The Doctors’ Choice Awards Celebrating the Value of Professional Advertising More than 11,000 physicians cast their vote for the top medical journal ads of 2003. The winners were selected from 291 journal advertisements representing the top 200 advertised products in 2003. The Association of Medical Publications (AMP) created The Doctors’ Choice Awards (TDC) in 2003 as a research and awards program to honor the best in medical journal advertising. Different from other programs that honor professional advertising based on what agencies and advertisers choose to submit for judging by a panel or jury, TDC’s methodology is based on physicians’ responses to which messages are getting through in the competitive world, in essence researching the source of pharmaceutical success: prescribing physicians. This year’s response rate represented the views of 11,100 physicians, almost double that of last year’s program. Because there are more than 3,000 ads appearing in medical journals annually, it was not possible for TDC to gain a census, but by researching the 200 top-spending products, it provided a survey of the major players. “Some might question the methodology, but we have sample sizes that are unprecedented,” says William G. Castagnoli, director of TDC. “For example, in the cardiology area, which researched 26 ads, the average response rate was 559 doctors, and in the pediatric category, which researched 24 ads, the average response rate was 673. These physicians took the time to go on the Internet, review the ads, and then send back the questionnaire. With any research there are people who might say the results are not reflective of the marketplace, but these numbers speak for themselves.” For the 2004 awards, doctors were asked to evaluate ads based on the following questions: whether an ad communicates clearly and quickly, helps with clinical decisions, prompts seeking more information or re-examination of treatment, has immediate appeal to gain interest, adds to information provided by company representatives, and reminds physicians about the value of the product prescribed. These questions were developed last year through an e-mail study among 15,000 doctors as to their preferences in journal advertising messages; 428 physicians responded. The physicians rated these ad attributes on a scale of 1 to 5. Scores ranged from 3.6 to 4.6, this weighted scale was used in the formula to calculate TDC rankings. According to TDC organizers, the program is unprecedented both as an advertising research tool and as a service program of the AMP. “Because the research is asking the target audience of the advertising – the physician – what he or she thinks, the awards program celebrates the value of medical publications in educating clinicians about the changes in the healthcare environment,” says Jonathan L. Bigelow, group VP and general manager of CMP Healthcare Media’s Cliggott Publishing Group and 2004 president of the AMP. “That’s an important message.” According to Alan Imhoff, past president of the AMP and group publisher and general manager of the International Medical News Group, TDC embodies the spirit of advertising – changing and impacting physician behavior. “It’s very important for the industry to start to measure how advertising actually works,” Mr. Imhoff says. “The AMP is in a unique position to do this.” To build the physician sample base, the AMP drew upon its members. Ten publishers, representing a number of generalist and specialty journals, supplied 266,000 e-mail addresses to Readex Research, which conducted the survey. These addresses were purged for duplication, yielding a base list of 206,000 physicians who were sent two e-mails asking them to participate in the research. Additionally, AMP member companies ran advertising in their journals encouraging physicians to participate and directing them to a Web address. Doctors were given a set of 10 ads to evaluate. Some did not review all 10 ads, but many went beyond the initial 10 ads. “I have heard from groups, such as the American Business Media, that no trade group, association, or advertiser has done research on this scale,” Mr. Castagnoli says. This year’s program had notable improvements from the 2003 awards, according to TDC organizers. In addition to doubling the sample size of the number of ads available for review, two drug categories were added: ophthalmologicals and urologicals. The research also obtained readings on multipage (four-pages and over) ads that were not covered last year. Additionally, this year’s research methodology employed a screening process that rotated ads to the appropriate medical specialties. When doctors logged on to the research site, they were asked to identify their area of medical interest. Ads were assigned specialty audiences based on the journals that advertisers used in 2003. With this rotating ad technique, satisfactory sized samples were obtained on all 291 ads researched. The goal was to achieve a minimum of 100 responses, and this target was met and exceeded in some cases. Ads with applicability to a number of physician audiences achieved sample sizes of more than 700. The biggest sample was 815; the lowest 161. The research also investigated whether doctors tended to support messages from products they used most frequently. For example, the research tried to determine whether scores were influenced by the popularity of products. After scoring an ad, doctors were asked if they used the product frequently. In the 14 drug categories, the most frequently prescribed product was the highest-scoring ad only once. While frequently prescribed products often obtained high scores, there were striking exceptions. In six categories, the highest-scoring ads were 20% to 