City of Paris

Belatedly, I finished reading Chris Anderson’s somewhat controversial Free and his friendly volley with Malcolm Gladwell. Actually, it was Gladwell’s review that prompted me to buy the book (even though one can download it for free—but I don’t like reading on screen and I like supporting my local bookseller, Kepler’s). Free is well written and engaging, and offers many new ways to look at economics and business. While I can’t say I am sold on all of Anderson’s bold assertions, I did come away with two concepts that I can put into practice. The first is the idea of the reputation or attention economy—Anderson even uses this concept to value Facebook at $1.8 billion. So our “friends,” “followers,” “connections” etc. are reputation currency we are acquiring, unit by unit, that we can trade in one day to help us land that prized appointment, assignment, partnership or contract, based on which we will be duly rewarded by units that are anything but free. And this idea of reputation currency applies equally to our personal as well as our product brands. Here’s another tangible example. Recently, a highly respected consultant to the clinical diagnostics industry, The Dark Report, started a new service http://www.darkdaily.com/ where companies can post white papers on their site, for a fee, to reach senior executives who have been loyal subscribers to The Dark Report and its now famed Executive War College. Downloads by the executives are, of course, free.

My second take-away is that, whether or not we completely understand and/or buy into this new “free” economy, Anderson is right about “free” being an inevitable force of gravity, at least for now. So, for those of us who are not economists and who cannot or do not want to get to the bottom of why things like YouTube or Google searches should or should not be free, we can take Anderson’s advice. We can take advantage of what’s free and build businesses around this “free” economy as it stands today. Why not post educational videos on YouTube? Why not use social media to engage customers and, even more important, get to know them by listening to them? Why not use the dazzling array of free services and tools to bootstrap a new business venture? After all, most of us would rather be at the receiving end of “free.”

For the latest updates, see Using ‘Free’ to Turn a Profit and the debate about the value of content in Sacrifices made in hunt for new model.

At a recent media briefing with a trade healthcare publication, the editor, who has a reputation for being a stick-in-the-mud about not “contaminating” editorial with promotional messages, surprised (shocked) me with her plea at the conclusion of the meeting. Turning to my client as she stood up to leave, she said, “And I hope to see you advertise in our publication.”

Ad pages are down, and print publications are suffering. It is physically noticeable as many controlled-circulation publications get thinner by the issue. More and more, editors speak of slated articles being postponed to a future issue because the final page count is dependent on the number of advertising pages the publication is able to sell. Meantime, clients are allocating more of their scant marketing communication dollars to public relations, using the classic strategy of getting “free ink” by paying PR people to pitch stories and place articles. So, should we encourage clients to place ads in certain issues just to make sure their articles appear as scheduled? Ugh.

Somewhere along the road, healthcare marketers seem to have forgotten many of the good principles of marketing communications—the value of advertising in developing and establishing a brand, the synergy between different elements within a communication mix and, above all, that a well-thought-out, strategic communication plan is the best way to achieve results in the market, justify your decisions to your management and preempt reactive budget cuts. And indeed, tactical, reactive decisions to place an ad here and there, when budget allows, set a marketing team up for failure, since these one-shot efforts rarely bring results.

In many ways, ad agencies and marketing communication consultants like us have to accept responsibility for not successfully selling clients on the value of advertising. We, too, get caught up in the scramble of budget constraints, incomplete briefs and all those things we blame clients for. And to our dear friends in publishing, I would like to suggest some changes in the way ad pages are sold. Nowadays, many clients place media directly, in part to save the agency commission, some of them without any semblance of an annual plan and often in response to media reps calling about “special issues,” “bonus circulation” and other incentives to react. At the same time, few healthcare agencies offer expert media counsel, and so the myopic view about advertising is propagated.

Obama Health-Care Effort Gets $150 Million Boost From Unlikely Ally
Good news for all supporters of healthcare reform.

