May21

Don’t Be Fooled: The Core Tenets of Relationship Marketing Are Timeless

Posted by Peter von Bartheld from Ogilvy Healthworld - New York, North America

By Peter von Bartheld from Ogilvy Healthworld - New York, North America | Published: May 21, 2013

DartGoing back to basics on effective communication can lead to a big impact on your audience.

Pharmaceutical marketing at a glance seems unrecognizable compared to a few short years ago: technological advancements, big data, changing sales models, channel fragmentation, mobile marketing, social media…the list goes on. This constant sea of change is enough to overwhelm even the smartest marketers and strategists. Some marketers have followed the whims of change, prioritizing the latest marketing fads over a sound strategy. However, this reprioritization of communication efforts can lead to risky results. Pharmaceutical marketers will be best served by keeping their focus on the following fundamental marketing objective: getting the right message to the right audience at the right time.

Without a doubt, incorporating modern tactics and media channels can strengthen a campaign’s effectiveness, but the core communication objective should be tied to strategic objectives. In other words, the tail should not wag the proverbial dog. These core objectives should drive the decisions behind the channels, the content, the cadence, and the outcomes toward which a campaign is optimized.

The focus on fundamentals is essential across both patient and healthcare professional marketing campaigns. For example, with traditional patient support programs—which educate patients on their disease state, provide them with lifestyle tips, and empower them with condition management tools—the ultimate objective is to increase persistency and adherence. Rather than haphazardly building a program that randomly combines the latest marketing “it” channels, it is imperative to strategically consider the combination of tactics, channels, and content, at the right cadence to achieve the campaign’s goal: increasing adherence and persistency. While a campaign can and should incorporate channels both old and new, it should be the strategy that drives these decisions.

How to Focus on Fundamentals When Determining a Marketing Strategy

So, how can marketers effectively deliver communications in the ever-changing marketing reality? In the era of data integration and two-way marketing, we recommend using these three best practices to guide the process:

1)      Don’t be afraid to ask—so you can know what they are thinking: A behavioral survey can identify how targets would prefer to receive communications, such as by telephone, email or direct mail. Using this information, design a communication strategy that provides relevant information in the way(s) they want to receive it. By simply asking how an individual wants to be communicated with and by fulfilling that basic need, marketers can more successfully deliver the brand’s message and increase conversion.

2)      Observe, adjust, and make them feel special: With the phenomenal growth and availability of campaign response data, marketers have the opportunity to design and cater communications at the individual level. Creating customized communications and educational tools based on a target’s experience can ultimately lead to greater engagement and positive, impactful outcomes.

3)      Think like them—to understand what they need: As marketers, we measure success by driving impact and ultimately changing behavior. With the data at hand, we can now design and adjust strategies, all the while focusing on the brand’s fundamental goals. These metrics and objectives allow us, as marketers, to start thinking like our targets and asking questions that drive stronger campaigns:

A) What do our targets want and need?

B) How can we strategically design a program to meet these wants and needs?

C) How will we know if we met our targets’ wants and needs?

By remembering to follow these three steps when developing a CRM strategy, we can impact behavior by creating custom relationships based on trust, respect, and value…all by delivering the right message in the right way to the right person.

So while the marketing context, customers and channels have changed and will continue to change rapidly for the foreseeable future, we as marketers must keep our focus on our core, timeless tenets of good marketing: sending the right message at the right time and the right place. By applying some of these best practices, you should be well on your way to maintaining a sound strategy amongst the ever-changing marketing landscape.
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May14

Is There Good Karma in Advertising?

