Earlier this month, The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases announced the launch of its END7 campaign, which focuses on eliminating seven Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) by 2020. Working in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The World Health Organisation (WHO) and 13 pharmaceutical companies from the United States, United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates, the campaign aims to eliminate lymphatic filariasis, trachoma, and infections caused by three soil-transmitted helminths, schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis.

To aid the initiative, pharma companies have donated pills to treat these NTDs. Novartis in particular has made headlines in the news by extending its commitment to help achieve the elimination of leprosy in partnership with the WHO.

The campaign has been promoted primarily through Facebook and the Global Network website.  The Facebook page has gained an impressive 800 fans in less than two months and features success stories, photographs and campaign videos as well as a real-time donation counter.



The welcome page also features an animated video entitles ‘Our Mission in a Minute’, which you can view below.

Are you looking to launch a condition awareness campaign? Nitro Digital can help you! Call us on 0844 450 5545 or email us at info@nitro-digital.co.uk. To find out more about our work, check out our pharma marketing services.

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1. Facebook Timeline for all

On Tuesday, Facebook announced that Timeline will soon be activated for all users.

Facebook Timeline was introduced last September at the annual f8 conference in San Francisco. In December, Facebook began giving all users the opportunity to switch over. All you had to do to get Facebook Timeline was click the ‘Get Timeline’ button on the Introducing Timeline page, rather than going through the multi-step process of creating a developer account.

Facebook Timeline, for those of us already using it, has meant a whole lot of changes and new features. Timeline neatly packages your life events in the form of photos, status updates and wall posts.



Will you miss the old Facebook profile? Let us know by commenting below.

2. Twitter to censor content in some countries

Twitter is giving itself the right to withhold content in specific countries, while keeping that content available for the rest of the world, the company announced Thursday.

Until now, the only way for Twitter to censor content was to universally eliminate it from the site. This change means content deemed inappropriate by a specific government can be withheld locally, explains a blog post called “The Tweets Still Must Flow.”

If and when content is withheld, affected users will be notified of either an account or tweet’s censorship.

3. YouTube changes again

Building off its homepage redesign in December, YouTube is rolling out design updates to other aspects of its site.

The changes include updates to the Browse page, Video Editor and Video Manager and align with the overall rebranding that Google has pushed out to the majority of its sites and products.

The Browse page now boasts a cleaner design with a focus on discovering new channels and videos. YouTube displays the most viewed videos as well as recommendations based on your past viewing habits.

4. Twitter Lets Employees Loose at Hack Week

Twitter announced this week that is has been hacked by more than 100 coders and developers.

But don’t go cancelling your account. This is all part of Twitter’s official 2012 Hack Week, a week-long event where employees from across the company are given time away from their desks to hack Twitter, coming up with new tools, ideas and designs to make the Twitter experience even better.

“Hack Week is one of the ways we actively promote innovation through experimentation around the company,” the company wrote in a blog post. “This week, a wide range of folks here are taking time away from their day-to-day work to collaborate and develop ideas that they are passionate about.”

5. 20 things that happened on the internet in 2011: Can you spot them?



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List of PM Society Advertising Awards Winners

Target Audience Judged Awards

Primary Care Advertisement Award – Balneum Plus Cream (Bear) by Swordfish Advertisement

Secondary Care Advertisement Award – nitrogen for their Genotropin ad for Pfizer

Primary Care Direct Mail Award - Euro RSCG Life Medicom for Imigan Subject for GSK

Healthcare Industry Award – OPENHealth

Craft Judged Awards

Primary Care Advertisement Award – Langland for Kentera (Orion Pharma)

Secondary Care Advertisement Award – Saatchi & Saatchi Health for Prialt (Eisai)

Journal Advertisement Campaign Award – PAN Advertising for their Prostap campaign for Takeda

HCP Direct Mail Award – nitrogen for the Coseal mailing for Baxter Healthcare

Detailing Aid Award - Langland for Kentera (Orion Pharma)

