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PointRoll CEO Chris Saridakis guides the rich media technology leader's vision and strategy while shaping and developing its product offerings and service. A rich media and online advertising veteran, Chris joined PointRoll in 2003 as chief operating officer. In this role, he was responsible for shaping and developing PointRoll's products, sales and marketing initiatives, and long-term growth strategies. In June 2005, he assumed the position of chief executive officer. Prior to PointRoll, Chris was senior vice president and general manager of the Global TechSolutions division for DoubleClick Inc., the division responsible for the industry's leading ad serving platform, DART.

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Different Verticals, Different Needs: Why Rich Media Won’t Benefit from a One-Size-Fits-All Mentality

Written on
February 13th 2007
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by Chris Saridakis  |
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Pharmaceutical: Less is More
A common assumption is that pharmaceutical companies have unlimited money to spend on advertising. While it is true that some of the more lucrative drugs are backed by big-dollar advertising campaigns, a good deal of pharmaceutical brand managers don’t have the luxury of a large budget. Combined with Consumer Reports’ recent finding that of the 335 doctors it surveyed, 78 percent said they had been asked to prescribe medications patients had seen advertisements for, and it’s clear pharmaceutical advertisers face significant hurdles in generating brand recognition and triggering conversion.

To increase awareness and maximize small budgets, pharmaceutical advertisers have embraced rich media. One of the key benefits of rich media is the ability to provide users with a robust, interactive experience, similar to that of a full-featured web site. The major advantage to advertisers is they can leverage different features to disseminate multiple messages within one ad unit.

But due to the many regulatory and industry-specific challenges pharmaceutical advertisers face, there is a compelling argument — backed by data — to use fewer features per execution. In addition to improved results, ads with fewer features and panels can see shorter approval times. Case in point: a recent pharmaceutical campaign we conducted had four expandable panels. All but one had been approved, holding up the launch.

Adopting the “less is more” approach in pharmaceutical advertising can also realize significant results. A recent unbranded campaign for a smoking cessation medicine that used our platform had several components: a personalized email users could send to a friend, an interactive timeline showing how quitting smoking effects the body over time and a demo illustrating how nicotine effects the brain. Rather than put all of this in one ad, the client agreed to highlight each feature across three ad units.

When it was found that the send-to-a-friend unit was getting the best results in terms of interaction rate, brand interaction time and click-through rate, it was moved up in rotation — an easy swap on the back end thanks to having broken out the specific features across multiple units. As a result, that particular ad outperformed our pharmaceutical benchmarks.

Additionally, there is significant opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to use rich media to aid broader business goals. Clinical trials are essential to the research and development process, but they often cost upwards of 70 percent of development costs. Since finding qualified patients to participate is difficult and time consuming, patient recruitment is usually much more expensive than expected. Rich media can significantly expedite the process via an integrated, full-service online clinical trial recruitment solution, while significantly increasing enrollment through interactive features offered within an ad unit.

Rich Advice
Rich media may be a newer method for advertisers to communicate with consumers, but it doesn’t change the fundamentals of advertising and marketing. Campaign goals still take precedence. Advertisers shouldn’t conduct a rich media campaign just for the sake of it, but rather should use the technology to help reach planned objectives.

While rich media is an essential component of any marketing mix and offers many benefits, rich media providers need to draw upon proven results and best practices to consult clients on a campaign by campaign basis and get away from the one-size-fits-all mentality.



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