Posted by Gabriel Fernandez-Obregon from Ogilvy CommonHealth - Parsippany, North America

By Gabriel Fernandez-Obregon from Ogilvy CommonHealth - Parsippany, North America | Published: May 14, 2013

buddhaSo much of what we do throughout our careers is interesting…but is it inspiring? Well, we found out recently when the knowledge and information we’ve been exposed to through client work helped me and my wife conceive of and create something entirely new and unexpected. Using the skills we’ve honed while working at ad agencies, my wife and I recently came up with the idea for an iPhone app that aims to improve the world by promoting small changes in daily actions. Basically, we asked the question: what can we do using our advertising knowledge to help make the world a better place? That was the question. “Karmasation” was the answer.

Karmasation, the app we’ve created, is what we somewhat jokingly call an anti-social network. People can post their actions, thoughts, and experiences anonymously and get feedback about whether they deserve good or bad karma. Because users maintain anonymity within Karmasation, they can post honestly. They aren’t speaking to people who know them through various social interactions (as they would on Facebook and Twitter), they’re just speaking to a community of people. Human to human.

The tie-in to social networks, though, comes into play with the idea of gamification, a subject about which we’ve frequently engaged our respective clients. As users participate in Karmasation, they accrue a Karma Profile. Users can simply compete against themselves, or they can share their profiles, posts, and results with Facebook and Twitter to create somewhat of a competition to see who can earn the best karma.

So what type of advertising knowledge were we able to apply while creating the app? And how did that learning continue with Karmasation?
1) The Devil is in the Digital Design. As we’ve worked on different digital platforms for our clients, we’ve learned a bit about clean design and user interaction. Combining that knowledge with being iPhone users ourselves, we had an idea of what would work within the iPhone platform. Are we still learning? Of course! But through our work on our app, we’ve gained a broader understanding of user interaction. We now have a better handle on how users might prefer digital platforms to react and function—not just from an art or copy perspective—but from an overall experience.

2) Bravo for Beta Testing. Again, with the digital platforms we’ve worked on comes testing. The first time my wife worked on a digital presentation, her project manager told her to try and “break it.” And “break it” we did, because before putting an app out there you want to make sure you’ve covered every scenario—not just how you’d use it but also how anyone else might. Because our app has more possible combinations of actions than other projects we’ve worked on, we’ve learned the importance of testing in a systematic way with a greater attention to detail. We also found that as we progressed through the rounds of beta testing, we learned ways to better communicate issues we were finding with our developers. Clear communication between team members who understand different aspects of a project is crucial to getting any problems fixed.

3) The Process of Promotion. The obvious one since we’re in advertising. But this time, we are both the agency and the client. Deciding on your own strategy can sometimes be difficult, and as a result, we now have an added sense of respect for our clients. We continue to work daily to find ways to better promote our app so that more people can know, use and enjoy it.

As we continue with Karmasation and our jobs in advertising, we’ve learned from each experience and have already seen how we can apply our learnings from one circumstance to the other. Like karma, what comes around goes around. And in this case, we’d call it good karma!

 

 

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May8

Is It “Health Insurance,” or Merely Prepaid Health Care?

Posted by Stephen Lubiak from OCH Payer Marketing- NJ, North America

By Stephen Lubiak from OCH Payer Marketing- NJ, North America | Published: May 8, 2013

PillThe Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) goal is to provide health insurance coverage to those without it now, and it uses 2 main mechanisms to do so. It penalizes individuals without insurance, thereby encouraging them to sign up for health insurance. (In order to support this effort, the law creates state insurance exchanges to offer health plans to consumers.) The law also penalizes employers (with 50 or more employees) that do not offer health insurance to their workers. So, these employers will either need to add insurance if they don’t currently offer it, or maintain or modify what they now offer to their employees…or else pay a fine.

As the ACA proceeds to full implementation, it’s probably polite to say that various “inconsistencies” in the law are emerging. While “self-pay” employers may still exercise some degree of freedom in adding, maintaining, or modifying their health insurance offerings, the law is determining many of the characteristics of health insurance offered to the public via health care exchanges.

It’s interesting to note that 2 key requirements of the law undermine the basics of insurance, which is defined simply as “coverage by contract whereby one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by a specified contingency or peril.”