Health 2.0 could shock the system
Call me conservative, but I am generally skeptical about the morass of data mislabeled as information, simply inaccurate or unproven claims and (some) good information on health floating on the Internet. So I was skeptical about Esther Dyson’s commentary in Financial Times. It turns out to be a rational perspective on where all this is leading us.

Should doctors friend their patients on Facebook?
Well, yes. Health 2.0 is here.

Dako, Genentech to Seek FDA OK on HER-2 Companion Tests for Herceptin in Gastric Cancer
Let’s hope the value of diagnostics is more fully recognized this time around.

Eccolo Media 2008 B2B Technology Collateral Survey November 2008
A client brought this to my attention. This is a very good, analytical look at how sales literature is used in the different phases of the selling process.

While reports of the demise of print publishing and the decline of advertising, in general and especially in print, continue to dominate discussions of marketing communications, PR is emerging as a winner in the changing media mix. Forecasts reported by The New York Times last week included a projected 9.2 percent compound annual growth rate from 2008 through 2013 for “word-of-mouth marketing and public relations.” During the same week, I also noticed a good number of tweets deriding PR in some way or other.

This rise in the importance of PR is consistent with my recent experience with clients, especially as many of them discover the power of product publicity at times of declining marketing communication budgets. At the same time, I believe that clients and practitioners alike can benefit from a better understanding of PR—resetting expectations on the client’s side, and honing execution skills at the practitioner’s end. Like some of my fellow tweeters, I have been surprised by a general lack of common sense, as when clients expect coverage even though there is no real news, or when PR people take their target audience for granted, forgetting how much competition there is for editorial attention.

To my mind, PR is about shaping perception through clear and consistent communications grounded in facts. It takes time. It takes discipline. And it takes follow-through. (Dear Client: Please don’t leave on vacation right after media briefings where promises for follow-up information have been made.) PR is also about building credibility with journalists and establishing a relationship with them. (Dear PR Practitioner: Please do customize your pitch, which means knowing and respecting your audience.) By the way, we used to blame PR faux pas on junior staff, but increasingly I am finding that even senior people fall into the trap of sloppy writing and ignoring basic etiquette such as responding promptly to queries.

As PR becomes a larger piece of our marketing communications mix, it behooves all of us to improve our understanding of the underlying strategies and tactics. Suggestions for some good readings, anyone?

In July, citing lack of evidence of safety or efficacy, China’s Ministry of Health issued an urgent “cease and desist” order for electric shock therapy administered to boys and girls at the request of panic-stricken parents looking for an end to the distraction that is causing their children to abandon schoolwork and normal social life in favor of online activities. What is interesting about the Ministry of Health’s decision is that it comes as a surprise to bewildered parents, who continue to bring their children to treatment centers and wonder what will replace the banned therapy. In fact, there are more than 300 treatment centers and special schools for “Internet addiction” in China today using various oral or injected pharmacotherapies, seclusion, and verbal threats as well as corporal punishment, often without the benefit of psychological counseling and sometimes even without proper facilities or qualified teachers. Yet, desperate parents pay the equivalent of several hundred U.S. dollars a month in the hope of putting their children back on track with their education.
All of this has resulted in fierce debates on the Internet. Teenagers who have undergone shock therapy tell of excruciating pain and sometimes burns in the treatment area (typically the forehead). They compare their harsh treatment to Auschwitz and express irreparable anger toward their parents. Psychologists are coming out to advocate that parents look toward improving communication with their children and providing better guidance as the path to recovery. A movie chronicling the rehabilitation of one such addict became an instant hit on the Internet, and the producer has urged parents to develop a better understanding of the reasons behind their children’s addiction before turning the problem over to these treatment centers.

Like all things in China, the scale of the problem is astonishing. The Chinese media estimate that of 160 million youths estimated to be Internet users in China, about 10 percent have some level of addiction. Psychologists and sociologists suggest that the three root causes are lack of a healthy family environment, a deficiency in the school system and a poor social culture.