies or market research.

 

Advertorials are effective at breaking through the clutter because " they

are the solution for companies that don't want to undergo the peer-review

process, yet still want to promote a message, within a journal or other

literature, that their target customer is planning to read, " says Carol

Bak, director of journal programs at Lippincott Williams & Wilkens Healthcare.

 

Indeed, the evaluation used for this article shows that companies' use of

advertorials has become more pronounced in recent years.

 

" In the 1990s, very few advertorials were run, " says Advanstar's Murphy.

" They've just come back into vogue at the end of 2001 and beginning of

2002, and I believe that form of advertising is on the increase. "

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