The first requirement is that all beneficiaries pay essentially identical rates, regardless of their risk factors. One of the few recognitions of varied risk among the population, an individual’s age, is still subject to constraint (older people cannot be charged more than 3 times the premiums charged to younger people). The other requirement is that insurance companies should ignore individuals’ preexisting conditions when writing new policies. While this rule is popular—no one wants to deny health insurance coverage to a cancer survivor—it also could encourage people to wait until they are sick before they purchase insurance.

Additionally, the law’s definition of an insurance plan’s “essential health benefits” may also contribute to an unintended result: a small set of insurance offerings on health care exchanges that are all generally very expensive, due to the fact that the policies are required to cover many things. One possible effect on consumers is that they will pay higher premiums.

Let’s go back to employers. Year-over-year health care cost increases have recently moderated, but over the long term they have traditionally been higher than the rate of overall consumer inflation. Some employers may use the soon-to-be-created state exchanges as an opportunity to withdraw the health insurance they offer to their employees. Employers who still plan to offer health insurance will continue to scrutinize costs and seek ways to mitigate their increases. They may continue to restrict the breadth of offerings in their health plans (a trend that is opposite to the expansion of essential health benefits above). Another mechanism that works is to shift more costs to their employees in the form of higher premiums, copays, coinsurance and deductibles.

So, in the 2 areas that the ACA seeks to create new health insurance opportunities (state-based exchanges and newly regulated employer markets), the individual will most likely pay a greater share of costs and have a greater responsibility to evaluate his insurance policy as well as the health care interventions he receives.

What does this mean for marketing communications?

One question facing employers, employees, payers and consumers will be the role and importance of deductibles, copays, and coinsurance. These patient payments are essentially behavioral-change tools, encouraging the patient to “shop wisely” because he is spending his own money on health care. Will these mechanisms continue to work as they have in the past? It may depend on which segment of the market grows larger: the state-based exchanges or the employer-provided plans.

On the one hand, if the law is encouraging fewer, similar insurance offerings on state exchanges, it will hardly be easy for insurance companies to differentiate one policy from another. If the offerings from health plans become expensive and undifferentiated, with most of their benefits “prepaid” by premiums, how much impact will deductibles, copays, and coinsurance have? Would this also complicate manufacturers’ efforts to differentiate their products to insurers, providers, and patients/members?

On the other hand, if employers are restricting benefits in their heath plans and shifting more and more costs to employees, employees will be using more of their funds to pay for premiums, and there may be less left for deductibles, copays, and coinsurance. With fewer health care dollars available, the employee may respond more to the cost effects of those patient payments.

Readers, what will be the health plan implications for related drug and device issues such as tier placement, contracting terms, and pricing? What marketing efforts are still needed? And to whom should they be directed?

Source:

  1. Merriam-Webster. Definition of “insurance.” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/insurance. Accessed April 22, 2013.

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May2

Many Ogilvy Hands – A Real Hands-on Experience of Uganda

Posted by Roberta Dickson from Ogilvy DigitalHealth - London, United Kingdom

By Roberta Dickson from Ogilvy DigitalHealth - London, United Kingdom | Published: May 2, 2013

2In 2009, Ogilvy & Mather, in partnership with International Needs, set up the Many Ogilvy Hands (MOH) project to build a school for 450 local children in a town in Uganda. Every four months, volunteers from across the Ogilvy group travel out to Uganda to get involved in the project.

***

Sitting at my desk in Paddington, sifting through emails, writing status reports and completing my Maconomy timesheets seems like a million miles away from my afternoons a few weeks ago…6,247 miles to be exact as I was in the small town of Buikwe, Uganda, with the Many Ogilvy Hands project. Along with 11 of my fellow Ogilvy colleagues, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to head off to Uganda in March to get involved with the project and see firsthand what Ogilvy has been doing in this distant land for the past four years.

