The Soul of Biotech

I’ve got my nose in binders and CD-ROMs about treatments for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, so I won’t be able to write quite as lengthy posts as I’d like, at least until I get my feet under me in my new role.

Recently, however, a news item passed my virtual desk that I couldn’t resist writing about. Novartis is running a YouTube contest, called FluFlix. In brief, the contest is designed to encourage aspiring filmmakers to create ads about the flu. It’s reminiscent of Doritos’ Crash the Superbowl contest, which, by the way, ended up creating a great ad.

Novartis’ investment in this is appears to be trivial. In fact, given the tiny prize and fall timing, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this is an MBA intern’s project on non-personal promotion. [Non-personal promotion refers to the promotion of a product without using a rep.] Nevertheless, NPP is a hot topic in the industry, so I’m guessing that other pharma companies are watching to see how Novartis’ experiment pans out.

Given the emergence of “Web 2.0 media” like YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace, one wonders what a more interactive version of pharmaceutical DTC marketing could look like. Will drug brands get their own Facebook groups and Myspace profiles? We as consumers already know that we often prefer one pain reliever over another. Could we start to see consumers identify themselves with Advil over Tylenol the way that they prefer Nike to Adidas? It isn’t a big leap to imagine many over-the-counter drugs being marketed the same way sports drinks are. Although I highly doubt that it would make sense for any therapy but the most commonplace, teenagers and young adults have formed tight allegiances to brands on less.