Think 'smart'

Statistics and forecasts from industry experts tell us that more people use their smartphones to access the internet than their computers, but what does this mean for the pharmaceutical industry? Is it a game-changer or just another channel? What is the potential?

Some of you will be reading this article on your iPad, Blackberry, iPhone or another of the myriad of new digital devices. Smartphones are becoming increasingly popular as a communication and lifestyle device for many consumers, especially those classed as ‘working professionals’. As mobile phones, and now smartphones, are increasingly inseparable from their owners, mobile marketing offers a medium that is almost uniquely convenient. This opportunity has enraptured marketers across many industries and we are now seeing more and more companies providing an enhanced mobile experience for their customers.

Like all good marketers we need to understand the numbers and market research to help us understand and deliver tangible benefits to our business. Drawing on my years spent in digital marketing at Sky and the online gambling industry before returning to healthcare, I am in little doubt that mobile marketing should be on the radar – and preferably the to-do list – of most pharmaceutical brand teams. Although the argument that, to some extent, our industry is unusual due to a strict regulatory framework (ABPI) covering our marketing activities, we can learn from other industries, such as the financial services, who would claim to operate in a similar environment.

Making sense of the numbers
The smartphone consumer market is booming, with annual growth at double and triple digit rates across Europe, and is coupled with diminishing sales of desktop and laptop computers. These figures demonstrate a significant opportunity for mobile marketing. This opportunity was further shown with the recent announcement that Google has acquired the mobile phone assets of Motorola. This acquisition was based on the view that the digital future is about portability: with the internet and, in particular, its search engine being available and accessible across multiple devices.

Is all this relevant for pharma and what does it mean for healthcare professionals (HCPs)? Interestingly, the latest research shows greater smartphone usage by physicians in the EU5 than the general population, with access to email and internet driving their usage. Therefore, this should be a no-brainer for pharma; we need to connect with HCPs via their smartphones.

We see that HCPs are clearly using mobile technology to access the internet and for us to engage with this growing target audience means that we need to be present in this medium. How we do this clearly depends on multiple factors (including the nature of the campaign, brand, messages, etc.), but our recommendation must be that mobile marketing clearly needs to be considered as part of today’s overall marketing mix.

Leading the way
Examples of mobile marketing can range from websites optimised for smartphones, which usually means a visual design supporting smaller screen sizes, to other exciting innovations including integrated location positioning, custom smartphone applications, which are programmes designed to work on smartphones, and augmented reality, which uses the smartphone camera and supporting technology to supplement images with additional information.

Those companies noted as innovators in their own industries have embraced mobile marketing by offering websites optimised for smartphones and applications to complement their existing digital portfolio. Some examples of best practice include Domino’s Pizza, eBay, Tesco and Paddy Power, who explain that their mobile offering has delivered value by further engaging existing customers coupled with an increase in their spending, resulting in improved customer lifetime value (LTV) numbers.

We highlight Tesco, due to their smartphone application which not only allows existing customers to place orders for online shopping but also to use their smartphone further by scanning the barcode of an item in their home to add this to their online order.

As mobile marketing continues to evolve, new opportunities are being developed to exploit the technology of the smartphone for the benefit of the consumer. In this example, a number of retailers, via mobile websites and applications, offer the opportunity to show you their nearest outlet. These applications show the quickest route to early morning coffee or lunchtime hamburger according to the user’s location. In fact, Starbucks has taken this further and now includes payment and loyalty features in its smartphone application.

Another new and exciting area in mobile marketing is augmented reality, which combines different features of a smartphone to deliver an engaging customer experience.
We have quite a few examples to choose in this area and have selected Paris Avant, which combines the smartphone camera, GPS and an application. The customer points his smartphone camera at a central Paris location and images and information are superimposed on the smartphone screen, displaying Paris in 1900, a time when the city was the cultural capital of the world and home to many of the great artists and thinkers of the time.

A couple of other notable mentions include Word Lens that uses the smartphone camera to translate an image (eg, road sign, menu, etc) and Golfscape GPS rangefinder, which adds information on your camera showing the distance to the hole, location of bunkers and other information golfers would find useful.

Making mobile relevant for pharma
The pharmaceutical industry has dipped its toe in this strange new world and some companies have launched mobile components including mobile-optimised websites, barcodes and even smartphone applications. Indeed, one senior marketing manager from a large pharma company said “using mobile marketing really helped us connect with physicians at our main international congress and then build on this relationship.”

Like some of our case studies, further benefit could be accrued by putting all this together and offering our HCPs consistency in message and support that could be integrated into their mobile lifestyle. For example, a noted pharmaceutical company has mirrored the Tesco model by offering a portfolio of websites and smartphone applications to share the latest therapeutic information. This offering, launched at an international congress, proved very popular as it allowed our HCPs immediate access to a mobile website optimally designed to support their congress experience and activities. The relationship was further enhanced as the HCP returned to work with a complementary smartphone application and PC website offering more tools and a deeper content rich experience.

The other benefits that mobile technology offers to pharma include what many industry experts predict as the exciting opportunity offered by augmented reality. This is similar to our Golfscape GPS rangefinder case study but in the area of medical and product education, with HCPs using their smartphones to view anatomy, drug molecules and other aspects of medical science.

It is an exciting future for those who see the growth in smartphone and mobile marketing as an opportunity to connect and further develop our relationship with customers.

The author
Kaush Gandhi is Digital Director at Euro RSCG Life Medicom and can be contacted on kgandhi@medicomgroup.com