The comfort of nine hours’ worth of British Airways-strength air conditioning hadn’t prepared me very well for the equatorial humidity that hit me in the face the moment I stepped off the plane, and any thoughts of keeping my well-straightened barnet looking anything short of “beachy waves” were quickly dashed as soon as the first strand of hair came into contact with Ugandan air (I now know why all the local women choose to keep their hair short, rather than face an ongoing battle with a pair of hair straighteners!). Despite this initial shock to the system, spirits in the Ogilvy camp remained high as we picked up our backpacks and 20 extra bags worth of donations and headed to our guesthouse for the night, before making the two-hour journey to Buikwe the next morning.

3After hearing stories from previous trips and seeing photos from colleagues, it was great to finally see the project site for myself. Alongside the original classrooms first built by MOH, there was also an admin block, and now the foundations of a new set of classrooms lay waiting for us to put our building skills to the test. Despite being somewhat challenged in the DIY stakes, I really enjoyed the building work, which involved lots of brick throwing (no JCBs on-site, surprisingly, so building materials have to be moved entirely by hand!), brick laying, mortar mixing and ground levelling. Our days were split between the building site and teaching in one of the classrooms, both of which were physically (trying to control a classroom of excitable teenagers was by no means the easier option of the two) as well as mentally demanding but still incredibly rewarding.

One of the most challenging aspects of the trip was not trying to resist the platefuls of delicious food knocked up by Barbara, the amazing cook, it was travelling with the project’s social workers into local villages to visit some of the families that the charity works with. Despite their cheery and excited demeanour at school, the harsh reality is that many of the local children come from homes torn apart by HIV/AIDs, malaria and extreme poverty. Whilst they may be able to attend school (for many, this is thanks in part to sponsorship), their siblings may be missing out on an education either because they are too sick or too poor to go. Eye-opening doesn’t even begin to cover what it felt like to visit some of these families, but it definitely boosted my MOH experience, especially meeting the child that I had sponsored and seeing what the project can do to help local families.1

Despite the full schedule of building work and teaching, we managed to fit in a trip to the source of the Nile and a trek through a nearby rainforest, as well as countless hours of post-supper parlour games. Despite all working for the same company, one of the best parts of the trip for me was meeting colleagues from different corners of the Ogilvy group, all of whom I would consider great friends now. From visitors in the night, warm Nile beer, killing Tony at cards (on more than one occasion), Barbara’s carbs, mosquito nets, skipping club, feeding the 5,000, birthday G&Ts and so many other great memories, my trip to Uganda with the Many Ogilvy Hands project will certainly be one I won’t be forgetting in a hurry.

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Apr25

When Will Pharmaceutical Companies Embrace Behavioral Retargeting to Drive Adherence?

Posted by James Ruiz from Ogilvy CommonHealth - NJ, North America

By James Ruiz from Ogilvy CommonHealth - NJ, North America | Published: April 25, 2013

Shopping KeyPicture this: You visit a website, add something to your shopping cart, but abandon the transaction. Maybe you are distracted or decide to shop around to get the best deal.

The next day, you’re on a different website. Suddenly an ad pops up on your screen…for that item you had in the shopping cart the day before. In your mind you’re thinking, “Wow, maybe this ad is an omen that I should buy that item?”

You’ll be relieved to learn that the ad is not an omen. It’s just “behavioral retargeting,” one of the tools that a smart marketer is leveraging to capture your attention. They want you back at their site to complete the purchase.

Digital channels can leverage relevancy (based on action and exposure) to deliver highly motivating advertising. If it works well for consumer products, how would this work for pharmaceutical brands?

The Web as a Research Tool
The Internet is used by consumers to compare prices and features. What we find online often influences both online and offline purchasing decisions. In the early days of the Internet, consumers were leery of making significant purchases online and would compare prices on the web then go to a brick-and-mortar store to make their purchase. With improved mobile technology, consumers now see and touch products in stores, only to make the purchase online. Many consumers are now willing to make major purchases online.