Primary Care Campaign Award – Langland for Exposed (LEO Pharma)

Secondary Care Campaign Award – Torre Lazur McCann and Creative Lynx for Xeplion (Janssen)

Patient Information Campaign Award – Langland for Cake a Difference (Bliss)

International Core Campaign Award – Woolley Pau Gyro for Qvar (Teva Europe Ltd)

Digital Interactive Award - Creative Lynx/Torre Lazure McCann for Xeplion (Janssen)

Digital Campaign Award – TBWA Paling Walters for GS Junior 454 (Roche)

Geoff Brook Award – Creative Lynx Maintaining Adherence Programme for Janssen

Digital Pioneer Award – John Pugh and Dr Simon Clough

About Nitro Digital:

We are a digital marketing agency with over a decade of experience in delivering award-winning digital campaigns for global pharmaceutical companies. If you would like to find out more about our work, have a look at our pharma marketing services pageor get in touch by calling 0844 450 5545 or email us at info@nitro-digital.co.uk.

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In 2011, under John’s leadership, Boehringer Ingelheim has continued to push industry boundaries by investing in new channels and platforms and driving innovation forward.

By formulating a coherent communication and branding strategy across all of its social media channels, Boehringer Ingelheim has managed to create a truly engaging multi-channel user experience for audiences worldwide. With over 15,000 Facebook fans and 9,000 Twitter followers, Boehringer Ingelheim is a real social media heavyweight that has been placing strong emphasis on target audience engagement, despite it being a notoriously well-known challenge in the industry. In June, Boehringer’s Facebook photography competition received over 800 entries gaining over 4,000 new fans.

2011 also saw the unveiling of Boehringer Ingelheim’s social game, Syrum – the pharma industry’s first Facebook-based game due to be launched in the coming months. The game sees players research and test compounds in order to develop novel medicines to cure epidemics and diseases threatening world health. The game is designed to bring a much needed fun-factor to healthcare communications.

Nitro Digital would like to congratulate John and the whole Boehringer Ingelheim team on this outstanding achievement!

For an overview on each category winner, see our latest PM Society Advertising Awards 2011 Winners post. 

About Nitro Digital:

We are a digital marketing agency with over a decade of experience in delivering award-winning digital campaigns for global pharmaceutical companies. If you would like to find out more about our work, have a look at our pharma marketing services page or get in touch by calling 0844 450 5545 or by email info@nitro-digital.co.uk .

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I had the pleasure of attending the first Diabetes QiC awards back in November 2011, a night that celebrated and recognised innovation and solutions coming from within the NHS and the community. It was a great experience and an even greater feeling to know that it will be running again this year.

Quality in Care (QiC) Diabetes 2012 will be announced at this year’s Diabetes UK conference in Glasgow, from 7^th-9^th March, when entries for the QiC awards 2012 will open. Judging by last year’s QiC award winners, hailed as “examples of excellence” by Simon O’Neill from Diabetes UK, there is going to be some stiff competition in 2012!

Launching an Online Innovation Showcase for Diabetes Care: QiC Connect

For all those observers of what’s hot in healthcare from March onwards, QiC Diabetes 2012 will be making the best creating a showcase of last year’s finalists. Case studies from over 60 diabetes-related projects from last year’s finalists will be displayed on an online “knowledge hub” called QiC Connect.

The hub will facilitate knowledge sharing for anyone passionate about improving diabetes patient care in local health areas. We’ll be able to access projects at www.qualityincare.org by signing up to QiC Connect. So one to bookmark!

There are a couple of interesting quotes in the release that I’ll republish here.

Dr Andrew Hockey, Diabetes Medical Director at Sanofi, said “The NHS and its partners should be proud that each day sees delivery of the very best in diabetes care”.

Anna Morton, director of NHS diabetes said “Diabetes continues to be one the greatest public health challenges this country faces”. With over 2.9 million affected by the condition in the UK, it’s easy to see how QiC is essential for improving care by showcasing initiatives from around the country.

