Microsoft creates computers. Apple creates art.
When Steve Jobs set out to build the first Macintosh, he had loftier ambitions than producing a mere computer. No, he aimed to create a work of art that just so happened to provide a seamless user experience.
In succeeding beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, Jobs proved the rare tech visionary who understood that technology companies did not have to limit themselves to focusing on a product’s technical and scientific specifications.
To hear Jobs tell it, Apple’s products needed to evoke a powerful aesthetic response in their users, akin to the ones elicited by Van Gogh’s Starry Night or the ceiling of The Sistine Chapel. “Macintosh was created by a group of people who felt that there wasn’t a strict vision between science and art,” he said.
Jobs’ approach can, and should, be instructive to pharma marketers. Over the years, the supposed need for a clear dividing line between pharma’s scientific rigor and its creative marketing aspirations has been taken almost as gospel. Only through an embrace of omnichannel marketing, many forward-minded industry leaders believe, can pharma companies erase that line and truly operate at the intersection of science and art.
“The ability to orchestrate engagement across many channels is the key to making messages clear and meaningful, and truly driving actions and engagement from customers,” noted Otsuka VP, customer engagement operations Jane Urban.
Omnichannel marketing allows pharma teams to match the rapid pace of technological innovation, easing the challenge of delivering personalized marketing and educational materials. Just as importantly, by tapping the industry’s rich well of data and using those insights to inform brand storytelling and user-friendly design, omnichannel approaches evoke needed emotion.
The problem? Pharma stubbornly refuses to break with its recent marketing past. Even as the industry inhabits a post-Covid, digitally focused world, many companies still rely on the same marketing mix – think in-office rep visits, backed by print, TV and direct-mail promotion – that has historically served them well. They go about their business this way because, well, they’ve always gone about their business this way.
The limitations of this model are obvious. For instance, a field force of sales reps typically only reaches 45% of the healthcare provider market for most brands. In addition, there is typically little communication between field reps and other teams, creating a communications hodgepodge that leaves audiences bombarded by different, and sometimes contradictory, messaging.
Furthermore, with new drugs constantly entering the market, HCPs must sift through a larger selection to find the best medicine for patients. And as competition intensifies, the time frame a pharma company has to reach a prescriber with the correct medicine continues to shrink.
It doesn’t have to be like this. In a fragmented media landscape, marketing approaches that foster consistent brand messaging and personalized engagement should be the norm.
Once again, enter omnichannel.
“The objective of omnichannel isn’t to blow up the tried and true dynamics of human connection leveraged in direct promotion with sales reps,” stressed New Amsterdam Pharma chief commercial officer BJ Jones. “Instead, it’s to optimize HCP communications to deliver the right message at the right time to the right audience.”
The most successful marketers, then, are the ones crafting personalized experiences that resonate with consumers across several touchpoints. They’re the ones using data to create personalized content – personalized art, if you will.
The Two-Way Street of Successful Marketing
Much like Starry Night, effective omnichannel marketing will elicit an immediate and even visceral response from audiences of all stripes. Don’t buy it? Have a look at artful digital content consumed across social platforms – like Roche’s video series Drawn to Science, which demystifies the technology used in the company’s drug research. Developed by Dr. Simona Ceccarelli, one of the industry’s most vocal proponents of visual storytelling, it uses animation and other engaging visuals to explain complicated medical topics.
Other examples abound. Eli Lilly’s Lilly Trials blog features real life stories from patients and HCPs about clinical trials, while Novartis’ YouTube channel showcases videos on topics ranging from gene therapy to the future of pharma innovation.
These three executions succeeded because they encouraged – and maybe even challenged – marketing teams to broaden their storytelling ambitions. HCPs and patients responded in kind, joining the conversation to add their own insights and experiences.
This, in a nutshell, is why pharma is increasingly viewing data-infused and omnichannel-circulated content as a must-have, rather than the nice-to-have it once was.
“The companies who get there the fastest will experience first-mover advantage, while laggards will wonder why their multi-channel campaign gets a few clicks and no opens,” said Parker Richardson, VP of omnichannel strategy and operations at Astellas. “Omnichannel may as well be synonymous with art and science. The quicker we embrace it and learn to harness it, the better we’ll be able to serve those with whom we intend to engage.”
Has your team used omnichannel marketing to bridge the art/science divide? Drop us a note at [email protected], join the conversation on X (@KinaraBio) and subscribe on the website to receive Kinara content.