The prescription drug buying process is different. Some consumers see advertising for lifestyle drugs on TV and in print, go online for additional information, and ask their doctor for a prescription. If their doctor agrees, they may receive a prescription. A pharmaceutical website for a prescription drug may play a role in initial patient-doctor discussion, but it can really play a much more significant role in influencing medication adherence.

Behavioral Retargeting to Influence Good Behavior
We see many prescription drugs with elaborate, multichannel medication adherence programs that often have minimal impact on the bottom line. The reasons for this are twofold.

  1. Programs that are dependent on patients signing up tend to have very limited reach against the patient base.
  2. They often attract patients who are adherent, so there is little opportunity to increase sales. We also see programs where enrollment is driven by activating a savings card—but too often patients are unaware they joined the program and don’t engage with the communications they receive.

What if we used behavioral retargeting to increase awareness of compliance programs? Imagine if retargeting didn’t just apply to shoes and baby clothes, but also encouraged medication adherence.

Behavioral retargeting provides the ability to extend reach and deliver highly relevant adherence messages contextually, then bring consumers back to your site for deeper content. It provides an additional channel to get key adherence messages to customers who might not sign up for a program.

Then again, even if we can do it, we may not want to deliver behavioral retargeting. After all, some patients have conditions that they’d rather keep private. They may not appreciate a reminder message from a pharma company that manifests as a banner ad on their favorite website. If this is the case, such issues can easily be addressed with a simple opt-out that prevents future retargeting from the ad server.

These days, behavioral retargeting is closely associated with advanced ecommerce websites. Looking forward, it will probably become another tool for communicating with patients and healthcare professionals. Before that happens, industry thought leaders need to think carefully about how patient health information is used and retargeted across different websites, channels, and platforms.

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Mar26

SXSW 2013: Empty Information Calories

Posted by Brad Davidson from OCH Behavioral Insights - NJ, North America

By Brad Davidson from OCH Behavioral Insights - NJ, North America | Published: March 26, 2013

Cloud Image“We are drowning in information and starving for knowledge.”

– Rutherford D. Rogers, Deputy Librarian of Congress

I recently presented at SXSW, and while there attended a number of other talks and presentations. One, given by a Buddhist nun, made me think in a new way about what it is we do as healthcare communicators. We create a lot of materials and services for people to consume, in essence “feeding” them healthcare information—but are we feeding them well?

The presenter used the concept of cheap nutrition as a metaphor for the modern habit of consuming low-value, high-turnover products and services without ever feeling full or knowing why. Everything, according to her, has the potential to become fast food, easily consumed and without real nutritional value:  the things we own, the entertainment we watch, the achievements we rank and catalogue…all of it can be had in a low-cost, transactional way, and it is all empty calories, taken on board without consideration and without satisfaction. The more you eat, the hungrier you get. To be fulfilled, we need to do more than consume—we need to connect, and to engage. I’m not a Buddhist and I like fast food as much as the next person, but as a metaphor for information available on the Internet, especially healthcare information, “empty calories” is as good as any.

Patients and caregivers seeking knowledge find a sea of information, often without context or a frame of reference to know if it is good information or bad, relevant or irrelevant, connected to their immediate need or concern or not. The information is readily available, it is designed to be easily digested, and rarely if ever does it leave us feeling that we know all that we need to know about whatever it is that ails us or a loved one: we sit at a keyboard, finding bite-sized information nuggets, and eat and eat, and remain hungry nonetheless.

The nun was right. Gorging on information will never truly make us full; what we need is information we can use, that can guide our actions in a meaningful way. Knowledge requires that we pay attention in a way that consuming information does not. Knowledge comes through deep interaction, through a relationship between the knower and the thing known.

