What role do digital experiences play for pharma companies looking to better meet consumer needs?
A big role, if you ask Chuck Hemann, president of Integrated Activation at Real Chemistry, and Bill Veltrie, director of Omni-Channel Experience, Strategy, and Planning at Bristol Myers Squibb. Rebecca Willumson, publisher of Fierce Pharma, asked that very question.
Customer and patient expectations are evolving—we are entering the “Amazonification of healthcare”, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated that change. In this era of patient personalization, pharma companies must adapt. Awareness tactics like linear television ads aren’t enough, and technology is increasingly at the center of these efforts.
But this change isn’t without significant challenges: the data privacy landscape is less in favor of marketers, and increasing regulations are making important patient data harder to collect.
Rebecca Willumson:
Hi there. I'm Rebecca Willumson and I'm the publisher of Fierce Pharma. And I'm here today with Chuck Hemann, president of Integrated Activation at Real Chemistry, and Bill Veltrie, director of Omni-Channel Experience, Strategy, and Planning at Bristol Myers Squibb. Thank you for joining me.
Bill Veltrie:
It's great to be here. Thanks for having us.
Rebecca Willumson:
So before we kick off, can I have y'all tell me a little bit about yourselves and your goals? Why don't we start with you, Chuck?
Chuck Hemann:
Yeah. So, as President of Integrated Activation and Real Chemistry, I oversee all of our activation services. So that includes paid media, social media, influencer services, and then I partner with our co-founders of Star Power on sort of celebrity and lifestyle activations.
Rebecca Willumson:
And Bill, how about you?
Bill Veltrie:
So, my role is really to oversee the Omnichannel Activation across brand, working very closely with multiple stakeholders at our organization. And my team really is focused on putting together story and rationale to showcase the impact that the brand is having on patients in the marketplace.
Rebecca Willumson:
So tell me, how have customer and patient expectations evolved in the current healthcare marketplace? And Chuck, we can start with you.
Chuck Hemann:
Sure. I mean, I think the trend toward the Amazonification of healthcare was prevalent pre COVID-19 pandemic. And I think the pandemic really accelerated that because we couldn't leave our homes for a significant stretch of time. So, my feeling is that patients expect the same experience from a BMS that they'd get from an Amazon, from insert name of consumer company here, and the physician experience is also evolving a little bit. I think it's not necessarily just a rep or no rep, it's a rep and digital. And so, I think those two trends are probably going to only intensify as we go forward.
Rebecca Willumson:
And Bill, do you want to follow up on that?
Bill Veltrie:
Sure. I mean, I think that it's immediacy and personalization, and we've been talking about it for many years. I don't think anybody's really totally cracked the code on that yet. But I think as consumers, before they become patients, they are built and trained, conditioned to want to have an experience that is seamless. And from a health perspective, because health has become so increasingly more important in our lives, the center of everything we do, I think the pandemic really set us off in this place where patients are now really health centric. They want those same experiences. They don't want to have a lot of odds and ends to pick up or questions. At the end of the day, they want to be able to get to the answers that are most applicable to their health and make sure that they're able to find the solutions that they need.
Rebecca Willumson:
So tell me, how are digital experiences and solutions changing how pharma companies can better meet consumer needs?
Chuck Hemann:
Yeah, so it's interesting. We were both talking about personalization and expectations that consumers, patients have of an Amazon and then a company like BMS. I'm not so sure the industry has adapted as quickly as probably those same patients and physicians would expect. We know that change within pretty much every industry, but particularly in marketing, is slow, slower within healthcare. So, some of the pivots away from big, broad awareness based tactics like linear television into more addressable formats like connected TV are happening. They're not necessarily happening as quickly as maybe they've happened in other industries. So, I think there's some work to do to continue to evolve the experiences we're building for those patients and physicians. We're not there yet. I think it's important to keep in mind though, that, like I said, the trend was happening pre pandemic, but the pandemic acceleration is something that almost no large manufacturer could potentially react to, at least that quickly.
Bill Veltrie:
Yeah. I think that for patients and physicians or HCPs in general, there's an expectation that there's going to be table stakes for every single brand. You're going to have the traditional banner ads, your traditional emails, et cetera, video assets; but I think that there's a real calling in our industry right now to differentiate our approach and really understand how we can tap those individuals with more unique touch points that are going to create action, curiosity, and drive more questions in order to provide better solutions for patients or better knowledge for HCPs to really activate them based on their digital integration or their digital touch points that they're a part of. I do feel that we are doing our best in industry to learn how to do that, but every single brand team goes through rotations very quickly. Leadership goes through transitions very quickly. We're always in an education game. And that is a big piece, I think, of what we do on a day in and day out basis is just trying to educate on the table stakes, but then also on the untapped potential.
