Multiple choice – Unbranded DTC advertising is a:

   a. Market expansion strategy that only benefits the category leader

   b. Regulatory inevitability that will be the death of DTC

   c. Waste of money

   d. First step toward engaging patients with your brand and generating a measurable ROI

   e. None of the above

If you answered anything other than d, then read on. Unbranded advertising is not what you think. It has the power to bring patients into your brand’s franchise in a cost-effective way – patients who might not otherwise pay attention to your message. Read the full PM360 article here: http://www.pm360online.com/f1_Unbranded_DTC_Advertising_ROI_Pharma_Healthcare_0511

Estimates have put the ROI on branded DTC advertising at about 2:1.

Properly planned, executed, measured and managed, unbranded advertising can do much better. More on the ROI metrics later, but first, here’s why unbranded advertising can work for you whether you manage a new, first-in-class brand or a later entrant to an established category.

Awareness Isn’t Enough

Branded DTC is based on the traditional consumer marketing assumption that brand awareness leads to increased sales; that awareness leads directly to action. The assumption is that just like hearing about a consumer brand on TV entices people to buy that brand at the supermarket, hearing about a pharmaceutical brand will entice them to ask for it at the doctor’s office.

Except that it doesn’t work that way. Simply increasing awareness of a disease state is not enough. There’s a big step between awareness and action in consumer behavior around healthcare – and that’s acceptance. Consumers need to understand and accept their need for treatment before they take action about a specific brand. Telling them about your brand before they’ve internalized the need for it is futile.

Making Unbranded Work for Your Brand

Using a combination of online and offline vehicles you can engage consumers to assess their risk and find out more about a disease or condition, not your brand. When they respond you need to carefully manage their journey toward acceptance. Don’t take them directly to Brand.com – they’re not ready for that. Instead, create an online presence where they can explore and assess their potential risk. Make it easy for them to link to brand information when the time is right for them.

As you manage this dialog, it’s important to understand that acceptance is not a single event, but rather a process. There are three steps on the path toward acceptance: Avoidance, Assessment, and Acknowledgement. These three phases of acceptance are defined in the Catalyst™ Brand Acceptance Model developed by Roska Healthcare Advertising in consultation with Wharton School behavioral psychologist Talia Myron-Schatz, PhD.

Find out more about the stages of acceptance here.

Where’s the ROI?

Here are two ways you can prove the ROI of this approach:

1. Isolated market testing
2. Patient value vs. patient acquisition cost

Isolated market testing

Pick a group of markets and pilot your unbranded effort for an 8 to 12 week period. Measure NRxs in those markets from the onset of the campaign through 3 months post campaign (the extended time gives patients a chance to evaluate their situation and see their physician). Compare the NRxs during that period against NRxs in non-test markets for the same period, and against NRxs in the same markets for prior periods. Did your brand grow more (or lose less) in the test markets vs. the control markets? Calculate and extrapolate the incremental revenue from the test markets and compare it against the cost of rolling out the campaign. The analysis will show your ROI from the unbranded effort.

If there are other variables at play, factor them into a regression analysis to determine the relative weight of those factors against the unbranded DTC.

Patient Value vs. Patient Acquisition Cost

This methodology compares a patient’s lifetime value to the brand against the cost to acquire a new patient. It requires that you know the average length of therapy in days for your brand and the wholesale average cost of your brand per day.

Monitor each key metric in your pilot markets – cost to get a response, conversion rate of responses to Rxs, and cost to acquire a patient. Managing your online or offline DTC efforts to the cost per response requires ongoing tweaking to the media buy, but ongoing adjustments can yield improvements of 70% or more in cost per response. Conversion to Rxs takes longer to measure, but you can do it with a combination of incentive redemptions and incremental Rxs in the test market (as measured above).

The Bottom Line

Unbranded advertising can give your brand an advantage when it comes to reaching people who are not yet ready to take action. It allows you to start a conversation and insert your brand into it after you’ve led the prospect through the assessment phase – when they’ve moved beyond avoidance and denial and they’re ready to take action.

If there’s anything I’ve missed or you want to continue the debate, leave a message in the comments or contact me directly.

By Chuck McLeester, Senior VP Planning, Metrics & Analytics