We are healthcare communicators—what sort of food are we creating? Do we push ourselves to ensure that information is more than just digestible, and even correct, but is also presented so that people want to, have to engage? Do we truly think about the end user and her needs or experiences? Do we create “disposable interactions” that just help feed a need for consumption rather than a need for usable knowledge? Helping people acquire knowledge is our job, not just giving them access to information. I challenge us all, then, to create more than the next informational Twinkie.

Check out OCHWW’s other SXSW 2013 blog posts:

SXSW 2013: Small Data in a World of Big Data

SXSW 2013: How Zombies Are Helping Us Get Fit

SXSW 2013: BIG Data and Personal Technology at SXSW

SXSW 2013: The Mobile Healthcare Revolution

SXSW 2013: Bad Behavior – the Saga of SXSW
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Also posted in Content Strategy, Data, Healthcare Communications, Patient Communications, SXSW Interactive | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
Mar18

SXSW 2013: Bad Behavior – the Saga of SXSW

Posted by John Nosta from OCH Specialty Marketing - NJ, North America

By John Nosta from OCH Specialty Marketing - NJ, North America | Published: March 18, 2013

sxsw logoAs you act, so you become

Health and digital health are emerging themes at this year’s SXSW.  The chatter is robust, the personalities many, and the health and fitness devices ubiquitous.  The behavior is also legendary.  One notable tweet was: “SXSW is a fountain of knowledge where all go to drink!”  And while this is partly true, it’s the behavior that really got my attention this year—but not what you think.

My observations were around health behavior as it relates to the digital health movement that is taking hold at SXSW.  The “device” was clearly embraced by the attendees.  From higi to dosIQ, the technological mechanics and theories seem to be in place to transform your smartphone to a wellness device that’s going to save your life.  At least, that’s the desired impact.  But it all seems to hinge on this huge leap of faith—will people really do it?

I’m not sure.

Communication must empower innovation

The success of digital health is a function of both technology and a story well told.  We all know about the Higgs particle.  It’s the biggest discovery in physics in the last 100 years.  Some even call it the “God Particle.”  But I challenge anyone to provide a brief description of any aspect of this innovative discovery.  Simply put, there’s a disconnect between the discovery and the relevance.  Similarly, I’m afraid that the mishmash of health devices has become more of a novelty than a true innovation.  And while CERN, the lab that discovered the Higgs particle, continues to receive praise, so do the likes of device manufacturers such as Scanadu, Misfit Wearables, and Fitbit.

Understanding the nature of the health dialogue and how it impacts outcomes is an essential part of the digital health journey.  The complicated discussion of disease is already largely broken in the physician’s office.  And adding to this complexity is the “sell” of digital health.  And conversely, the hectic and often confused lifestyle of a patient (I’m not talking about the fitness freak, where adoption is much simpler) doesn’t bode well for engagement and learning.

So, maybe we need to add a few more presentations at next year’s SXSW around driving the correct behavior when it comes to digital health.  The technology side of the equation seems to be coming together, but the human side is still a bit unclear.  “Build it and they will come” doesn’t always apply to health.  And digital health is no exception, regardless of how cool or sexy.

Check out OCHWW’s other SXSW 2013 blog posts:

SXSW 2013: Small Data in a World of Big Data

SXSW 2013: How Zombies Are Helping Us Get Fit

SXSW 2013: BIG Data and Personal Technology at SXSW

SXSW 2013: The Mobile Healthcare Revolution

SWSW 2013: Empty Information Calories

 

Also posted in Apps, Digital, Health & Wellness, SXSW Interactive, Technology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment
Mar11

SXSW 2013: BIG Data and Personal Technology at SXSW

Posted by Matt Balogh from Ogilvy CommonHealth, Parsippany, NJ

By Matt Balogh from Ogilvy CommonHealth, Parsippany, NJ | Published: March 11, 2013

4153048(2)Big data isn’t new. We’ve been talking about it for years. What’s new is where it’s coming from and what we’re doing with it.