Chuck Hemann:
This question is particularly, I think, it's really interesting because the channels exist to deliver on patient and HCP expectations. I think the technology increasingly exists to facilitate and help scale marketing in not just the U.S. But globally. I think a lot of the barriers to delivering the experiences that we're both talking about are purely organizational. And it's sort of the siloization of marketing, both within itself and within the sort of broader company from other organizations that are really critical like sales to deliver on what we're talking about. And those things are difficult to overcome, but I think they need to be overcome if we are going to get to the place where we're truly serving patients and really putting patients at the center of everything we do.
Bill Veltrie:
Yeah. I think the big infrastructure is changing in a role like mine or a team like mine, really working very closely with leadership and the brands to really break down those barriers, create the education that's needed, and really advocate for digital transformation. And I think we've been talking about this for many years. Many companies have developed centers of excellence, et cetera. Some have worked, some have failed, but I think at the end of the day, we are at a turning point in our industry where we have to become the connective tissue in order to drive the change in the digital marketplace.
Rebecca Willumson:
That's great. I'm going to shift gears just a tiny bit here. So, tell me how has the data privacy landscape changed, made it harder, easier to deliver on the consumer experience?
Chuck Hemann:
This is an interesting question that we could probably spend the rest of the day talking about. Perhaps I have a contrarian view on this. I don't know that the data privacy landscape has really impacted healthcare all that much. And I say that because healthcare marketing has always been, limited is the wrong word, but it's always been governed by regulation. And so, the notion of a CCPA and the notion of maybe a national privacy legislation or GDPR or any sort of state to state specific legislation, while cumbersome, is probably not going to be met with the same sort of level of irritation that it might in consumer and technology industries because pharma marketers are typically used to working in a regulated environment.
Will it impact very tactical things like audience sizes and ability to truly understand who we're reaching and get those insights that not just fuel targeting but also fuel creative? Sure, but we were never working in a world where we were targeting people one to one like you might see at a PNG or hitting you with an Xbox ad. So, it's an evolving landscape, but I don't think it's necessarily going to be one that's overly cumbersome for healthcare companies.
Bill Veltrie:
Yeah, I think you hit on some good points. I think that for sure we have been conditioned in our industry in order to work within the parameters of privacy. And let's be honest, nobody really wants to share any more than we need to with anyone else, regardless if you're a patient or not a patient. But going back to our earlier question, really thinking about personalization and the ability to deliver unique experiences to engage people differently, whether they're a consumer or a patient, I think that I always play with this idea in my mind of if these legislations were to be pass and it ends up happening, what happens five years from now to the consumer experience?
And is there going to be potentially regret around the amount of privacy and the chokehold that would be put upon marketers in our industry or externally? And will the consumer ultimately want to relinquish some of that privacy hold, in order to create a more lucrative experience for them, especially because today they're in that experience. So, they're already experiencing something that's meant for them, and then you start to add privacy on top of it removes a lot of that uniqueness and we go back to that spray and pray approach a little bit where every bit of marketing message is just meant for everyone who wants to see it. And I really do think that consumers, patients, HCPs will all start to see the vagueness in that and maybe will want to ask and require that it becomes unique again. So, history repeats itself. I think we'll definitely revisit privacy for many years to come.
Chuck Hemann:
I'm hopeful that the drumbeat of legislation really does spur a dialogue within the industry about delivering on a true value exchange. You are going to give us data, we are going to give you a better experience or something that helps you manage your something because I think the most of the privacy legislation is rooted in making sure that data is not abused. And then secondarily, making sure that there is a true exchange of value between collector of data and the person who's sort of giving their data over. I think that conversation is happening, but I think it needs to accelerate, especially when we're building experiences that are increasingly digital. We're asking something of that patient or physician and we need to give them something back, and I don't think content is enough. There needs to be something else beyond that.
Bill Veltrie:
Yeah. I mean, a few bad apples ruined it for the bunch. And right now, I think we need to figure out a way to work with government in order to regulate and make sure that that abuse doesn't happen again. With knowledge comes power, and unfortunately people have abused that. And I think we're all in the same mindset that at least in the healthcare industry, we're dealing with patients who are dealing with life changing treatments and conditions. So, we have to be very sensitive and provide tender love and care with everything that we do, and that definitely is going to include protecting their privacy where possible, but not without potentially sacrificing the uniqueness or the delivery of integrated experiences for them.
ebecca Willumson:
Absolutely. Well, I think that feels like a great place to stop. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. I really appreciate the conversation.
Bill Veltrie:
Thanks again for having us.
Chuck Hemann:
Thanks.