Nitro Digital

We are back from EyeforPharma 2010, the 5th Annual eMarketing Europe event in Berlin
Following our preparations that were long and sometimes exhausting, we finally arrived at the EyeforPharma 5th annual eMarketing Europe conference in Berlin on the 2nd March 2010 with our XXL pop up stand (thank you Kezia for your effort in designing this giant).

EyeforPharma Berlin 2010

The two day conference was a raging success, not only for the speakers, but also for us as exhibitors. We got the chance to talk to many interesting & inspiring people from the healthcare industry. We met ‘old’ friends and peers with whom we exchanged ideas and thoughts on the complexity of digital marketing solutions for the pharma industry and heard a lot of really interesting speeches. I sometimes felt like I was attending a lecture, but in a good way .

I really enjoyed all of the speeches but in particular two speakers, Meredith Abreu Ressi, VP research at Manhattan Research and Jens Monsees, Industry Head at Google who provided us with interesting first-hand ‘Health 2.0’ facts and statistics.

We learnt from Meredith:

• 82% online consumers from the UK and Germany are using the Internet to search for health related issues
• Within the EU, 74% of all HCPs use online sources for professional information and
• 1/3 of those physicians use online media weekly for health related research
• Furthermore, Facebook is one of the most visited Social Networks for health related issues

Also Jens provided us with some interesting information, namely:

• Every second, Google records 104 healthcare queries (more than any other queries)
• 87% of all US physicians and 65% of all adults living in the US are using Google for health related search
• There are 4.6 billion searches for health related keywords
• The number of search engine users doubled between 2004 and 2010

These facts demonstrate why pharma companies should utilise efficient pharmaceutical e-marketing and moreover engage and educate patients online. In this context, the most frequently asked questions were, ‘can pharma companies do it’ and ‘how can they do it’? These challenges were extensively discussed at the panel ‘working with the regulators’ with Len Starnes, Head of Digital Marketing and Sales at Bayer Schering, Ina vom Feld, Partner at Bird and Bird, Heather Simmonds, Director at Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, Pete West, Marketing Director at Wyeth/Pfizer and Silja Chouquet, CEO at whydot.com.

The fact is that Web 2.0 means something different to pharma than it does in other industries, as Aaron Uydess, Senior Global Project Manager at Novo Nordisk explained, the pharma industry is highly regulated and in most cases direct interaction with patients is prohibited. According to Aaron there is still a real need for patient education through HCPs and via the company website, furthermore it is important to make content on the company’s’ website sharable and mobile for doctors, so they can easily publish videos and content on their own blogs and websites. In this context Aaron quoted the Novomedlink website as a best practice example.

And as Pete West, Senior Marketing Director at Wyeth/Pfizer stated, you must remember the three ‘BEs’

• Be there
• Be found
• Be relevant

If you are interested in this topic and would like to discuss and get ideas for your company or brand, just get in touch with us!

As I mentioned in my earlier blog post, all conference attendees had the chance of winning a Wii and a Mario Kart game by competing against each other. And I must admit that the ladies failed at this game, I even drove in the wrong direction without noticing it

Mario Kart Wii Game

So the lucky winner was Alex Butler. Well done Alex!

I am already looking forward to the 6th Annual eMarketing Europe conference and am curious how the healthcare industry will change over one year… See you there!

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