I would love to see more collaboration between industry, charity and the NHS. It’s the way forward so I’m an unashamed advocate of QiC as long as they keep up the standards of their great start.

It’s an exciting thought that in future programmes, QiC will also tackle other conditions such as cancer, rheumatology and respiratory disorders. Bring on health care innovation in 2012!

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In partnership with the US National Kidney Foundation, Pfizer, a real social media heavyweight in the industry, launched Manage CVD Risk in Reduced GFR app, designed for healthcare professionals to reduce the risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD).

In 2011, IBGStar by Sanofi has become the first monitoring system for blood glucose that has been cleared by the FDA which directly connects to Apple’s iPod touch and iPhone available in Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy. For a quick overview of the app’s features, watch the video below.

Also released last year was MyAsthmaLog the NHS’s Android app designed to assist young people and children with asthma self-management by allowing them to construct an individual asthma plan and keep track of appointments and asthma attacks. For more detail, watch the video below.

Are you looking to develop a health app? Nitro Digital can help you! Call us on 0844 450 5545 or email us at info@nitro-digital.co.uk. To find out more about our work, check out our pharma marketing services.

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1. Wikipedia Traffic Increased During SOPA Protest Blackout

Wikipedia experienced increased traffic Wednesday, despite blacking out its English language content to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

Zscaler compared Wikipedia’s traffic midday Wednesday with its traffic the previous Tuesday. While the blackout day only saw slightly more total transactions, the number of unique visitors was noticeably increased.

The below chart compares Wikipedia’s unique visitors on 17^th Jan (in red) and 18^th Jan (in green).



Wednesday’s overall transactions per hour only slightly edged ahead of Tuesday’s.

2. Quora Gets an Off-Site Follow Button, Just Like Twitter

Much like Twitter, you can now follow your favourite bloggers and websites on Quora. And now, also much like Twitter, you can paste a follow button onto your own website.

The content-sharing and expert-questioning site allows users to comment on follow topics or post questions to other users — and it now has an off-site follow button.



3. Facebook Fan Page Growth is Slowing

We saw as early as April and May of 2011 that Facebook itself had slowed its growth, but where did that leave brand pages?

The number of organisations creating fan pages has not abated. And as 2010 ended, the average page in the top 50 branded Facebook fan pages had grown over the year by 377.3 percent. However, in 2011 the average page on that ranking grew only 75 percent. The trend could have profound implications on social media marketers working to grow — and leverage — fan bases.

4. New Facebook Cover Design App

Most standard photos don’t fit Facebook Timeline’s cover photo slot, but a new app that launched on Tuesday creates images sized specifically for that purpose.

Dropico’s free Facebook Cover Designer provides a landscape viewfinder for composing shots with Facebook in mind. Users can also pull photos from their camera roll, Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket or Instagram to edit within the app.

Once the desired photo is loaded, they can crop, rotate, scale and add filters before uploading it directly to Facebook.

Aside from customizing the photo size, the app’s most noteworthy feature is an effect that creates a cover photo and profile photo from the same image — making the timeline cover look like one image with a highlighted square instead of two photos. Unfortunately, however, the feature is only available with a $.99 upgrade.

5. The Crazy Honey Badger TV Show

The Crazy Honey Badger took YouTube by storm as it fearlessly faced down a cobra and a jackal, but now is on to a bigger challenge: TV executives.

A Canadian production company called Six Eleven Media is shopping an animation/live action hybrid called Honey Badger U. to broadcast and cable TV networks, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The show will feature an animated Randall, who is “the chief professor of life sciences at a dysfunctional university,” according to the report. “His course will feature his trademark colour-commentary on documentary footage of topics related to science and the animal kingdom.”