30% less frequently used than the most frequently prescribed products. According to TDC, this finding has implications for the practical power of journal advertising in delivering sales messages to physicians who are not regular prescribers. F PharmaVoice welcomes comments about this article. E-mail us at [email protected]. The 2004 Doctors’ Choice Award winners were selected from 291 journal advertisements representing the top 200 advertised products in 2003. Physicians ranked the ads based on: ability to communicate clearly and quickly, gain attention and interest, and reinforce the value of products. Rhinocort Aqua Category: Allergy/Asthma Marketer: AstraZeneca Agency: GSW Worldwide Enbrel Category: Arthritis Marketer: Wyeth/Amgen Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare Cipro XR Category: Anti-infectives Marketer: Bayer Agency: Lyons Lavey Nickel Swift Lovenox Category: Cardiovascular Marketer: Aventis Agency: Euro RSCG Life DUAC Topical Gel Category: Dermatology Marketer: Stiefel Agency: Adair-Greene Lantus Category: Diabetes Marketer: Aventis Agency: Euro RSCG Life MetaMax Pentasa Category: Gastroenterology Marketer: Shire Agency: Abelson-Taylor Seasonale Category: Obstetrics/Gynecology Marketer: Duramed Agency: PACE Neulasta Category: Oncology Marketer: Amgen Agency: Abelson-Taylor Restasis Category: Ophthalmology Marketer: Allergan Agency: Regan Campbell Ward Neurontin Category: Neurology Marketer: Pfizer Agency: Cline Davis & Mann EpiPen2Pak Category: Pediatrics Marketer: Dey Agency: Wishbone Risperdal Category: Psychiatry Marketer: Janssen Agency: KPR AndroGel Category: Urology Marketer: Solvay/Unimed Agency: Medicus Pentasa Category: Single-page ad Marketer: Shire Agency: Abelson-Taylor Pediarix Category: Two-page ad Marketer: GlaxoSmithKline Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare Cipro XR Category: Three-page ad Marketer: Bayer Agency: Lyons Lavey Nickel Swift Relpax Category: Four-page ad (plus) Marketer: Pfizer Agency: Cline Davis & Mann Ferrlecit Category: Special Award Marketer: Watson Agency: Wedgewood Communications The winning ad with the highest overall score was Shire’s Pentasa. Created by Chicago-based Abelson-Taylor, the ad’s headline distinguishes Pentasa from other drugs in its class by pointing out that it provides more complete delivery to the small and large intestine. Sound Bites From The Winners The winning Doctors’ Choice Award ads were ranked by the physician audience on the following factors: ability to communicate clearly and quickly, gain attention and interest, and reinforce the value of products. PharmaVOICE asked the winning brand teams how their ads achieved these goals; how the agency and sponsor team worked together to create a winning ad; and given today’s market climate, what do agencies and brand teams have to overcome to produce advertising that resonates with physician audiences? (Responses are listed in alphabetical brand order.) Duac Topical Rita Brett, Senior VP, Creative Director, Adair-Greene Healthcare Communications, Atlanta “We know that physicians’ time is short and that they read journals for information, not advertising. Therefore, a product’s ad must be compelling to break through to the doctors scanning the pages. We employed a combination of unique phrasings – headlines, subheads, body copy – and interesting visuals to command attention and stop readers as they scan the journals. We made sure that we had a relevant message that is simple yet important, that connected with the physicians’ and patients’ needs, and that delivered strong benefits that will improve outcomes. The Duac ad achieved these goals by coupling a strong, compelling visual of two teens with an attention-grabbing phrase, “Du it differently. “We made physicians curious as to “what” should be done differently, prompting them to read further. In addition, we connected the odd spelling of “Du” to the product name, helping doctors remember to write Duac rather than a competitor. The ad presents relevant, important information, enough, but not too much, to support the intention to prescribe. The corporate team had a great deal of input in the development of the concept and the ad itself. We find that a partnership with our clients yields the best results; we may be the experts in advertising, but they are the experts in the product. The biggest hurdle to effectively reaching an audience is trying to make an ad do more than it should. An ad is not meant to replace a full detail; it should spark interest and make the audience want to learn more. It should create awareness and open the physician’s mind and door to a more in-depth exploration of the product.” Tim Fergus, Senior Account Executive, Stiefel business, Adair-Greene Healthcare Communications, Atlanta “The Duac ad provides a core message of patient preference for a once-a-day product that effectively treats acne. This message is what physicians revealed in research as the most important element a product can offer. The flow is simple and states the true brand benefits without confusing the message with other features related to the product. The brand manager reviewed our recommendations in the creative work plan and helped hone the message by agreeing to focus on one major message for the ad and limiting the minor benefits. The creative execution of the message was tested with the target audience with a strategic review by the brand team throughout the process. The biggest hurdle to overcome is identifying the single most important message that resonates with a target audience, then executing to communicate that message clearly and precisely relative to the brand.” EpiPen2Pak/EpiPen Jr. Steven Michaelson, Creative Director and CEO, Wishbone, New