Verilogue Study: Does Higher DTC Spend Result in Positive Patient-Physician Conversations?

HORSHAM, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With Plavix’s gurney on the golf course, Cialis’ twin bath tubs and Ambien’s rooster in the office, many drug commercials make for great water cooler conversations but do they translate into more conversations in the physician’s office? And if so, are those conversations positive or negative – improving disease awareness and brand requests, or raising concerns around fair balance statements and side effects?

“Do you do a lot of patients with fibromyalgia? That's how I found about a neurologist when I seen it on TV for that Lyrica. And they sent me some stuff in the mail.”

As pharmas continue to make significant investment in DTC, a recent study from Verilogue revealed that the biggest DTC budgets don’t always result in positive pull-through – or pull-through at all – in the physician’s office. From this analysis, Verilogue derived three key recommendations for how pharmas can convert DTC investment into positive patient-physician interactions.

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Verilogue’s analysis tracked brand requests coupled with a reference to specific promotional campaigns across 12,500 doctor-patient conversations from 2008 and covered 20 disease states and 46 different branded prescription medications. Overall, DTC pull-through in conversations in the doctor’s office is low – 3% (n=392) – and specific patient requests for advertised medications are even lower – .002% (n=23). Most significantly, the most frequently pulled-through brands from Verilogue’s database fail to align with the brands with the biggest DTC ad spend:

Top DTC Spenders 2008					2008 Ad Spend					Most Referenced DTC brands
Advair					$186,445					Boniva
Plavix					$180,646					Enbrel
Cymbalta					$171,591					Humira
Lyrica					$150,911					Reclast
Ambien					$146,852					Detrol LA/Gardasil
Source: TNS Media Intelligence (2009); Figures do not include Internet spending

Brand analysis: How does DTC come up in patient-physician conversations?

Most of the time, DTC is referenced by the physician to try to increase patient acceptance for already-chosen medicines. Unaided (spontaneous) patient mentions or actual patient requests for medication are rarer. Regarding five of the top DTC brand spenders of 2008, here is how their DTC campaigns influenced the doctor-patient conversation:

1) Advair
Patients most often brought up side effect concerns arising from fair balance statements in Advair TV commercials; for instance: “I saw on TV that Advair can cause pneumonia in some patients.”

2) Plavix
Although frequently mentioned and discussed by physicians, Plavix’s DTC campaign was not mentioned by patients in Verilogue’s database.

3) Cymbalta
This is the most mentioned DTC campaign out of the five top spenders. Approximately half of the patients expressed positive sentiment about the ad (e.g. they reflected on other depression symptoms, for instance: “That commercial they have out showing depression and how it affects everything else. It's not just that person that feels that way. Your whole family that's around you.”), while the other half expressed negative sentiments (e.g. “No, I don't want to take Cymbalta. And I don't like the commercials, and plus I'm on Zoloft and that's it. I don't want any more of those drugs.”)

4) Lyrica
The main outcome of the campaign was increased awareness about fibromyalgia in addition to the brand. (e.g. “Do you do a lot of patients with fibromyalgia? That's how I found about a neurologist when I seen it on TV for that Lyrica. And they sent me some stuff in the mail.”)

5) Ambien
This is the most likely to be requested out of the top five spenders. However, like Advair, patients commonly expressed side effect concerns arising from fair balance statements in Ambien TV commercials, both positive (e.g. “But I saw where it is Ambien that helps you get to sleep and stay asleep. I saw the commercial for it. You think that's a good one for me?”) and negative (e.g. “Yeah, I saw the commercial. I think it's, uh, Ambien that says you might go out and eat and not remember. I thought great all I need.”)

DTC Recommendations: How can pharmas get the most bang for their buck?

Verilogue’s study revealed three key recommendations for every pharma in creating effective DTC ads:

1) Validate patient experiences
In order to drive greater patient awareness and more robust, meaningful discussions about a disease, akin to Cymbalta DTC pull-through, pharmas should structure DTC to validate patient experiences with health conditions. Use DTC as a tool to engage patients in constructing the meaning of – rather than simply mirroring experiences with – a health condition. Tactics to support such a strategy might go beyond traditional TV spot advertising to include embedded marketing where health conditions and treatments are woven into the lives of television/film characters, among other relevant tactics.

2) Better prepare physicians for the fair balance fight
While there’s no way around the regulatory mandate for fair balance statements, pharmas can better prepare physicians to address patient side effect concerns arising from DTC promotion. This might include providing physicians with tools (visual aids, stories/narratives, etc.) to put side effects into perspective by couching potential side effects in incidence scales/descriptions or in risk-benefit scenarios.

3) Connect meaningfully with patients
The most frequently pulled-through DTC campaign was Boniva’s “Rally with Sally,” which employed a well-known and trusted “friend” to deliver messages to the targeted middle-aged woman audience. This tactic was markedly different from tactics in other campaigns where messages are delivered by physicians and actors portraying patient family members, for example,“I know [Boniva]. Yes. Sally's on the commercial.”

For more information about this study, visit www.verilogue.com.

About Verilogue

Verilogue (www.verilogue.com) is the first health care market research company to uncover, analyze and deliver nationwide insights derived from naturally-occurring dialogue between patients and physicians. With its patent-pending Point-of-Practice™ database and technology system, which digitally records real-time conversations between patients and physicians, Verilogue is able to capture critical information at the point of care, while maintaining patient and physician confidentiality. The insights gathered from these conversations, analyzed by Verilogue’s team of linguists, statisticians and marketing experts, enable pharmaceutical and health care companies to gain a deeper understanding of patient and physician perspectives, help shape conversations that affect health care decisions, identify the most effective methods and tools to reach patients and drive the development and improvement of new and existing treatments to ultimately improve patient care.

More than 25 pharmaceutical companies have partnered with Verilogue to gain actionable insights from its database containing 35,000+ unique physician-patient conversations and corresponding patient charts across 50+ therapeutic categories. Founded in 2006, Verilogue is a privately-held company headquartered in Horsham, PA.