If you have not yet seen the crazy honey badger in action, make sure to watch the video below:

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Pfizer has the most Twitter followers and takes 3rd place in having the most number of Facebook likes. However, the study also showed that in many cases pharma brands’ social media presence outperformed their promotional spending. Roche for instance ranked fifteenth in overall spending for promotions while it came second only to Pfizer in Twitter followers. This may effectively show that succeeding in the world of social media is often determined by the strategy you adopt, which allows you maximise its impact of your online campaigns.

Another point to bear in mind is that it is not just about volumes. Social media performance also has to be judged based on the quality of engagement. You can have thousands of followers but if you fail to effectively influence and educate them about your brand, than what is the point?

Clearly, pharma companies are increasingly establishing their social media presence. What may cause marketers to wonder however is what role social media should play in their promotional efforts and what impact this will have on the bottom line?

Mobile health apps are becoming an increasingly popular digital tool for improving health outcomes, condition awareness and brand awareness and loyalty that comes with it. Have a look at our latest post on pharma Android and iPhone apps here.

Do you want to effectively engage with patients, HCPs and journalists? Nitro Digital are experts in digital pharmaceutical marketing. To build a successful engagement strategy, get in touch by calling 0844 450 5545 or email info@nitro-digital.co.uk

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Not only would it kick start their initiative to a healthier lifestyle, the NHS claims that patients will be in a better state to recover too. That sounds fair enough as, apparently, anaesthetic provides a higher risk to those overweight than those with a ‘normal’ body mass index of 20 to 25. However, Dr. Nicolas Small only vaguely mentioned the ‘strong clinical evidence’; we do not know if there are any detailed reports on this issue.

There are strong opinions amongst the public in regards to this scheme. Many are outraged as there does not seem to be any exclusion’s at the moment, such as for patients who are obese due to a medical condition. Voices in favour of the scheme comment that it is the patients who will benefit in the end and its ‘sensible’ as resources should be distributed to those who are trying to ‘make themselves better’. Another highlights the irony that the NHS are only willing to treat ‘healthy’ people and complains about paying national insurance only to be denied treatment unless the case is urgent. You wouldn’t be happy if you paid for a chandelier and got a light bulb.

The moral integrity of a doctor is questioned, when they are under orders of a system with a belt around them that keeps tightening. The doctors are the piggy’s this time, stuck in between patients who need their help plus pay their wages and a higher authority who dictate their future. Which would you choose?

Implications for NHS Digital Marketing Campaigns:

While most patients are aware of the immediate health risks associated with smoking or being overweight, they often overlook how these can limit their treatment options when suffering from diseases or conditions unrelated to smoking or obesity.

In order to achieve sustained behaviour change, health institutions must invest in condition awareness campaigns that mirror these changes in hospital practices to alleviate doctors’ ‘piggy in the middle dilemma’.

At Nitro Digital, we specialise in planning and executing condition awareness campaigns. If you would like to find out more about our services call 0844 450 5545 or email info@nitro-digital.co.uk.

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The GWH -NHS Foundation Trust has become more social media savvy and has begun to use Facebook and Twitter to communicate with visitors, general public members and hospital patients regarding queries, concerns, fundraising and  public events.

The chance to be able to communicate with GWH with a mouse click is appreciated by patients and the general public alike, as evidenced by the positive comments posted on their Facebook wall.

Currently, local folks are invited to become part of the popular social-network sites to keep up on the latest Great Western Hospital news. One spokesman from GWH says that they are always searching for new methods of communication with their members, patients and the public and Twitter makes this easy.

In addition, those who want to become employed by GWH are invited to be a part of the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the trust. The new developments and latest news of the trust are regularly updated on Facebook and Twitter. These are two additional ways that people can remain informed about useful information regarding health, hospital events and new developments.

You can follow The Great Western Hospital @GWH_NHS.

Want to increase your hospital’s online presence? At Nitro Digital, we have over a decade of experience delivering social media projects for the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry. Get in touch by calling 0844 450 5545 or email info@nitro-digital.co.uk.

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