When it comes to personal information, the term big data used to be synonymous with Big Brother. Google, DoubleClick, pretty much anything you did online was tracked, categorized, and sold. The value exchange wasn’t there (or at least it wasn’t obvious)—so people resisted.

Today that’s not the case. Big data is still there, but we have a new rallying call: context. A personalized layer of technology is built on the aggregate data of yesterday and then combined with personalized data of today linked to deliver real value to users.

The wearable technology that generates personal data is a huge theme at #SXSW this year. Nike has Nike+ and the FuelBand to measure track activity, Oakley has Airwaves for real-time feedback to skiers, Artefact created a Pilates shirt that monitors body position, Google has Project Glass (which we all know), and now a live-feedback talking shoe.

Personal data stemming from mobile technology is in ready supply.  Think of all the things you tell your smartphone.  We list our friends and family in our contacts, we search and browse the Web for things that interest us, and we have favorite apps like Facebook we use all the time. Facebook alone captures tons of data on our likes, dislikes, interests, birthday, and several other demographics.  Gimbal, a mobile contextualization platform dubbed the “digital 6th sense” released by Qualcomm last year, does more than just track you—it uses this data to learn about you.

Indirectly, these devices come standard with a plethora of sensors. Our phones know where we are at all times, how fast we’re moving, in what direction, and at what elevation. They know where we came from, how long we stayed, and where we went next. All that plus the option to add even more personal sensors. Fitbit will track both your activity and your sleep; iHealth tracks your weight, blood pressure, heart rate, body fat, muscle mass, blood glucose, pulse oximetry, and much more.

These devices know everything from who our friends are to what food we like and what’s happening in our own bodies. And because we have begun experiencing the value of the data they collect, we’re okay with it.

Big data isn’t new. What’s new are the wearable and mobile technologies we use to track, optimize, and augment our daily lives.  We no longer fight big data, we contribute to it.

As the SXSW presenters of the Sensor Technologies: The Future of Health talk asked, can you imagine a world in which all your physiologic parameters were measured, monitored, and managed in such a way that you always maintain perfect health?  That world may be just around the corner.

Check out OCHWW’s other SXSW 2013 blog posts:

SXSW 2013: How Zombies Are Helping Us Get Fit

SXSW 2013: Small Data in a World of Big Data

SXSW 2013: The Mobile Healthcare Revolution

SXSW 2013: Bad Behavior – the Saga of SXSW

SXSW 2013: Empty Information Calories

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Mar8

SXSW 2013: How Zombies Are Helping Us Get Fit

Posted by Martha Walz from Ogilvy CommonHealth, Parsippany, NJ

By Martha Walz from Ogilvy CommonHealth, Parsippany, NJ | Published: March 8, 2013

Zombies Running_1Zombies seem to be everywhere these days, from the big screen (Zombieland, 28 Days Later)  to the small screen (The Walking Dead), to the smallest screen (Plants vs. Zombies). And now they are invading our fitness regimes as well, thanks to a new app, Zombies, Run!, an app that combines immersive storytelling with video game play to make exercise a fun and exciting adventure.

Many mobile apps “gamify” fitness—applying  game-design thinking, turning exercise into points to make it a game. Many companies employ similar fitness competitions at their workplaces, using the number of steps taken per day, number of minutes exercised per week, or percentage of weight lost over a pre determined period of time. Apps take this a step further by adding a social component, encouraging users to add their friends to see how they stack up against them.

Some apps take it to the next level by integrating social media, allowing users to post their progress to their favorite social networks. That social component adds an element of accountability: if Joe posts that his goal is to run a 5K in three months and posts his daily runs on Facebook, his friends become invested in his success as well. If Joe is tired at the end of the workday and wants to skip his run, he might think twice, knowing that his friends are aware of his goal and might ask why he didn’t run that day. Sometimes this accountability is the extra kick that’s needed to decide to tough out a workout instead of scrapping it.