York “We were able to communicate clearly and quickly, gain attention and interest, and reinforce the value of the products by branding the ad with bold, attention-getting colors; using a visual that clearly communicated the patient type: pediatrics; and maximizing the communication with a quick, concise headline that married the copy with the art. The brand team and the agency worked together to set the strategic direction that enabled us to come up with the two-pronged message strategy to treat early and prescribe a 2Pak for each key location. One of the biggest hurdles is the use of market research. Teams seem to look to research to find out what physicians like or what is least offensive, as opposed to what will change prescribing habits. Teams fall into looking at qualitative research quantitatively, hence all the safe ads we currently see. It takes a courageous marketing team to do great advertising. ” Rhinocort Aqua Kris McGlosson, Associate Creative Director, GSW Worldwide, Westerville, Ohio “The Rhinocort Aqua seesaw ad communicated the key messages – Mean on Rhinitis, Gentle on the Nose – clearly and in an attention-getting manner. It highlighted two highly recognizable brand icons – the rhino and the butterfly – in a new, unique way. Rather than merely showing the rhino head with the butterfly on the nose, which physicians had seen for seven to eight years, we placed them in a new, more interesting scenario: teetering on a seesaw together. This unusual visual has stopping power and reinforces the idea that the product provides allergy relief that’s surprisingly powerful and gentle. We shared initial concepts with the brand team in tissue format, and they were excited even at that very rough stage with the big idea of this concept. While we need to break through the clutter, our clients often put a lot of emphasis on what the physician audience tells us they want to hear or see in focus groups, from research, etc., and don’t often feel comfortable doing anything different. But if we always do, or provide, only what the physician audience tells us they want, we’ll never change they way they think or feel about a disease, condition, or brand.” Risperdal M-Tab Patricia Relyea, Copy Writer, Associate Creative Director, KPR, New York “The Risperdal M-Tab launch ad had a key message – a new easy-to-swallow delivery form – that lent itself to a memorable and humorous approach as executed with Ozzie, our ostrich with the lump in his throat. As Risperdal is a well-known product, our focus was on convenience rather than efficacy. We had an unusual opportunity to take a light-hearted approach in a category that rarely lends itself to such a treatment. The brand team was very much in favor of seeing creative executions and was supportive of the concept throughout its development. Most ads try to convey too many messages given the limited space and attention they garner. In addition, many ads look so similar that doctors can’t remember if that smiling patient ad was for a PPI, a beta-blocker, or an antidepressant. Differentiation is getting very tough to achieve across therapeutic categories, as well as within categories.” Bernie Steinman, Creative Director, KPR, New York “By using the stopping power of the bizarre- looking, long-necked ostrich, the ad clearly and quickly communicated the swallowing problem that Risperdal M-TAB helps solve. Showing a pill lodged in the throat of the bird, obviously causing stress and discomfort, and saying the product helps alleviate that problem is a strong reinforcement of M-TAB’s value. I think we must overcome the thinking that physicians are somewhat apart from other humans and therefore not moved to action by the same feelings and emotions as those outside the medical community. I believe we are more similar than different. A big ostrich in obvious pain grabs a physician’s attention in the same way it attracts anyone else. Be honest, respectful, and creative and physicians, like everyone else, will listen.” Sean Sullivan, Art Director, KPR, New York “Big, single images play well with doctors, not to m ntion funny and attention getting images. The client really pushed for a creative solution, which we were happy to provide. They were willing to go out of the box for the sake of being different. I think the pressure is in balancing what is safe versus what is creative. Safe doesn’t always move a product with “me-too” competitors.” Seasonale Sharon McCarroll, Senior VP, Creative Director, PACE, Parsippany, N.J. “We had a clear strategy and vision for the brand from the start. We tested the concept with customers and listened to what they said to establish a strong brand identity. We worked under a true partnership with the brand team every step of the way. We all had the same big vision for Seasonale and agreed upon the creative work plan before concepting began. Agencies and brand teams need to be willing to take risks with their advertising, especially if a market is crowded or the brand doesn’t have true differentiating features or benefits. It is critical to listen to physicians and gain an understanding of their perspective.” Amy Niemann, VP, Proprietary Marketing, Barr Pharmaceuticals, Pomona, N.Y. (Duramed is a unit of Barr) “We stayed true to the clarity of the message throughout the development and execution of all the marketing materials. Through a comprehensive market-research program, we identified the right images for the brand and also the issues that needed to be overcome in our professional communications. Given the environment in which reps are given less time with physicians, advertising needs to break through the clutter and provide a clear message.”

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