direct-to-consumer advertising Archives

Trying To Find More Answers About Tuberous Sclerosis Complex
Patient communities, Patient insights, Patient stories, Patient-centered healthcare

Trying To Find More Answers About Tuberous Sclerosis Complex

Trying To Find More Answers About Tuberous Sclerosis Complex By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) is a “rare” genetic disease: According to the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, Inspire’s community partner, “At least two children born each day will have tuberous sclerosis complex.”1 Classifying a disease that affects a million people worldwide as “rare” doesn’t comfort patients with TSC. Created by mutations in one or two genes, TSC1 and TSC2, its manifestations vary widely depending on the nature of the mutation, which is why it is called “tuberous sclerosis complex.” It’s a complex genetic disorder. It [...]

Feb 2021By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH|0 Comments

Eosinophils: Friend or Foe? Eosinophilic Disorders
Patient communities, Clinical trials, Patient insights

Eosinophils: Friend or Foe? Eosinophilic Disorders

Eosinophils: Friend or Foe? Eosinophilic Disorders By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Eosinophils are amazing, power-packed cells of the innate immune system. Loaded with granules of cytokines, chemokines, RNAses, cationic proteins, growth factors and more, these leukocytes were thought to be the body’s primary tool to destroy parasites. Now, however, eosinophils are being understood as regulators of inflammation and tissue regeneration. They are also involved in maintaining the defensive structure of the epithelium, residing in mucosal tissue that interfaces with the environment. Additionally, they act as antigen presenting cells (APCs), communicating between the innate and adaptive immune systems. [...]

Feb 2021By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH|0 Comments

What’s one of the top ten mysterious diseases? Sarcoidosis
Patient communities, Patient insights

What’s one of the top ten mysterious diseases? Sarcoidosis

What’s one of the top ten mysterious diseases? Sarcoidosis By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Rare disease sufferers may be few in number for a particular condition, but they are an army of survivors when they’re together. Sarcoidosis is one of the 3000 rare diseases represented in Inspire’s community. With 600,000 Inspire members affected by rare conditions, the over 95,000 making up the Sarcoidosis audience on Inspire or “sarkies,” as they call themselves, are in good company. Dr. Michael Iannuzzi, the Edward C. Reifenstein Professor and Chair at the State University of New York-Upstate Medical University, calls sarcoidosis [...]

Jan 2021By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH|2 Comments

What’s Pharma’s Key to Success in 2021?
Patient insights, Clinical trials, HEOR, Marketing, Patient communities

What’s Pharma’s Key to Success in 2021?

What's Pharma's Key to Success in 2021? By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH What commercial and clinical trends can we expect to shape pharma and biotech as the pandemic continues into 2021? What can your company do to make 2021 a better year? In August, Deloitte surveyed 60 marketing leaders of biopharma companies and published the findings. Fully 80% of respondents expected changes in “consumer attitudes, behaviors, and spending” to have the biggest impact on their company over the coming year.1,2 This supports Deloitte’s 2019 report anticipating a “consumer-centered future of health,” including the consumer’s increased willingness to [...]

Jan 2021By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH|0 Comments

Does Your Marketing Campaign Go Full Circle?
Marketing, Patient communities

Does Your Marketing Campaign Go Full Circle?

Does Your Marketing Campaign Go Full Circle? By Jeff Terkowitz Imagine being able to learn about your audience, test your messages with that audience, directly reach your target audience and then evaluate the campaign - all in one place. It’s possible. But let’s back up. Advertisers already understand the value of knowing their audience and testing their messages. The power of research-backed health communications is used at the federal level too in outreach campaigns. The “Pink Book” is the primer that the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and all government agencies [...]

Dec 2020By Jeff Terkowitz|0 Comments

How Do You Elevate Your Patient Insights Strategy?
Marketing, Patient insights

How Do You Elevate Your Patient Insights Strategy?

How Do You Elevate Your Patient Insights Strategy? By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD MSPH You know what you want to say about your product, but are you still looking for the right way to say it? Successful DTC advertising relies on finding language that resonates with target patients. A recent study demonstrated just how profoundly a choice of words affects patient treatment decisions. A survey cited in the JAMA in March showed that 400 ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) patients chose different theoretical treatments based on descriptions alone. When DCIS is presented as “abnormal cells,” 69% of the [...]

Nov 2020By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH|0 Comments

Inspire’s MS Community Overcomes Patient Isolation with Peer-to-Peer Support and Experience
Marketing, Patient insights

Inspire’s MS Community Overcomes Patient Isolation with Peer-to-Peer Support and Experience

Inspire’s MS Community Overcomes Patient Isolation with Peer-to-Peer Support and Experience By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Over 15,000 members of Inspire have interest in, searched for, or have posted about multiple sclerosis (MS). Members have written over 4000 posts and more than 2000 searches have been conducted on MS. Pharmaceutical marketers wonder if patients discuss medications with each other online. The answer is a definitive yes. Patients also discuss what they learned online about treatments with their health care provider. It is not unusual for members to reach out after just being diagnosed. “I was just [...]

Jan 2020By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH|0 Comments

Can We Have Your Attention, Please?
Patient engagement

Can We Have Your Attention, Please?

Can We Have Your Attention, Please? By Heather Holder and Odin Soevik Internet users have a lot of experience in ignoring online advertising. The term “banner blindness” appeared around 1998 to describe online users’ acquired ability to ignore most banner ads as irrelevant to them. That’s 21 years of practice. Presumably, as new forms of advertising are developed, audiences have only gotten better at recognizing ads, and, if average click-through rates are a measurement, overlooking them. The Role of Personal Relevance Human brains are designed to perform “selective filtering,” attending to what is immediately relevant and [...]

Sep 2019By Heather Holder|0 Comments

Engaging Emails Meet the Mark: Fostering Relationships
Patient engagement

Engaging Emails Meet the Mark: Fostering Relationships

Engaging Emails Meet the Mark: Fostering Relationships By Linnea Madsen, Odin Soevik, Zeba Khan Inspire utilizes several strategies to engage with our members; one method is our Activity Summary emails. With the Activity Summary, we feature all new discussion posts, replies and reactions -- the activity – that occurs in all of a member’s communities. Members can choose to receive these summaries on a daily or weekly basis. Or they can opt-out. Over 600,000 Activity Summary emails are sent out on a daily basis to our members. For benchmarks on email engagement in 2018, Campaign Monitor obtained [...]

Jul 2019By Linnea Madsen|0 Comments

Real World Evidence Substantiates the Audience Quality of Inspire’s Membership
Patient engagement

Real World Evidence Substantiates the Audience Quality of Inspire’s Membership

Real World Evidence Substantiates the Audience Quality of Inspire’s Membership By Odin Soevik With spending on direct-to-consumer digital advertising at $343 million in 2017, pharmaceutical companies want to know that their money is spent to reach the right patients and caregivers at the right time.1 Reaching a quality audience has been the challenge for online advertising. But now, companies have access to Real World Evidence (RWE), from electronic health records to patient claim records and other “big data” extraction. RWE is being coupled with marketing strategies to determine audience quality.2 Recently, a digital agency for a major [...]

Jul 2018By Odin Soevik|0 Comments