But back to the zombies. Zombies, Run! adds yet one more element to the mix: immersive storytelling. The setup is that you are Runner 5, and hundreds of people are counting on you to save them from zombies. The story is delivered through your headphones while running, and you have 33 missions to choose from, allowing for different speeds and types of workout. On the run, you collect items that you need for your base, and when you are done with your run, you can use these items in the app to rebuild your base. With this app, you become the hero of a story that continues each time you lace up for a run.

The creators of Zombies, Run! are speaking about this innovative new approach this weekend at SXSW. They believe that adding this extra level of entertainment to fitness apps might be the next big thing in digitally tracking personal health. Making exercise fun is exactly what the average American needs to get off the couch and get moving. And if zombies can’t do it, I’m not sure anything can.

Check out OCHWW’s other SXSW 2013 blog posts:

SXSW 2013: Small Data in a World of Big Data

SXSW 2013: The Mobile Healthcare Revolution

SXSW 2013: BIG Data and Personal Technology at SXSW

SXSW 2013: Bad Behavior – the Saga of SXSW

SXSW 2013: Empty Information Calories

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Feb22

Making Good Out of the Bad: Top Tips for Effective Crisis Management

Posted by Stephanie O'Hagan from OgilvyHealthPR - London, EMEA

By Stephanie O'Hagan from OgilvyHealthPR - London, EMEA | Published: February 22, 2013

CrisisObserving a team during times of crisis is sometimes like watching young children on a football field.  Everyone is so busy running after and tripping over the ball that they forget to keep to their positions.  One of the ways we help our clients overcome the overwhelming urge to deal with a crisis the way children play football is to participate in a crisis simulation workshop with a fictitious scenario to test if they would stay in position and deliver as a team.

No one wants to have to deal with a crisis in their daily work (or outside of work for that matter!) And the explosion of social media has made effective crisis management an even more real need. In the space of several minutes one remark, one photo, one hint of a hint of a juicy news story can reach millions and become a trending topic on the web.  As communications professionals, this is not something that should make us wobble in our shoes (indeed the rise of social media has made our industry all the more exciting and relevant) but it is something we need to ensure our clients are fully prepped to handle effectively.

However, when it comes to pharma companies—whose raison d’être is developing and marketing treatments that impact on lives—crises can pack a real PUNCH. The issues can become serious, emotive and heated. A crisis simulation helps test whether internal teams can handle the pressure of negative news stories, government investigations, stakeholder queries, media interviews and social media saturation.

By delivering these simulations and seeing clients in action, we have developed these top tips:

  1. 1.       Smaller groups work best in a crisis situation.

Too many opinions can make a complex situation more complex and can make decisions more difficult to reach. Agree on a core crisis team and ensure that each person is aware of his or her specific role.

  1. 2.       It is vital to appoint a leader early on and refer to the company crisis toolkit and literature.

With so many voices struggling to be heard, it is important to have one authoritative decision maker and leader. The leader should in turn remember to refer to company crisis procedures which are available to support them.

  1. 3.       Intra-disciplinary dialogue is vital, especially when working across different companies and groups.

One thing that is often forgotten during high-pressure environments is internal communication. However, being aligned and supporting each other is the key to effective crisis management.

  1. 4.       Make decisions—fast!

There is no time to lose during a crisis. Slow responses or lack of comment will be perceived negatively by stakeholders and the public.

  1. 5.       Prepare, prepare, prepare.

Ensure a clear crisis procedure is in place and that all parties are familiar with it.

  1. 6.       Social media is not “ignorable.”

Social media has the power to make a relatively contained crisis a global conversation within minutes. It is important that clients have a clear vision of how they will respond to this and that they act fast.

  1. 7.       Issues and crises can be an opportunity to reiterate positive company messages and turn the situation to a positive.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Effective crisis management can demonstrate commitment to transparency and patient safety. Clients should be prepared to take advantage of this.

  1. 8.       Have a glass of wine on standby for the end of the day.

Goes without saying!

 

 

 

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